Textorah

Ben Sira 16

1
אַל תִּתְאַוֶּה תֹּאַר נַעֲרֵי שָׁוְא, וְאַל תִּשְׂמַח בִּבְנֵי עַוְלָה.
Desire not the shapeliness of vain youths; And rejoice not in sons of wickedness.
Μὴ ἐπιθύμει τέκνων πλῆθος ἀχρήστων, μὴ εὐφραίνου ἐπὶ υἱοῖς ἀσεβέσιν.
Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children, Neither delight in ungodly sons.
2
וְגַם אִם פָּרוּ אַל תָּבֻעַ בָּם, אִם אֵין אִתָּם יִרְאַת יְהֹוָה.
Yea, and if they increase, delight (?) not in them; If the fear of the Lord be not with them.
Ἐὰν πληθύνωσι, μὴ εὐφραίνου ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς, εἰ μή ἐστι φόβος Κυρίου μετʼ αὐτῶν.
Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, Except the fear of the Lord be with them.
3
אַל תַּאֲמִין בְּחַיֵּיהֶם, וְאַל תִּבְטַח בְּעִקְבוֹתָם. כִּי לֹא תִהְיֶה לָהֶם, אַחֲרִית טוֹבָה. כִּי טוֹב אֶחָד עוֹשֶׂה רָצוֹן, מֵאָלֶף, וּמוֹת עֲרִירִי, מִמִּי שֶׁהָיוּ לוֹ, בָּנִים רַבִּים בְּעַוְלָה, וּמֵאַחֲרִית זָדוֹן.
Trust not in their life, and rely not on their issues (?); For they shall not have a good end. For better is one that doeth acceptably than a thousand; And he that dieth childless than he that hath many sons of wickedness (?) ; And than an ungodly posterity.
Μὴ ἐμπιστεύσῃς τῇ ζωῇ αὐτῶν, καὶ μὴ ἔπεχε ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον αὐτῶν· κρείσσων γὰρ εἷς ἢ χίλιοι, καὶ ἀποθανεῖν ἄτεκνον ἢ ἔχειν τέκνα ἀσεβῆ·
Trust not thou in their life, Neither respect their multitude: For one that is just is better than a thousand; And better it is to die without children, than to have them that are ungodly.
4
מֵאֶחַד עֲרִירִי יְרֵא יְהֹוָה תֵּשֵׁב עִיר, וּמִמִּשְׁפַּחַת בֹּגְדִים תֶּחֱרָב.
Of one that (?) feareth the Lord shall a city be peopled; And by a family of transgressors it shall be made desolate.
ἀπὸ γὰρ ἑνὸς συνετοῦ συνοικισθήσεται πόλις, φυλὴ δὲ ἀνόμων ἐρημωθήσεται.
For by one that hath understanding shall the city be replenished: But the kindred of the wicked shall speedily become desolate.
5
רַבּוֹת כָּאֵלֶּה רַאֲתָה עֵינִי, וְעַצֻּמוֹת כָּאֵלֶּה שָׂמְעָה אָזְנִי.
Many things like these hath mine eye seen; And mighty things like these (H) hath mine ear heard.
Πολλὰ τοιαῦτα ἑώρακα ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς μου, καὶ ἰσχυρότερα τούτων ἀκήκοε τὸ οὖς μου.
Many such things have I seen with mine eyes, And mine ear hath heard greater things than these.
6
בַּעֲדַת רְשָׁעִים יוֹקֶדֶת אֵשׁ, וּבְגוֹי חָנֵף נִצְּתָה חֵמָה.
In the congregation of the wicked a fire burneth; And in an ungodly nation wrath is kindled.
Ἐν συναγωγῇ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐκκαυθήσεται πῦρ, καὶ ἐν ἔθνει ἀπειθεῖ ἐξεκαύθη ὀργή.
In the congregation of the ungodly shall a fire be kindled; And in a rebellious nation wrath is set on fire.
7
אֲשֶׁר לֹא נָשָׁא לֲנְסִיכֵי קֶדֶם, הַמּוֹרִים עוֹלָם בִּגְבוּרָתָם.
Seeing that he forgave not the princes of old time, Who ruled (?) the world by their power.
Οὐκ ἐξιλάσατο περὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων γιγάντων, οἳ ἀπέστησαν τῇ ἰσχύϊ αὐτῶν.
He was not pacified toward the old giants, Who fell away in the strength of their foolishness.
8
וְלֹא חָמַל עַל מְגוּרֵי לוֹט, הַמִּתְעַבְּרִים בְּגַאֲוָתָם.
And he spared not them that sojourned with Lot (?), Who transgressed in their pride.
Οὐκ ἐφείσατο περὶ τῆς παροικίας Λὼτ, οὓς ἐβδελύξατο διὰ τὴν ὑπερηφανίαν αὐτῶν.
Neither spared he the place where Lot sojourned, But abhorred them for their pride.
9
וְלֹא חָמַל עַל גוֹי חֶרֶם, הַנּדוֹשִׁים בַּעֲוֹנָם.
And he spared not the people of perdition, That were dispossessed (?) in their iniquity.
Οὐκ ἠλέησεν ἔθνος ἀπωλείας, τοὺς ἐξῃρμένους ἐν ἁμαρτίαις αὐτῶν·
He pitied not the people of perdition, Who were taken away in their sins:
10
כֵּן שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת אֶלֶף רַגְלִי, הַנֶּאֱסָפִים בִּזְדוֹן לִבָּם.
So were the six hundred thousand footmen, That were taken away in the arrogancy of their heart.
καὶ οὕτως ἑξακοσίας χιλιάδας πεζῶν τοὺς ἐπισυναχθέντας ἐν σκληροκαρδίᾳ αὐτῶν.
Nor the six hundred thousand footmen, Who were gathered together in the hardness of their hearts.
11
וְאַף כִּי אֶחָד מַקְשֶׁה עֹרֶף, תֵּמַהּ זֶה אִם יִנָּקֶה. כִּי רַחֲמִים וְאַף עִמּוֹ וְנוֹשֵׂא וְסוֹלֵחַ, וְעַל רְשָׁעִים יַנִּיחַ רָגְזוֹ.
And if even one stiffen ( or harden) his neck; It were a marvel should he be unpunished. For mercy and wrath are with him; And he forgiveth and pardoneth; But upon the wicked his indignation shall rest (?).
Κᾂν ᾖ εἷς σκληροτράχηλος, θαυμαστὸν, τοῦτο εἰ ἀθωωθήσεται, ἔλεος γὰρ καὶ ὀργὴ παρʼ αὐτοῦ· δυνάστης ἐξιλασμῶν· καὶ ἐκχέων ὀργήν.
And if there be one stiff-necked among the people, It is marvel if he escape unpunished: For mercy and wrath are with him; He is mighty to forgive and to pour out displeasure.
12
כְּרָב רַחֲמָיו כֵּן תּוֹכַחְתּוֹ, אִישׁ כְּמִפְעָלָיו יִשְׁפֹּט.
According to the greatness of his mercy, so is his correction; He will judge each according to his doings.
Κατὰ τὸ πολὺ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ, οὕτως καὶ πολὺς ὁ ἔλεγχος αὐτοῦ· ἄνδρα κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ κρίνει.
As his mercy is great, so is his correction also: He judgeth a man according to his works.
13
לֹא יִמָּלֵט בְּגָזֵל עַוָּל, וְלֹא יַשְׁבִּית תַּאֲוַת צַדִּיק לְעוֹלָם.
He will not (M) let the wrong-doer escape with plunder; Neither will he frustrate the desire of the righteous for ever.
Οὐκ ἐκφεύξεται ἐν ἁρπάγμασιν ἁμαρτωλὸς, καὶ οὐ μὴ καθυστερήσει ὑπομονὴν εὐσεβοῦς.
The sinner shall not escape with his spoils: And the patience of the godly shall not be frustrate.
14
כָּל הָעֹשֶׁה צְדָקָה, יִשׁ לוֹ שָׂכָר. יְהֹוָה הִקְשָׁה אֶת לֵב פַּרְעֹה, אֲשֶׁר לֹא יְדָעוֹ, שֶׁמַעֲשָׂיו מְגֻלִּין תַּחַת הַשָּׁמַיִם. רַחֲמָיו יֵרָאוּ לְכָל בִּרְיוֹתָיו, וְאוֹרוֹ וְשִׁבְחוֹ חָלַק לִבְנֵי אָדָם.
Whosoever doeth righteousness, there is a reward for him; And according to his works shall every man go forth (H) before him. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, who knew him not: Whose works are manifest under heaven; His mercies are seen of all his creatures; And his light and his darkness (?) hath he apportioned to the sons of men.
Πάσῃ ἐλεημοσύνῃ ποιήσει τόπον, ἕκαστος κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ εὑρήσει.
Make way for every work of mercy: For every man shall find according to his works.
17
אַל תֹּאמַר מֵאֵל נִסְתַּרְתִּי, וּבַמָּרוֹם מִי יִזְכְּרֵנִי. בְּעַם כָּבֵד לֹא אִוָּדֵעַ, וּמַה נַפְשִׁי, כְּקַצּוֹת רוּחוֹת כּלָ בּנֵי אָדָם.
Say not, I am hidden from God; And who shall remember me on high? In the mass of people I shall not be known; And what is my soul at the end of the spirits of all the sons of men?
Μὴ εἴπῃς, ὅτι ἀπὸ Κυρίου κρυβήσομαι, μὴ ἐξ ὕψους τίς μου μνησθήσεται; ἐν λαῷ πλείονι οὐ μὴ μνησθῶ, τίς γὰρ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν ἀμετρήτῳ κτίσει;
Say not thou, I will hide myself from the Lord: Shall any remember me from above? I shall not be remembered among so many people: For what is my soul among such an infinite number of creatures?
18
הֵן הַשָּׁמַיִם וּשְׁמֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּתְהוֹם וָאָרֶץ. בְּרִדְתּוֹ עֲלֵיהֶם עוֹמְדִים, בְּפָקְדוֹ כֵּן יִרְגְּשׁוּ.
Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, And the deep, and the earth; When he descendeth upon them, they tremble (?), At his visitation (?), and when he rageth.
Ἰδοὺ ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ὁ οὐρανὸς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἄβυσσος καὶ γῆ σαλευθήσονται ἐν τῇ ἐπισκοπῇ αὐτοῦ·
Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, The deep, and the earth, and all that therein is, Shall be moved when he shall visit.
19
אַף קִצְבֵי הָרִים וִיסוֹדֵי תֵבֵל, בְּהַבִּיטוֹ אֲלֵיהֶם רַעַשׁ יִרְעָשׁוּ.
The roots also of the mountains and the foundations of the world, When he looketh upon them, quake exceedingly.
ἅμα τὰ ὄρη καὶ τὰ θεμέλια τῆς γῆς, ἐν τῷ ἐπιβλέψαι εἰς αὐτὰ, τρόμῳ συσσείονται,
The mountains also and foundations of the earth Shall be shaken with trembling, when he looketh upon them.
20
גַּם עָלַי לֹא יָשִׂים לֵב, וּבִדְרָכַי מִי יִתְבּוֹנָן.
Surely upon me he will not set his heart; And my ways who will consider?
καὶ ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς οὐ διανοηθήσεται καρδία· καὶ τὰς ὁδοὺς αὐτοῦ τίς ἐνθυμηθήσεται;
No heart can think upon these things worthily: And who is able to conceive his ways?
21
אִם חָטָאתִי לֹא תִרְאֵנִי עָיִן, אוֹ אִם אֲכַזֵב, בְּכָל סֵתֶר מִי יוֹדֵעַ.
If I have sinned, no eye shall see me; Or if I deal falsely in any secret place (?), who shall know?
Καὶ καταιγὶς, ἣν οὐκ ὄψεται ἄνθρωπος, τὰ δὲ πλείονα τῶν ἔργων αὐτοῦ ἐν ἀποκρύφοις.
It is a tempest which no man can see: For the most part of his works are hidden.
22
מָה מַעֲשֶׂה צֶדֶק מִי יַגִּידֶנּוּ, וְתִקְוַת מָּה כִי אָצוּק חוֹק.
Work of right who shall declare unto him? And of what is there hope, that I should be righteous (?)…?
Ἔργα δικαιοσύνης τίς ἀναγγελεῖ, ἢ τίς ὑπομενεῖ; μακρὰν γὰρ ἡ διαθήκη.
Who can declare the works of his justice? or who can endure them? For his covenant is afar off.
23
חַסְרֵי לֵב יָבִינוּ אֵלֶּה, וְגֶבֶר פּוֹתֶה יַחְשֹׁב זֹאת.
They that want understanding will think such things; And a perverse man (?) will imagine this.
Ἐλαττούμενος καρδίᾳ διανοεῖται ταῦτα, καὶ ἀνὴρ ἄφρων καὶ πλανώμενος διανοεῖται μωρά.
He that wanteth understanding will think upon vain things: And a foolish man erring imagineth follies.
24
שִׁמְעוּ אֵלַי וּקְחוּ שִׂכְלִי, וְעַל דְבָרַי שִׂימוּ לֵב.
Hearken unto me, and receive my proverbs (?); And set your heart upon my words.
Ἄκουσόν μου, τέκνον, καὶ μάθε ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων μου πρόσεχε τῇ καρδίᾳ σου.
My son, hearken unto me, and learn knowledge, And mark my words with thy heart.
25
אַבִּיעָה בְמִשְׁקָל רוּחִי, וּבְהַצְנֵעַ אֲחַוֶּה דֵעִי.
I will pour forth my spirit by weight; And with carefulness will I declare my opinion.
Ἐκφαίνω ἐν σταθμῷ παιδείαν, καὶ ἐν ἀκριβείᾳ ἀπαγγέλλω ἐπιστήμην.
I will show forth doctrine in weight, And declare his knowledge exactly.
26
כִּבְרֹא אֵל מַעֲשָׂיו מֵרֹאשׁ, עַל חַיֵּיהֶם [חָלָק מִשְׁטָרָם].
When God created his works from the beginning; According to their parts (H life) …. **;*;*;*;*
Ἐν κρίσει Κυρίου τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, καὶ ἀπὸ ποιήσεως αὐτῶν διέστειλε μερίδας αὐτῶν.
The works of the Lord are done in judgment from the beginning: And from the time he made them he disposed the parts thereof.
27
Ἐκόσμησεν εἰς αἰῶνα τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς αὐτῶν εἰς γενεὰς αὐτῶν· οὔτε ἐπείνασαν, οὔτε ἐκοπίασαν, καὶ οὐκ ἐξέλιπον ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτων.
He garnished his works forever, And the chief of them unto all generations: They neither labor, nor are weary, nor cease from their works.
28
Ἕκαστος τὸν πλησίον αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔθλιψε, καὶ ἕως αἰῶνος οὐκ ἀπειθήσουσι τοῦ ῥήματος αὐτοῦ·
None of them hindereth another, And they shall never disobey his word.
29
καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Κύριος εἰς τὴν γῆν ἐπέβλεψε, καὶ ἐνέπλησεν αὐτὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν αὐτοῦ.
After this the Lord looked upon the earth, And filled it with his blessings.
30
Ψυχὴν παντὸς ζώου ἐκάλυψε τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς, καὶ εἰς αὐτὴν ἡ ἀποστροφὴ αὐτῶν.
With all manner of living things hath he covered the face thereof; And they shall return into it again.

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In the Masoretic text, a Ketiv (the written form, unpointed) is shown in grey immediately before its Qere (the form read aloud); both carry the Qere's dictionary entry.

Variants

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In the scrolls, letters in brackets are a modern editor's reconstruction and are never counted as variants; letters with a dotted overline are uncertain; ◦ is a trace of an unreadable letter. Manuscripts written in paleo-Hebrew script, and divine names that square-script scrolls write in paleo-Hebrew, are shown in paleo-Hebrew letters (switchable under Display). Hover a manuscript to see its edition. Display → Dead Sea Scrolls can hide the manuscripts that agree with the Masoretic text, or strip the reconstructions to show only what survives.

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Books outside the Hebrew Bible

Besides the Septuagint-only books, the book list has 1 Enoch and Jubilees (“Other ancient books”), shown in R. H. Charles's English with the Qumran copies beside them, and Psalms has a chapter 151. Their scroll copies — like those of Tobit and Ben Sira — have no verse numbers in the data: each fragment is placed by its published identification, and its lines are spread over those verses, so treat the exact verse boundaries as approximate. Aramaic copies (Tobit 4Q196–199 and all of Enoch) are marked “Aramaic” and have no word lookups.

Rabbinic citations

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How the Septuagint is aligned

Each Greek verse is placed by combining three things: the standard table of Septuagint–Masoretic verse correspondences (SIL's lxx.vrs), the table of Masoretic–English numbering differences, and a comparison of the English of Brenton's Septuagint with the JPS English, which confirms each pairing and catches displaced verses. Where no Masoretic verse is similar enough, the Greek verse stands on its own row.

The Greek word data

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About the texts

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Masoretic Text — Westminster Leningrad Codex

The Masoretic text is the Hebrew Bible as transmitted by the Masoretes, scribal scholars active in Tiberias and elsewhere roughly from the 7th to the 10th century, who fixed its vowel points, accents and marginal notes (the Masorah) around a consonantal text that was already essentially stable by the 1st–2nd century CE. The Leningrad Codex (St Petersburg, Firkovich I B 19 A), copied in 1008/1009 CE in the Ben Asher tradition, is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible; the slightly older Aleppo Codex lost most of the Torah in 1947. It is the base of the standard critical editions (BHK, BHS, BHQ).

The Westminster Leningrad Codex is the public-domain digital transcription of it maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center at Westminster Theological Seminary. In this edition a Ketiv appears as its own unpointed word before the pointed Qere.

JPS 1917 — The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text

The first English Bible translation produced by a committee of Jewish scholars for the Jewish Publication Society of America, under Max L. Margolis as editor-in-chief, published in 1917. Its language deliberately follows the cadence of the King James and Revised Versions, but its renderings follow the Masoretic text and Jewish exegetical tradition, and it keeps the Hebrew chapter and verse numbering. It is in the public domain; its successor, the New JPS (Tanakh, 1985), is not. The electronic edition used here writes the divine names as “HaShem” and “G-d”.

Septuagint — Brenton's Greek text and the Updated Brenton English

The Septuagint is the Jewish translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The Torah was translated in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE (the Letter of Aristeas tells the legend of 72 translators under Ptolemy II); the other books followed over the next two centuries. Because it was made from Hebrew manuscripts older than the Masoretic text, it often preserves a different Hebrew text: Jeremiah is about one-seventh shorter and differently ordered (a shorter Hebrew text of this type survives at Qumran in 4QJerb,d), Job is about one-sixth shorter, and Esther and Daniel have long additions. It was the Bible of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament writers, and became the Old Testament of the Greek church, which in turn led Jewish translators (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) to produce closer revisions.

Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton published an English translation in 1844 and a Greek–English edition in 1851. His Greek is essentially the Sixtine (Roman) edition of 1587, which follows the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus. It is older and less critical than the modern editions of Rahlfs (1935) and Göttingen, which are under copyright. The English column is the Updated Brenton (Adam Boyd, 2020), Brenton's translation with modernised spelling and wording, dedicated to the public domain.

Samaritan Pentateuch †

The Torah as preserved by the Samaritan community of Mount Gerizim (Nablus), written in the Samaritan script, a descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. It differs from the Masoretic text in about 6,000 places, most of them spelling or grammar; in about 1,900 of them it agrees with the Septuagint. Some readings are distinctively Samaritan, above all the commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim added after the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21) and “Gerizim” for “Ebal” in Deut 27:4. Many others — harmonising expansions that copy one passage into its parallel — are shared with “pre-Samaritan” Qumran manuscripts such as 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb, showing that the text type is older than the Samaritan schism.

European scholars learned of it in 1616, when Pietro della Valle brought a manuscript from Damascus; it was printed in the Paris (1645) and London (1657) Polyglots, collated by Benjamin Kennicott (1776–80) and edited critically by August von Gall (1914–18). The Hebrew here is Aleksandr Sigalov's digital text, based on Kennicott and checked against von Gall; the English is Sigalov's adaptation of the King James Version to the Samaritan readings. For modern scholarship see Abraham Tal's edition of MS Shechem 6 and Stefan Schorch's critical editio maior.

Dead Sea Scrolls and other Judean Desert manuscripts †

Between 1947 and 1956 the remains of about 950 manuscripts were found in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran. Some 230 are biblical — every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther is represented, from tiny fragments to the complete Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) — dating from about 250 BCE to 68 CE. They are a thousand years older than the Leningrad Codex. Most are close to the ancestor of the Masoretic text (“proto-Masoretic”), but others agree with the Septuagint (4QJerb, 4QSama in places), with the Samaritan text type, or with neither — evidence that several forms of the text circulated side by side before the Masoretic text prevailed.

Manuscripts from other sites fill out the picture: Masada (before its fall in 73/74 CE; excavated by Yigael Yadin, 1963–65) and the Bar Kokhba refuges of Wadi Murabba'at and Naḥal Ḥever (132–135 CE), whose biblical texts are already virtually identical with the Masoretic text, as well as Naḥal Ṣe'elim, Wadi Sdeir and Naḥal Arugot. The official publication is the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (Oxford, 1955–2010).

The transcriptions here are those of Martin G. Abegg Jr., James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook, as converted by the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC). Each manuscript is labelled with its siglum (e.g. 4QIsad), its DJD number, its find-site and the column or fragment and line. Besides the biblical manuscripts, the copies of Ben Sira, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Jubilees and Psalm 151 are shown under those books. Not every manuscript is in the dataset — notably the Greek scrolls (such as the Greek Minor Prophets from Naḥal Ḥever) are absent, and the Masada Ben Sira scroll is added separately (see Ben Sira).

Ben Sira

The Wisdom of Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, composed in Hebrew in Jerusalem around 190–180 BCE and translated into Greek by his grandson in Egypt after 132 BCE (his prologue explains the difficulty of rendering Hebrew into Greek). It belongs to the Septuagint and to the Catholic and Orthodox canons (Latin Ecclesiasticus) but not to the Jewish one, although the Talmud and midrash quote it. Its Hebrew text was lost to the West until 1896, when Solomon Schechter, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson identified medieval copies in the Cairo Genizah; ancient Hebrew copies then emerged at Qumran and Masada.

About two-thirds of the Hebrew is now known, from six medieval Genizah manuscripts (A–F, 10th–12th century) and three ancient ones: 2QSir (2Q18; Sir 6:14–15, 20–32), the acrostic of Sir 51:13–20, 30 in the Psalms Scroll 11QPsa (columns 21–22), and the Masada scroll (Mas1h), found by Yigael Yadin in 1964 in a casemate room of the fortress and published in 1965: seven columns with Sir 39:27–44:17, copied in the early 1st century BCE, little more than a century after the author. Its agreement with Genizah manuscript B showed that the medieval copies descend from the ancient Hebrew rather than from a translation back from Greek or Syriac.

Here the book is shown in Brenton's Greek and English. The Hebrew column is the Kahana edition, as transcribed on Hebrew Wikisource and distributed by Sefaria (CC BY-SA): a running text built on the Genizah manuscripts, in which words in [brackets] are Kahana's restorations; chapters with no surviving Hebrew are empty. Kahana numbers the verses in the Hebrew order — in the Greek, two blocks of chapters 30–36 are transposed — so his verses have been matched to Brenton's by content for this site, with his own number shown as “Heb.” where it differs. The scrolls column has the three ancient witnesses; the Masada text is Eric Reymond's transcription from bensira.org. Their placement was made for this site by matching the text; there is no Masoretic text to compare them with, so no variants are marked.

Psalm 151

The Septuagint Psalter ends with a short psalm “outside the number”, in which David recalls tending his father's sheep, his anointing and his victory over Goliath. It belongs to the Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic Bibles but not to the Hebrew one, and was long thought to have been composed in Greek — until the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa, published by James Sanders in 1965) turned out to contain a longer Hebrew original in its 28th column, as two poems (151A on David's music and anointing, 151B, broken off, on Goliath). The Greek is a condensed translation of them. The psalm is shown as chapter 151 of Psalms, with the scroll's lines under the Greek verses they correspond to.

Tobit

A Jewish novella of the Eastern diaspora (probably 3rd–2nd century BCE): the pious exile Tobit, blinded in Nineveh, sends his son Tobias to recover money in Media, guided by the angel Raphael in disguise; on the way Tobias marries Sarah and drives off the demon Asmodeus. It is in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Orthodox canons. It survives in two Greek forms — a shorter one (Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, printed by Brenton) and a longer one (Codex Sinaiticus) — and the Qumran copies, four in Aramaic (4Q196–199) and one in Hebrew (4Q200), published by Joseph Fitzmyer in 1995, side with the longer form, which is now generally taken as nearer the original. Their verse placement here follows Fitzmyer's identifications.

1 Enoch

A collection of five works ascribed to Enoch, the seventh from Adam who “walked with God” (Gen 5:24): the Book of the Watchers (ch. 1–36, 3rd century BCE), on the angels who descended to the daughters of men; the Parables (37–71); the Astronomical Book (72–82); the Dream Visions (83–90), with the “Animal Apocalypse” of Israel's history; and the Epistle of Enoch (91–108). It is quoted in the Letter of Jude (1:14–15) and is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; Greek survives for about a third. Józef Milik published the Aramaic fragments from Qumran Cave 4 in 1976: eleven copies, covering every part except the Parables, the oldest from around 200 BCE. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation from the Ethiopic (public domain). The Astronomical scrolls (4Q208–211) contain a much longer calendar than the Ethiopic; only their few passages that match chapters 76–82 are placed.

Jubilees

A retelling of Genesis and Exodus 1–14 as revealed to Moses on Sinai by an “angel of the presence”, dated by a calendar of 49-year jubilees and a 364-day solar year (mid-2nd century BCE). Like 1 Enoch it is canonical only in the Ethiopian church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; parts survive in Latin, Syriac and Greek quotations. Fragments of about fifteen Hebrew copies were found at Qumran, more than of most biblical books, and are published in DJD 13 (VanderKam and Milik, 1994) and DJD 23. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation (public domain).

Lexicon and concordance data

Hebrew words carry the analysis of STEPBible's Translators Amalgamated Hebrew OT (Tyndale House, Cambridge): extended Strong's numbers — James Strong's 1890 numbering, subdivided to follow the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon (1906) — with morphology from the ETCBC and an abridged BDB for definitions. Samaritan and scroll words take the analysis of the Masoretic word they correspond to, or, where they differ, of the same written form elsewhere in the Masoretic text. Greek words are matched through the Swete Septuagint and the Morpheus parser to STEPBible's Greek lexicon, which draws on Abbott-Smith (1922) and Liddell–Scott–Jones.

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