Textorah

Deuteronomy 15

1
מִקֵּץ שֶׁבַע־שָׁנִים תַּעֲשֶׂה שְׁמִטָּה
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.
Διʼ ἑπτὰ ἐτῶν ποιήσεις ἄφεσιν.
Every seven years thou shalt make a release.
2
וְזֶה דְּבַר הַשְּׁמִטָּה שָׁמוֹט כָּל־בַּעַל מַשֵּׁה יָדוֹ אֲשֶׁר יַשֶּׁה בְּרֵעֵהוּ לֹא־יִגֹּשׂ אֶת־רֵעֵהוּ וְאֶת־אָחִיו כִּי־קָרָא שְׁמִטָּה לַיהוָה
And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because HaShem'S release hath been proclaimed.
Καὶ οὕτω τὸ πρόσταγμα τῆς ἀφέσεως· ἀφήσεις πᾶν χρέος ἴδιον, ὃ ὀφείλει σοι ὁ πλησίον, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφόν σου οὐκ ἀπαιτήσεις· ἐπικέκληται γὰρ ἄφεσις Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ σου.
And this [is] the ordinance of the release: thou shalt remit every private debt which thy neighbor owes thee, and thou shalt not ask payment of it from thy brother; for it has been called a release to the Lord thy God.
3
אֶת־הַנָּכְרִי תִּגֹּשׂ וַאֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה לְךָ אֶת־אָחִיךָ תַּשְׁמֵט יָדֶךָ
Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it; but whatsoever of thine is with thy brother thy hand shall release.
Τὸν ἀλλότριον ἀπαιτήσεις ὅσα ἐὰν ἠ· σοι παρʼ αὐτῷ, τῷ δὲ ἀδελφῷ σου ἄφεσιν ποιήσεις τοῦ χρέους σου.
Of a stranger thou shalt ask again whatsoever he has of thine, but to thy brother thou shalt remit his debt to thee.
4
אֶפֶס כִּי לֹא יִהְיֶה־בְּךָ אֶבְיוֹן כִּי־בָרֵךְ יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה בָּאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן־לְךָ נַחֲלָה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ
Howbeit there shall be no needy among you--for HaShem will surely bless thee in the land which HaShem thy G-d giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it--
Ὅτι οὐκ ἔσται ἐν σοὶ ἐνδεὴς, ὅτι εὐλογῶν εὐλογήσει σε Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου ἐν τῇ γῇ, ᾗ Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου δίδωσί σοι ἐν κλήρῳ κατακληρονομεῖν σε αὐτήν.
For [thus] there shall not be a poor person in the midst of thee, for the Lord thy God will surely bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God gives thee by inheritance, that thou shouldest inherit it.
5
רַק אִם־שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמַע בְּקוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לִשְׁמֹר לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת־כָּל־הַמִּצְוָה הַזֹּאת אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם
if only thou diligently hearken unto the voice of HaShem thy G-d, to observe to do all this commandment which I command thee this day.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἀκοῇ εἰσακούσητε τῆς φωνῆς Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν φυλάσσειν καὶ ποιεῖν πάσας τὰς ἐντολὰς ταύτας, ὅσας ἐγὼ ἐντέλλομαί σοι σήμερον,
And if ye shall indeed hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep and do all these commandments, as many as I charge thee this day
6
כִּי־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בֵּרַכְךָ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר־לָךְ וְה͏ַעֲבַטְתָּ גּוֹיִם רַבִּים וְאַתָּה לֹא תַעֲבֹט וּמָשַׁלְתָּ בְּגוֹיִם רַבִּים וּבְךָ לֹא יִמְשֹׁלוּ
For HaShem thy G-d will bless thee, as He promised thee; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee.
ὅτι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου εὐλόγησέ σε ὃν τρόπον ἐλάλησέ σοι· καὶ δανειεῖς ἔθνεσι πολλοῖς, σὺ δὲ οὐ δανειῇ· καὶ ἄρξεις ἐθνῶν πολλῶν, σοῦ δὲ οὐκ ἄρξουσιν.
(for the Lord thy God has blessed thee in the way of which he spoke to thee), then thou shalt lend to many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee.
7
כִּי־יִהְיֶה בְךָ אֶבְיוֹן מֵאַחַד אַחֶיךָ בְּאַחַד שְׁעָרֶיךָ בְּאַרְצְךָ אֲשֶׁר־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ לֹא תְאַמֵּץ אֶת־לְבָבְךָ וְלֹא תִקְפֹּץ אֶת־יָדְךָ מֵאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן
If there be among you a needy man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land which HaShem thy G-d giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy needy brother;
Ἐὰν δὲ γένηται ἐν σοὶ ἐνδεὴς ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν σου ἐν μιᾷ τῶν πόλεών σου ἐν τῇ γῇ, ᾗ Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου δίδωσί σοι, οὐκ ἀποστέρξεις τὴν καρδίαν σου, οὐδʼ οὐ μὴ συσφίγξεις τὴν χεῖρά σου ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου τοῦ ἐπιδεομένου.
And if there shall be in the midst of thee a poor [man] of thy brethren in one of thy cities in the land, which the Lord thy God gives thee, thou shalt not harden thy heart, neither shalt thou by any means close up thy hand from thy brother who is in want.
8
כִּי־פָתֹחַ תִּפְתַּח אֶת־יָדְךָ לוֹ וְהַעֲבֵט תַּעֲבִיטֶנּוּ דֵּי מַחְסֹרוֹ אֲשֶׁר יֶחְסַר לוֹ
but thou shalt surely open thy hand unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wanteth.
Ἀνοίγων ἀνοίξεις τὰς χεῖράς σου αὐτῷ, καὶ δάνειον δανειεῖς αὐτῷ ὅσον ἐπιδέεται, καθότι ἐνδεεῖται.
Thou shalt surely open thy hands to him, and shalt lend to him as much as he wants according to his need.
9
הִשָּׁמֶר לְךָ פֶּן־יִהְיֶה דָבָר עִם־לְבָבְךָ בְלִיַּעַל לֵאמֹר קָרְבָה שְׁנַת־הַשֶּׁבַע שְׁנַת הַשְּׁמִטָּה וְרָעָה ע͏ֵינְךָ בְּאָחִיךָ הָאֶבְיוֹן וְלֹא תִתֵּן לוֹ וְקָרָא עָלֶיךָ אֶל־יְהוָה וְהָיָה בְךָ חֵטְא
Beware that there be not a base thought in thy heart, saying: 'The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand'; and thine eye be evil against thy needy brother, and thou give him nought; and he cry unto HaShem against thee, and it be sin in thee.
Πρόσεχε σεαυτῷ μὴ γένηται ῥῆμα κρυπτὸν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου ἀνόμημα, λέγων, Ἐγγίζει τὸ ἔτος τὸ ἕβδομον, ἔτος τῆς ἀφέσεως, καὶ πονηρεύσηται ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου τῷ ἐπιδεομένῳ, καὶ οὐ δώσεις αὐτῷ, καὶ καταβοήσεται κατὰ σοῦ πρὸς Κύριον, καὶ ἔσται ἐν σοὶ ἁμαρτία μεγάλη.
Take heed to thyself that there be not a secret thing in thy heart, an iniquity, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, draws nigh; and thine eye shall be evil to thy brother that is in want, and thou shalt not give to him, and he shall cry against thee to the Lord, and there shall be great sin in thee.
10
נָתוֹן תִּתֵּן לוֹ וְלֹא־יֵרַע לְבָבְךָ בְּתִתְּךָ לוֹ כִּי בִּגְלַל הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל־מַעֲשֶׂךָ וּבְכֹל מִשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ
Thou shalt surely give him, and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him; because that for this thing HaShem thy G-d will bless thee in all thy work, and in all that thou puttest thy hand unto.
Διδοὺς δώσεις αὐτῷ, καὶ δάνειον δανειεῖς αὐτῷ ὅσον ἐπιδέεται, καθότι ἐνδεεῖται· καὶ οὐ λυπηθήσῃ τῇ καρδίᾳ σου διδόντος σου αὐτῷ, ὅτι διὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο εὐλογήσει σε Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔργοις καὶ ἐν πᾶσι οὗ ἂν ἐπιβάλῃς τὴν χεῖρά σου.
Thou shalt surely give to him, and thou shalt lend him as much as he wants, according as he is in need; and thou shalt not grudge in thy heart as thou givest to him, because on this account the Lord thy God will bless thee in all thy works, and in all things on which thou shalt lay thy hand.
11
כִּי לֹא־יֶחְדַּל אֶבְיוֹן מִקֶּרֶב הָאָרֶץ עַל־כֵּן אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ לֵאמֹר פָּתֹחַ תִּפְתַּח אֶת־יָדְךָ לְאָחִיךָ לַעֲנִיֶּךָ וּלְאֶבְיֹנְךָ בְּאַרְצֶךָ
For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore I command thee, saying: 'Thou shalt surely open thy hand unto thy poor and needy brother, in thy land.'
Οὐ γὰρ μὴ ἐκλίπῃ ἐνδεὴς ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς σου· διὰ τοῦτο ἐγώ σοι ἐντέλλομαι ποιεῖν τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο, λέγων, ἀνοίγων ἀνοίξεις τὰς χεῖράς σου τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου τῷ πένητι καὶ τῷ ἐπιδεομένῳ τῷ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς σου.
For the poor shall not fail off thy land, therefore I charge thee to do this thing, saying, Thou shalt surely open thy hands to thy poor brother, and to him that is distressed upon thy land.
12
כִּי־יִמָּכֵר לְךָ אָחִיךָ הָעִבְרִי אוֹ הָעִבְרִיָּה וַעֲבָדְךָ שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים וּבַשָּׁנָה הַשְּׁבִיעִת תְּשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ חָפְשִׁי מֵעִמָּךְ
If thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, he shall serve thee six years; and in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.
Ἐὰν δὲ πραθῇ σοι ὁ ἀδελφός σου ὁ Ἑβραῖος ἢ Ἐβραία, δουλεύσει σοι ἓξ ἔτη, καὶ τῷ ἑβδόμῳ ἐξαποστελεῖς αὐτὸν ἐλεύθερον ἀπὸ σοῦ.
And if thy brother [or sister], a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, be sold to thee, he shall serve thee six years, and in the seventh year thou shalt send him out free from thee.
13
וְכִי־תְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ חָפְשִׁי מֵעִמָּךְ לֹא תְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ רֵיקָם
And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty;
Ὅταν δὲ ἐξαποστέλλῃς αὐτὸν ἐλεύθερον ἀπὸ σοῦ, οὐκ ἐξαποστελεῖς αὐτὸν κενόν.
And when thou shalt send him out free from thee, thou shalt not send him out empty.
14
הַעֲנֵיק תַּעֲנִיק לוֹ מִצֹּאנְךָ וּמִגָּרְנְךָ וּמִיִּקְבֶךָ אֲשֶׁר בֵּרַכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ תִּתֶּן־לוֹ
thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress; of that wherewith HaShem thy G-d hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
Ἐφόδιον ἐφοδιάσεις αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῶν προβάτων σου, καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ σίτου σου, καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ οἴνου σου· καθὰ εὐλόγησέ σε Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου, δώσεις αὐτῷ.
Thou shalt give him provision for the way from thy flock, and from thy corn, and from thy wine; as the Lord thy God has blessed thee, thou shalt give to him.
15
וְזָכַרְתָּ כִּי עֶבֶד הָיִיתָ בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם וַיִּפְדְּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ עַל־כֵּן אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ אֶת־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה הַיּוֹם
And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and HaShem thy G-d redeemed thee; therefore I command thee this thing to-day.
Καὶ μνησθήσῃ ὅτι οἰκέτης ἦσθα ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτου, καὶ ἐλυτρώσατό σε Κύριος ὁ Θεός σοῦ ἐκεῖθεν· διὰ τοῦτο ἐγώ σοι ἐντέλλομαι ποιεῖν τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο.
And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee from thence; therefore I charge thee to do this thing.
16
וְהָיָה כִּי־יֹאמַר אֵלֶיךָ לֹא אֵצֵא מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי אֲהֵבְךָ וְאֶת־בֵּיתֶךָ כִּי־טוֹב לוֹ עִמָּךְ
And it shall be, if he say unto thee: 'I will not go out from thee'; because he loveth thee and thy house, because he fareth well with thee;
Ἐὰν δὲ λέγῃ πρὸς σὲ, οὐκ ἐξελεύσομαι ἀπὸ σοῦ, ὅτι ἠγάπηκέ σε καὶ τὴν οἰκίαν σου, ὅτι εὖ ἐστιν αὐτῷ παρὰ σοί.
And if he should say to thee, I will not go out from thee, because he continues to love thee and thy house, because he is well with thee;
17
וְלָקַחְתָּ אֶת־הַמַּרְצֵעַ וְנָתַתָּה בְאָזְנוֹ וּבַדֶּלֶת וְהָיָה לְךָ עֶבֶד עוֹלָם וְאַף לַאֲמָתְךָ תַּעֲשֶׂה־כֵּן
then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear and into the door, and he shall be thy bondman for ever. And also unto thy bondwoman thou shalt do likewise.
Καὶ λήψῃ τὸ ὀπήτιον, καὶ τρυπήσεις τὸ ὠτίον αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὴν θύραν, καὶ ἔσται σοι οἰκέτης εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα· καὶ τὴν παιδίσκην σου ὡσαύτως ποιήσεις.
then thou shalt take an awl, and bore his ear through to the door, and he shall be thy servant forever; and in like manner shalt thou do to thy maidservant.
18
לֹא־יִקְשֶׁה בְעֵינֶךָ בְּשַׁלֵּחֲךָ אֹתוֹ חָפְשִׁי מֵעִמָּךְ כִּי מִשְׁנֶה שְׂכַר שָׂכִיר עֲב͏ָדְךָ שֵׁשׁ שָׁנִים וּבֵרַכְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה
It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou lettest him go free from thee; for to the double of the hire of a hireling hath he served thee six years; and HaShem thy G-d will bless thee in all that thou doest.
Οὐ σκληρὸν ἔσται ἐναντίον σου ἐξαποστελλομένων αὐτῶν ἐλευθέρων ἀπὸ σου, ὅτι ἐπέτειον μισθὸν τοῦ μισθωτοῦ ἐδούλευσέ σοι ἓξ ἔτη· καὶ εὐλογήσει σε Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου ἐν πᾶσιν οἷς ἐὰν ποιῇς.
It shall not seem hard to thee when they are sent out free from thee, because [thy servant] has served thee six years according to the annual hire of a hireling; so the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all things whatsoever thou mayest do.
19
כָּל־הַבְּכוֹר אֲשֶׁר יִוָּלֵד בִּבְקָרְךָ וּבְצֹאנְךָ הַזָּכָר תַּקְדִּישׁ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לֹא תַעֲבֹד בִּבְכֹר שׁוֹרֶךָ וְלֹא תָגֹז בְּכוֹר צֹאנֶךָ
All the firstling males that are born of thy herd and of thy flock thou shalt sanctify unto HaShem thy G-d; thou shalt do no work with the firstling of thine ox, nor shear the firstling of thy flock.
Πᾶν πρωτότοκον ὃ ἐὰν τεχθῇ ἐν ταῖς βουσί σου, καὶ ἐν τοῖς προβάτοις σου, τὰ ἀρσενικὰ ἁγιάσεις Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ σου· οὐκ ἐργᾷ ἐν τῷ πρωτοτόκῳ μόσχῳ σου, καὶ οὐ μὴ κείρῃς τὰ πρωτότοκα τῶν προβάτων σου.
Every firstborn that shall be born among thy kine and thy sheep, thou shalt sanctify the males to the Lord thy God; thou shalt not work with thy firstborn calf, and thou shalt not shear the firstborn of thy sheep.
20
לִפְנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ תֹאכֲלֶנּוּ שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה בַּמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר יְהוָה אַתָּה וּבֵיתֶךָ
Thou shalt eat it before HaShem thy G-d year by year in the place which HaShem shall choose, thou and thy household.
Ἔναντι Κυρίου φαγῇ αὐτὸ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ᾧ ἐὰν ἐκλέξηται Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου, σὺ καὶ ὁ οἶκός σου.
Thou shalt eat it before the Lord year by year in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou and thy house.
21
וְכִי־יִהְיֶה בוֹ מוּם פִּסֵּחַ אוֹ עִוֵּר כֹּל מוּם רָע לֹא תִזְבָּחֶנּוּ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
And if there be any blemish therein, lameness, or blindness, any ill blemish whatsoever, thou shalt not sacrifice it unto HaShem thy G-d.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἠ· ἐν αὐτῷ μῶμος, χωλὸν ἢ τυφλον, μῶμον πονηρὸν, οὐ θύσεις αὐτὸ Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ σου.
And if there be in it a blemish, if it be lame or blind, an evil blemish, thou shalt not sacrifice it to the Lord thy God.
22
בִּשְׁעָרֶיךָ תֹּאכֲלֶנּוּ הַטָּמֵא וְהַטָּהוֹר יַחְדָּו כַּצְּבִי וְכָאַיָּל
Thou shalt eat it within thy gates; the unclean and the clean may eat it alike, as the gazelle, and as the hart.
Ἐν ταῖς πόλεσί σου φαγῇ αὐτό· ὁ ἀκάθαρτος ἐν σοι, καὶ ὁ καθαρὸς ὡσαύτως ἔδεται ὡς δορκάδα ἢ ἔλαφον.
Thou shalt eat it in thy cities; the unclean in thee and the clean shall eat it in like manner, as the doe or the stag.
23
רַק אֶת־דָּמוֹ לֹא תֹאכֵל עַל־הָאָרֶץ תִּשְׁפְּכֶנּוּ כַּמָּיִם
Only thou shalt not eat the blood thereof; thou shalt pour it out upon the ground as water.
Πλὴν αἷμα οὐ φἀγεσθε· ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἐκχεεῖς αὐτὸ ὡς ὕδωρ.
Only ye shall not eat the blood; thou shalt pour it out on the earth as water.

How it works

A parallel reader for the Hebrew Bible and its oldest witnesses: the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, each with an English translation where one is available.

Reading a chapter

Choose a book and chapter at the top, or type a reference into Go to (Isa 53:11, 1 Sam 3, sam 3:4, ii kgs 2, ben sira 51). Book names can be abbreviated; a name shared by numbered books (sam, kings, chr, macc) opens the first of them unless you add the number. The arrow keys move between chapters, and the address bar keeps a link to the verse you clicked, so you can bookmark or share a place.

Each row is one verse. Rows follow the Masoretic verse numbering, so the Hebrew, JPS and Samaritan columns line up exactly. The Septuagint is numbered differently in many places (Psalms, Jeremiah, Exodus 35–40, parts of Kings, Proverbs, Daniel, and dozens of chapter boundaries). Its verses are placed against their Masoretic counterparts, and a small tag such as 50:3 shows the Septuagint's own number when it differs. Greek verses that have no Masoretic counterpart (for example the Prayer of Azariah in Daniel 3) appear in reading order as separate rows marked LXX.

Columns

The chips at the top switch columns on and off. Drag a chip (or a column heading) to reorder; with a chip focused, the ← → keys move it. Your choice is remembered. The Samaritan columns appear only in Genesis–Deuteronomy; the scrolls column appears wherever a manuscript survives, including Ben Sira. Columns marked † are licensed for non-commercial use only.

Words: lexicon and concordance

Hover over any Hebrew word (Masoretic, Samaritan or scroll) or any Greek word to see its dictionary form, Strong's number, a short gloss and its grammar. Click the word to open the concordance on the right: the full lexicon entry, then every occurrence, grouped by book — for Hebrew, separately for the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the scrolls (with the manuscript named). Click a reference to go there; every form of the word in the chapter is highlighted. You can also type a word or a Strong's number into Lexicon at the top.

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

The Samaritan Pentateuch and every scroll are compared word by word with the Masoretic text of the same verse:

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.

The comparison is automatic. It aligns words by spelling, so a transposition or a long rewritten passage can be marked imperfectly, and the spelling rule cannot tell a suffix from a vowel letter. Treat the colours as a finding aid and check a critical edition before building an argument on a reading.

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

The small ❝ under a verse number opens the passages of rabbinic literature that cite that verse — Mishnah, Tosefta, both Talmuds, Midrash, Targum and Kabbalah (and, if you tick the box, later halakhah, liturgy and thought) — fetched live from Sefaria, so it needs an internet connection. Each passage is listed with Sefaria's date for the work it comes from and a link to read it there. Sefaria's links include allusions and discussions as well as quotations; those it classes as quotations are marked. It works for the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira (by Kahana's numbering, e.g. the Talmud's quotations of Ben Sira), Tobit and Jubilees. For 1 Enoch, which the rabbis do not quote, it lists instead the Zohar's passages about a “Book of Enoch”.

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

No openly licensed word-by-word analysis of Brenton's Greek exists, so each Greek word is matched to the most frequent analysis of the same form in the openly licensed Swete Septuagint (Morpheus parser), then to a lexicon entry. About 95% of words are identified. Parses of ambiguous forms (e.g. αὐτοῦ, τοῦ) can be wrong; the card says "automatic parse" as a reminder.

About the texts

What each column is, where it comes from, and what to keep in mind when reading it.

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.

† Licensed for non-commercial use only. Full credits and licences: Credits and licences.