Textorah

Deuteronomy 20

1
כִּי־תֵצֵא לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־אֹיְבֶיךָ וְרָאִיתָ סוּס וָרֶכֶב עַם רַב מִמְּךָ לֹא תִירָא מֵהֶם כִּי־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ עִמָּךְ הַמַּעַלְךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
When thou goest forth to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, thou shalt not be afraid of them; for HaShem thy G-d is with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἐξέλθῃς εἰς πόλεμον ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου, καὶ ἴδῃς ἵππον καὶ ἀναβάτην καὶ λαὸν πλείονά σου, οὐ φοβηθήσῃ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν, ὅτι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου μετὰ σοῦ, ὁ ἀναβιβάσας σε ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου.
And if thou shouldest go forth to war against thine enemies, and shouldest see horse, and rider, and a people more numerous than thyself; thou shalt not be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God [is] with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
2
וְהָיָה כְּקָרָבְכֶם אֶל־הַמִּלְחָמָה וְנִגַּשׁ הַכֹּהֵן וְדִבֶּר אֶל־הָעָם
And it shall be, when ye draw nigh unto the battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people,
Καὶ ἔσται ὅταν ἐγγίσῃς τῷ πολέμῳ, καὶ προσεγγίσας ὁ ἱερεὺς λαλήσει τῷ λαῷ,
And it shall come to pass whenever thou shalt draw nigh to battle, that the priest shall draw nigh and speak to the people, and shall say to them,
3
וְאָמַר אֲלֵהֶם שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל אַתֶּם קְרֵבִים הַיּוֹם לַמִּלְחָמָה עַל־אֹיְבֵיכֶם אַל־יֵרַךְ לְבַבְכֶם אַל־תִּירְאוּ וְאַל־תַּחְפְּזוּ וְאַל־תּ͏ַעַרְצוּ מִפְּנֵיהֶם
and shall say unto them: 'Hear, O Israel, ye draw nigh this day unto battle against your enemies; let not your heart faint; fear not, nor be alarmed, neither be ye affrighted at them;
καὶ ἐρεῖ πρὸς αὐτοὺς, ἄκουε Ἰσραήλ· ὑμεῖς πορεύεσθε σήμερον εἰς τὸν πόλεμον ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν· μὴ ἐκλυέσθω ἡ καρδία ὑμῶν, μὴ φοβεῖσθε, μηδὲ θραύεσθε, μηδὲ ἐκκλίνετε ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτῶν.
Hear, O Israel; ye are going this day to battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint, fear not, neither be confounded, neither turn aside from their face.
4
כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הַהֹלֵךְ עִמָּכֶם לְהִלָּחֵם לָכֶם עִם־אֹיְבֵיכֶם לְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֶתְכֶם
for HaShem your G-d is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.'
Ὅτι Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὑμῶν ὁ προπορευόμενος μεθʼ ὑμῶν, συνεκπολεμῆσαι ὑμῖν τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν διασῶσαι ὑμᾶς.
For [it is] the Lord your God who advances with you, to fight with you against your enemies, [and] to save you.
5
וְדִבְּרוּ הַשֹּׁטְרִים אֶל־הָעָם לֵאמֹר מִי־הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר בָּנָה בַיִת־חָדָשׁ וְלֹא חֲנָכוֹ יֵלֵךְ וְיָשֹׁב לְבֵיתוֹ פֶּן־יָמוּת בַּמִּלְחָמָה וְאִישׁ אַחֵר יַחְנְכֶנּוּ
And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying: 'What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.
Καὶ λαλήσουσιν οἱ γραμματεῖς πρὸς τὸν λαὸν, λέγοντες, τίς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ οἰκοδομήσας οἰκίαν καινὴν, καὶ οὐκ ἐνεκαίνισεν αὐτήν; πορευέσθω καὶ ἀποστραφήτω εἰς τὴν· οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, μὴ ἀποθάνῃ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ, καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἕτερος ἐγκαινιεῖ αὐτήν.
And the scribes shall speak to the people, saying, What man [is] he that has built a new house, and has not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the war, and another man dedicate it.
6
וּמִי־הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־נָטַע כֶּרֶם וְלֹא חִלְּלוֹ יֵלֵךְ וְיָשֹׁב לְבֵיתוֹ פֶּן־יָמוּת בַּמִּלְחָמָה וְאִישׁ אַחֵר יְחַלְּלֶנּוּ
And what man is there that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not used the fruit thereof? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man use the fruit thereof.
Καὶ τίς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὅστις ἐφύτευσεν ἀμπελῶνα, καὶ οὐκ εὐφράνθη ἐξ αὐτοῦ; πορευέσθω καὶ ἀποστραφήτω εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, μὴ ἀποθάνῃ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ, καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἕτερος εὐφρανθήσεται ἐξ αὐτοῦ.
And what man [is] he that has planted a vineyard, and not been made merry with it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man be made merry with it.
7
וּמִי־הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־אֵרַשׂ אִשָּׁה וְלֹא לְקָחָהּ יֵלֵךְ וְיָשֹׁב לְבֵיתוֹ פֶּן־יָמוּת בַּמִּלְחָמָה וְאִישׁ אַחֵר יִקָּחֶנָּה
And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.'
Καὶ τίς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὅστις μεμνήστευται γυναῖκα, καὶ οὐκ ἔλαβεν αὐτήν; πορευέσθω καὶ ἀποστραφήτω εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, μὴ ἀποθάνῃ ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ, καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἕτερος λήψεται αὐτήν.
And what man [is] he that has betrothed a wife, and has not taken her? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.
8
וְיָסְפוּ הַשֹּׁטְרִים לְדַבֵּר אֶל־הָעָם וְאָמְרוּ מִי־הָאִישׁ הַיָּרֵא וְרַךְ הַלֵּבָב יֵלֵךְ וְיָשֹׁב לְבֵיתוֹ וְלֹא יִמַּס אֶת־לְבַב אֶחָיו כִּלְבָבוֹ
And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say: 'What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart melt as his heart.'
Καὶ προσθήσουσιν οἱ γραμματεῖς λαλῆσαι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν, καὶ ἐροῦσι, τίς ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ φοβούμενος καὶ δειλὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ; πορευέσθω καὶ ἀποστραφήτω εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μὴ δειλιάνῃ τὴν καρδίαν τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὥσπερ ἡ αὐτοῦ.
And the scribes shall speak further to the people, and say, What man [is] he that fears and is cowardly in his heart? Let him go and return to his house, lest he make the heart of his brother fail, as his own.
9
וְהָיָה כְּכַלֹּת הַשֹּׁטְרִים לְדַבֵּר אֶל־הָעָם וּפָקְדוּ שָׂרֵי צְבָאוֹת בְּרֹאשׁ הָעָם
And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking unto the people, that captains of hosts shall be appointed at the head of the people.
Καὶ ἔσται ὅταν παύσωνται οἱ γραμματεῖς λαλοῦντες πρὸς τὸν λαὸν, καὶ καταστήσουσιν ἄρχοντας τῆς στρατιᾶς προηγουμένους τοῦ λαοῦ.
And it shall come to pass when the scribes shall have ceased speaking to the people, that they shall appoint generals of the army to be leaders of the people.
10
כִּי־תִקְרַב אֶל־עִיר לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ וְקָרָאתָ אֵלֶיהָ לְשָׁלוֹם
When thou drawest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
Ἐὰν δὲ προσέλθῃς πρὸς πόλιν ἐκπολεμῆσαι αὐτοὺς, καὶ ἐκκαλέσαι αὐτοὺς μετʼ εἰρήνης.
And if thou shalt draw nigh to a city to overcome them by war, then call them out peaceably.
11
וְהָיָה אִם־שָׁלוֹם תַּעַנְךָ וּפָתְחָה לָךְ וְהָיָה כָּל־הָעָם הַנִּמְצָא־בָהּ יִהְיוּ לְךָ לָמַס וַעֲבָדוּךָ
And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that are found therein shall become tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee.
Ἐὰν μὲν εἰρηνικὰ ἀποκριθῶσί σοι, καὶ ἀνοίξωσί σοι, ἔσται πᾶς ὁ λαὸς οἱ εὑρεθέντες ἐν αὐτῇ ἔσονταί σοι φορολόγητοι καὶ ὑπήκοοί σου.
If then they should answer peaceably to thee, and open to thee, it shall be that all the people found in it shall be tributary and subject to thee.
12
וְאִם־לֹא תַשְׁלִים עִמָּךְ וְעָשְׂתָה עִמְּךָ מִלְחָמָה וְצַרְתָּ עָלֶיהָ
And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ὑπακούσωσί σοι, καὶ ποιῶσι πρὸς σὲ πόλεμον, περικαθιεῖς αὐτὴν,
But if they will not hearken to thee, but wage war against thee, thou shalt invest it;
13
וּנְתָנָהּ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּיָדֶךָ וְהִכִּיתָ אֶת־כָּל־זְכוּרָהּ לְפִי־חָרֶב
And when HaShem thy G-d delivereth it into thy hand, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword;
ἕως ἂν παραδῷ σοι αὐτὴν Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου εἰς τὰς χεῖράς σου, καὶ πατάξεις πᾶν ἀρσενικὸν αὐτῆς ἐν φόνῳ μαχαίρας,
until the Lord thy God shall deliver it into thy hands, and thou shalt smite every male of it with the edge of the sword:
14
רַק הַנָּשִׁים וְהַטַּף וְהַבְּהֵמָה וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בָעִיר כָּל־שְׁלָלָהּ תָּבֹז לָךְ וְאָכַלְתָּ אֶת־שְׁלַל אֹיְבֶיךָ אֲשֶׁר נָתַן יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לָךְ
but the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which HaShem thy G-d hath given thee.
πλὴν τῶν γυναικῶν καὶ τῆς ἀποσκευῆς· καὶ πάντα τὰ κτήνη, καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἂν ὑπάρχῃ ἐν τῇ πόλει, καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν ἀπαρτίαν προνομεύσεις σεαυτῷ, καὶ φαγῇ πᾶσαν τὴν προνομὴν τῶν ἐχθρῶν σου, ὧν Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου δίδωσί σοι.
except the women and the stuff: and all the cattle, and whatsoever shall be in the city, and all the plunder thou shalt take as spoil for thyself, and shalt eat all the plunder of thine enemies whom the Lord thy God gives thee.
15
כֵּן תַּעֲשֶׂה לְכָל־הֶעָרִים הָרְחֹקֹת מִמְּךָ מְאֹד אֲשֶׁר לֹא־מֵעָרֵי הַגּוֹיִם־הָאֵלֶּה הֵנָּה
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.
Οὕτως ποιήσεις πάσας τὰς πόλεις τὰς μακρὰν οὔσας σου σφόδρα, οὐχὶ ἐκ τῶν πόλεων τῶν ἐθνῶν τούτων,
Thus shalt thou do to all the cities that are very far off from thee, not [being] of the cities of these nations which the Lord thy God gives thee to inherit their land.
16
רַק מֵעָרֵי הָעַמִּים הָאֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָה לֹא תְחַיֶּה כָּל־נְשָׁמָה
Howbeit of the cities of these peoples, that HaShem thy G-d giveth thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth,
ὧν Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου δίδωσί σοι κληρονομεῖν τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν. Οὐ ζωγρήσετε πᾶν ἐμπνέον,
[Of these] ye shall not take anything alive;
17
כִּי־הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִימֵם הַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי הַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוְּךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ
but thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as HaShem thy G-d hath commanded thee;
ἀλλʼ ἢ ἀναθέματι ἀναθεματιεῖτε αὐτοὺς, τὸν Χετταῖον, καὶ Ἀμοῤῥαῖον, καὶ Χαναναῖον, καὶ Φερεζαῖον, καὶ Εὐαῖον, καὶ Ἰεβουσαῖον, καὶ Γεργεσαῖον, ὃν τρόπον ἐνετείλατό σοι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου,
but ye shall surely curse them, the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite; as the Lord thy God commanded thee:
18
לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יְלַמְּדוּ אֶתְכֶם לַעֲשׂוֹת כְּכֹל תּוֹעֲבֹתָם אֲשֶׁר עָשׂוּ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם וַחֲטָאתֶם לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם
that they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods, and so ye sin against HaShem your G-d.
ἵνα μὴ διδάξωσι ποιεῖν ὑμᾶς πάντα τὰ βδελύγματα αὐτῶν, ὅσα ἐποίησαν τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ἁμαρτήσεσθε ἐναντίον Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν.
that they may not teach you to do all their abominations, which they did to their gods, and [so] ye should sin before the Lord your God.
19
כִּי־תָצוּר אֶל־עִיר יָמִים רַבִּים לְהִלָּחֵם עָלֶיהָ לְתָפְשָׂהּ לֹא־תַשְׁחִית אֶת־עֵצָהּ לִנְדֹּחַ עָלָיו גַּרְזֶן כִּי מִמֶּנּוּ תֹאכֵל וְאֹתוֹ לֹא תִכְרֹת כִּי ה͏ָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר
When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by wielding an axe against them; for thou mayest eat of them, but thou shalt not cut them down; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of thee?
Ἐὰν δὲ περικαθίσῃς περὶ πόλιν μίαν ἡμέρας πλείους ἐκπολεμῆσαι αὐτὴν εἰς κατάληψιν αὐτῆς, οὐκ ἐξολεθρεύσεις τὰ δένδρα αὐτῆς, ἐπιβαλεῖν ἐπʼ αὐτὰ σίδηρον, ἀλλʼ ἢ ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ φαγῇ, αὐτὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐκκόψεις· μὴ ἄνθρωπος τὸ ξύλον τὸ ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, εἰσελθεῖν ἀπὸ προσώπου σου εἰς τὸν χάρακα;
And if thou shouldest besiege a city many days to prevail against it by war to take it, thou shalt not destroy its trees, by applying an iron tool to them, but thou shalt eat of it, and shalt not cut it down: Is the tree that is in the field a man, to enter before thee into the work of the siege?
20
רַק עֵץ אֲשֶׁר־תֵּדַע כִּי־לֹא־עֵץ מַאֲכָל הוּא אֹתוֹ תַשְׁחִית וְכָרָתָּ וּבָנִיתָ מָצוֹר עַל־הָעִיר אֲשֶׁר־הִוא עֹשָׂה עִמְּךָ מִלְחָמָה עַד רִדְתָּהּ
Only the trees of which thou knowest that they are not trees for food, them thou mayest destroy and cut down, that thou mayest build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it fall.
Ἀλλὰ ξύλον ὃ ἐπίστασαι ὅτι οὐ καρπόβρωτόν ἐστι, τοῦτο ὀλοθρεύσεις καὶ ἐκκόψεις· καὶ οἰκοδομήσεις χαράκωσιν ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν, ἥτις ποιεῖ πρὸς σὲ τὸν πόλεμον, ἕως ἂν παραδοθῇ.
But the tree which thou knowest to be not fruit bearing, this thou shalt destroy and cut down; and thou shalt construct a mound against the city, which makes war against thee, until it be delivered up.

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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.

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