Textorah

Exodus 5

1
וְאַחַר בָּאוּ מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל שַׁלַּח אֶת־עַמִּי וְיָחֹגּוּ לִי בַּמִּדְבָּר
And afterward Moses and Aaron came, and said unto Pharaoh: 'Thus saith HaShem, the G-d of Israel: Let My people go, that they may hold a feast unto Me in the wilderness.'
Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα εἰσῆλθε Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρὼν πρὸς Φαραὼ, καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, τάδε λέγει Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς Ἰσραὴλ, ἐξαπόστειλον τὸν λαόν μου, ἵνα μοι ἑορτάσωσιν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ.
And after this went in Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh, and they said to him, These things says the Lord God of Israel, Send my people away, that they may keep a feast to me in the wilderness.
2
וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה מִי יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר אֶשְׁמַע בְּקֹלוֹ לְשַׁלַּח אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא יָדַעְתִּי אֶת־יְהוָה וְגַם אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא אֲשַׁלֵּחַ
And Pharaoh said: 'Who is HaShem, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I know not HaShem, and moreover I will not let Israel go.'
Καὶ εἶπε Φαραὼ, τίς ἐστιν οὗ εἰσακούσομαι τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ, ὥστε ἐξαποστεῖλαι τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραήλ; οὐκ οἶδα τὸν Κύριον, καὶ τὸν Ἰσραὴλ οὐκ ἐξαποστέλλω.
And Pharaoh said, Who is he that I should hearken to his voice, so that I should send away the children of Israel? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.
3
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֱלֹהֵי הָעִבְרִים נִקְרָא עָלֵינוּ נֵלֲכָה נָּא דֶּרֶךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים בַּמִּדְבָּר וְנִזְבְּחָה לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ פֶּן־יִפְגָּעֵנוּ בַּדֶּבֶר אוֹ בֶחָרֶב
And they said: 'The G-d of the Hebrews hath met with us. Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto HaShem our G-d; lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.'
Καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ, ὁ Θεὸς τῶν Ἐβραίων προσκέκληται ἡμᾶς· πορευσόμεθα οὖν ὁδὸν τριῶν ἡμερῶν εἰς τὴν ἔρημον, ὅπως θύσωμεν Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν, μή ποτε συναντήσῃ ἡμῖν θάνατος ἢ φόνος.
And they say to him, The God of the Hebrews has called us to him: we will go therefore a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest at any time death or slaughter happen to us.
4
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם לָמָּה מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן תַּפְרִיעוּ אֶת־הָעָם מִמַּעֲשָׂיו לְכוּ לְסִבְלֹתֵיכֶם
And the king of Egypt said unto them: 'Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, cause the people to break loose from their work? get you unto your burdens.'
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ βασιλεὺς Αἰγύπτου, ἱνατί Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρών διαστρέφετε τὸν λαὸν ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων; ἀπέλθατε ἕκαστος ὑμῶν πρὸς τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ.
And the king of Egypt said to them, Why do ye, Moses and Aaron, turn the people from their works? depart each of you to your works.
5
וַיֹּאמֶר פַּרְעֹה הֵן־רַבִּים עַתָּה עַם הָאָרֶץ וְהִשְׁבַּתֶּם אֹתָם מִסִּבְלֹתָם
And Pharaoh said: 'Behold, the people of the land are now many, and will ye make them rest from their burdens?'
Καὶ εἶπεν Φαραὼ, ἰδοὺ νῦν πολυπληθεῖ ὁ λαὸς, μὴ οὖν καταπαύσωμεν αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων.
And Pharaoh said, Behold now, the people is very numerous; let us not then give them rest from their work.
6
וַיְצַו פַּרְעֹה בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא אֶת־הַנֹּגְשִׂים בָּעָם וְאֶת־שֹׁטְרָיו לֵאמֹר
And the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people, and their officers, saying:
Συνέταξε δὲ Φαραὼ τοῖς ἐργοδιώκταις τοῦ λαοῦ, καὶ τοῖς γραμματεῦσι, λέγων,
And Pharaoh gave orders to the taskmasters of the people and the accountants, saying,
7
לֹא תֹאסִפוּן לָתֵת תֶּבֶן לָעָם לִלְבֹּן הַלְּבֵנִים כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם הֵם יֵלְכוּ וְקֹשְׁשׁוּ לָהֶם תֶּבֶן
'Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.
οὐκέτι προστεθήσεσθε διδόναι ἄχυρον τῷ λαῷ εἰς τὴν πλινθουργίαν, καθάπερ χθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν· ἀλλ αὐτοὶ πορευέσθωσαν καὶ συναγαγέτωσαν ἑαυτοῖς ἄχυρα.
Ye shall no longer give straw to the people for brickmaking as yesterday and the third day; but let them go themselves, and collect straw for themselves.
8
וְאֶת־מַתְכֹּנֶת הַלְּבֵנִים אֲשֶׁר הֵם עֹשִׂים תְּמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם תָּשִׂימוּ עֲלֵיהֶם לֹא תִגְרְעוּ מִמֶּנּוּ כִּי־נִרְפִּים הֵם עַל־כֵּן הֵם צֹעֲקִים לֵאמֹר נֵלְכָה נִזְבְּחָה לֵאלֹהֵינוּ
And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish aught thereof; for they are idle; therefore they cry, saying: Let us go and sacrifice to our G-d.
Καὶ τὴν σύνταξιν τῆς πλινθείας, ἧς αὐτοὶ ποιοῦσι, καθʼ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἐπιβαλεῖς αὐτοῖς· οὐκ ἀφελεῖς οὐδέν· σχολάζουσι γάρ· διὰ τοῦτο κεκράγασι, λέγοντες, ἐγερθῶμεν, καὶ θύσωμεν τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν.
And thou shalt impose on them daily the rate of brickmaking which they perform: thou shalt not abate anything, for they are idle; therefore have they cried, saying, Let us arise and do sacrifice to our God.
9
תִּכְבַּד הָעֲבֹדָה עַל־הָאֲנָשִׁים וְיַעֲשׂוּ־בָהּ וְאַל־יִשְׁעוּ בְּדִבְרֵי־שָׁקֶר
Let heavier work be laid upon the men, that they may labour therein; and let them not regard lying words.'
Βαρυνέσθω τὰ ἔργα τῶν ἀνθρώπων τούτων, καὶ μεριμνάτωσαν ταῦτα, καὶ μὴ μεριμνάτωσαν ἐν λόγοις κενοῖς.
Let the works of these men be made grievous, and let them care for these things, and not care for vain words.
10
וַיֵּצְאוּ נֹגְשֵׂי הָעָם וְשֹׁטְרָיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל־הָעָם לֵאמֹר כֹּה אָמַר פַּרְעֹה אֵינֶנִּי נֹתֵן לָכֶם תֶּבֶן
And the taskmasters of the people went out, and their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying: 'Thus saith Pharaoh: I will not give you straw.
Κατέσπευδον δὲ αὐτοὺς οἱ ἐργοδιῶκται καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς, καὶ ἔλεγον πρὸς τὸν λαὸν, λέγοντες, τάδε λέγει Φαραὼ, οὐκέτι δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἄχυρα.
And the taskmasters and the accountants hastened them, and they spoke to the people, saying, Thus says Pharaoh, I [will] give you straw no longer.
11
אַתֶּם לְכוּ קְחוּ לָכֶם תֶּבֶן מֵאֲשֶׁר תִּמְצָאוּ כִּי אֵין נִגְרָע מֵעֲבֹדַתְכֶם דָּבָר
Go yourselves, get you straw where ye can find it; for nought of your work shall be diminished.'
Αὐτοὶ ὑμεῖς πορευόμενοι συλλέγετε ἑαυτοῖς ἄχυρα, ὅθεν ἐὰν εὕρητε· οὐ γὰρ ἀφαιρεῖται ἀπὸ τῆς συντάξεως ὑμῶν οὐθέν.
Go ye, yourselves, get for yourselves straw whencesoever ye can find it, for nothing is diminished from your rate.
12
וַיָּפֶץ הָעָם בְּכָל־אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם לְקֹשֵׁשׁ קַשׁ לַתֶּבֶן
So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.
Καὶ διεσπάρη ὁ λαὸς ἐν ὅλῃ γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ συναγαγεῖν καλάμην εἰς ἄχυρα.
So the people were dispersed in all the land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw.
13
וְהַנֹּגְשִׂים אָצִים לֵאמֹר כַּלּוּ מַעֲשֵׂיכֶם דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ כַּאֲשֶׁר בִּהְיוֹת הַתֶּבֶן
And the taskmasters were urgent, saying: 'Fulfil your work, your daily task, as when there was straw.'
Οἱ δὲ ἐργοδιῶκται κατέσπευδον αὐτοὺς, λέγοντες, συντελεῖτε τὰ ἔργα τὰ καθήκοντα καθʼ ἡμέραν, καθάπερ καὶ ὅτε τὸ ἄχυρον ἐδίδοτο ὑμῖν.
And the taskmasters hastened them, saying, Fulfill your regular daily tasks, even as when straw was given you.
14
וַיֻּכּוּ שֹׁטְרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר־שָׂמוּ עֲלֵהֶם נֹגְשֵׂי פַרְעֹה לֵאמֹר מַדּוּעַ לֹא כִלִּיתֶם חָקְכֶם לִלְבֹּן כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם גַּם־תְּמוֹל גַּם־הַיּוֹם
And the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, saying: 'Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your appointed task in making brick both yesterday and today as heretofore?'
Καὶ ἐμαστιγώθησαν οἱ γραμματεῖς τοῦ γένους τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ, οἱ κατασταθέντες ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς, ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιστατῶν τοῦ Φαραὼ, λέγοντες, διατί οὐ συνετελέσατε τὰς συντάξεις ὑμῶν τῆς πλινθείας καθάπερ χθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν, καὶ τὸ τῆς σήμερον;
And the accountants of the race of the children of Israel, who were set over them by the masters of Pharaoh, were scourged, [and questioned], [men] saying, Why have ye not fulfilled your rates of brickwork as yesterday and the third day, today also?
15
וַיָּבֹאוּ שֹׁטְרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּצְעֲקוּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה לֵאמֹר לָמָּה תַעֲשֶׂה כֹה לַעֲבָדֶיךָ
Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying: 'Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?
Εἰσελθόντες δὲ οἱ γραμματεῖς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ κατεβόησαν πρὸς Φαραὼ, λέγοντες, ἱνατί σὺ οὕτως ποιεῖς τοῖς σοῖς οἰκέταις;
And the accountants of the children of Israel went in and cried to Pharaoh, saying, Why dost thou act thus to thy servants?
16
תֶּבֶן אֵין נִתָּן לַעֲבָדֶיךָ וּלְבֵנִים אֹמְרִים לָנוּ עֲשׂוּ וְהִנֵּה עֲבָדֶיךָ מֻכִּים וְחָטָאת עַמֶּךָ
There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us: Make brick; and, behold, thy servants are beaten, but the fault is in thine own people.'
Ἄχυρον οὐ δίδοται τοῖς οἰκέταις σου, καὶ τὴν πλίνθον ἡμῖν λέγουσι ποιεῖν· καὶ ἰδοὺ οἱ παῖδές σου μεμαστίγωνται, ἀδικήσεις οὖν τὸν λαόν σου.
Straw is not given to thy servants, and they tell us to make brick; and behold thy servants have been scourged: thou wilt therefore injure thy people.
17
וַיֹּאמֶר נִרְפִּים אַתֶּם נִרְפִּים עַל־כֵּן אַתֶּם אֹמְרִים נֵלְכָה נִזְבְּחָה לַיהוָה
But he said: 'Ye are idle, ye are idle; therefore ye say: Let us go and sacrifice to HaShem.
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, σχολάζετε, σχολασταί ἐστε· διὰ τοῦτο λέγετε, πορευθῶμεν, θύσωμεν τῷ Θεῷ ἡμῶν.
And he said to them, Ye are idle, ye are idlers: therefore ye say, Let us go [and] do sacrifice to our God.
18
וְעַתָּה לְכוּ עִבְדוּ וְתֶבֶן לֹא־יִנָּתֵן לָכֶם וְתֹכֶן לְבֵנִים תִּתֵּנּוּ
Go therefore now, and work; for there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver the tale of bricks.'
Νῦν οὖν πορευθέντες, ἐργάζεσθε· τὸ γὰρ ἄχυρον οὐ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν, καὶ τὴν σύνταξιν τῆς πλινθείας ἀποδώσετε.
Now then go and work, for straw shall not be given to you, yet ye shall return the rate of bricks.
19
וַיִּרְאוּ שֹׁטְרֵי בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֹתָם בְּרָע לֵאמֹר לֹא־תִגְרְעוּ מִלִּבְנֵיכֶם דְּבַר־יוֹם בְּיוֹמוֹ
And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they were set on mischief, when they said: 'Ye shall not diminish aught from your bricks, your daily task.'
Ἑώρων δὲ οἱ γραμματεῖς τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ ἑαυτοὺς ἐν κακοῖς, λέγοντες, οὐκ ἀπολείψετε τῆς πλινθείας τὸ καθῆκον τῇ ἡμέρᾳ.
And the accountants of the children of Israel saw themselves in an evil plight, [men] saying, Ye shall not fail to deliver the daily rate of the brickmaking.
20
וַיִּפְגְּעוּ אֶת־מֹשֶׁה וְאֶת־אַהֲרֹן נִצָּבִים לִקְרָאתָם בְּצֵאתָם מֵאֵת פַּרְעֹה
And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh;
Συνήντησαν δὲ Μωυσῇ καὶ Ἀαρὼν ἐρχομένοις εἰς συνάντησιν αὐτοῖς, ἐκπορευομένων αὐτῶν ἀπὸ Φαραώ,
And they met Moses and Aaron coming forth to meet them, as they came forth from Pharaoh.
21
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֲלֵהֶם יֵרֶא יְהוָה עֲלֵיכֶם וְיִשְׁפֹּט אֲשֶׁר הִבְאַשְׁתֶּם אֶת־רֵיחֵנוּ בְּעֵינֵי פַרְעֹה וּבְעֵינֵי עֲבָדָיו לָתֶת־חֶרֶב בְּיָדָם לְהָרְגֵנוּ
and they said unto them: 'The HaShem look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.'
Καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς, ἴδοι ὁ Θεὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ κρίναι, ὅτι ἐβδελύξατε τὴν ὀσμὴν ἡμῶν ἐναντίον Φαραὼ, καὶ ἐναντίον τῶν θεραπόντων αὐτοῦ, δοῦναι ῥομφαίαν εἰς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ, ἀποκτεῖναι ἡμᾶς.
And they said to them, The Lord look upon you and judge you, for ye have made our savor abominable before Pharaoh, and before his servants, to put a sword into his hands to slay us.
22
וַיָּשָׁב מֹשֶׁה אֶל־יְהוָה וַיֹּאמַר אֲדֹנָי לָמָה הֲרֵעֹתָה לָעָם הַזֶּה לָמָּה זֶּה שְׁלַחְתָּנִי
And Moses returned unto HaShem, and said: 'L-rd, wherefore hast Thou dealt ill with this people? why is it that Thou hast sent me?
Ἐπέστρεψε δὲ Μωυσῆς πρὸς Κύριον, καὶ εἶπε, δέομαι, Κύριε· τί ἐκάκωσας τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον; καὶ ἱνατί ἀπέσταλκάς με;
And Moses turned to the Lord, and said, I pray, Lord, why hast thou afflicted this people? and wherefore hast thou sent me?
23
וּמֵאָז בָּאתִי אֶל־פַּרְעֹה לְדַבֵּר בִּשְׁמֶךָ הֵרַע לָעָם הַזֶּה וְהַצֵּל לֹא־הִצַּלְתָּ אֶת־עַמֶּךָ
For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Thy name, he hath dealt ill with this people; neither hast Thou delivered Thy people at all.'
Καὶ ἀφʼ οὗ πεπόρευμαι πρὸς Φαραὼ, λαλῆσαι ἐπὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι, ἐκάκωσε τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον· καὶ οὐκ ἐῤῥύσω τὸν λαόν σου.
For from the time that I went to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he has afflicted this people, and thou hast not delivered thy people.

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.