Textorah

Ezekiel 42

1
וַיּוֹצִאֵנִי אֶל־הֶחָצֵר הַחִיצוֹנָה הַדֶּרֶךְ דֶּרֶךְ הַצָּפוֹן וַיְבִאֵנִי אֶל־הַלִּשְׁכָּה אֲשֶׁר נֶגֶד הַגִּזְרָה וַאֲשֶׁר־נֶגֶד הַבִּנְיָן אֶל־הַצָּפוֹן
Then he brought me forth into the outer court, the way toward the north; and he brought me into the chamber that was over against the separate place, and which was over against the building, toward the north,
Καὶ εἰσήγαγέ με εἰς τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν ἐσωτέραν κατὰ ἀνατολὰς, κατέναντι τῆς πύλης τῆς πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, καὶ εἰσήγαγέ με· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐξέδραι πέντε, ἐχόμεναι τοῦ ἀπολοίπου, καὶ ἐχόμεναι τοῦ διορίζοντος πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν,
And he brought me into the inner court eastward, opposite the northern gate: and he brought me in, and behold five chambers near the vacant space, and near the northern partition,
2
אֶל־פְּנֵי־אֹרֶךְ אַמּוֹת הַמֵּאָה פֶּתַח הַצָּפוֹן וְהָרֹחַב חֲמִשִּׁים אַמּוֹת
even to the front of the length of a hundred cubits, with the door on the north, and the breadth of fifty cubits,
ἐπὶ πήχεις ἑκατὸν μῆκος πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, καὶ τὸ πλάτος πεντήκοντα,
a hundred cubits in length toward the north, and in breadth fifty,
3
נֶגֶד הָעֶשְׂרִים אֲשֶׁר לֶחָצֵר הַפְּנִימִי וְנֶגֶד רִצְפָה אֲשֶׁר לֶחָצֵר הַחִיצוֹנָה אַתִּיק אֶל־פְּנֵי־אַתִּיק בַּשְּׁלִשִׁים
over against the twenty cubits which belonged to the inner court, and over against the pavement which belonged to the outer court; with gallery against gallery in three stories.
διαγεγραμμέναι ὃν τρόπον αἱ πύλαι τῆς αὐλῆς τῆς ἐσωτέρας, καὶ ὃν τρόπον τὰ περίστυλα τῆς αὐλῆς τῆς ἐξωτέρας ἐστοιχισμέναι, ἀντιπρόσωποι στοαὶ τρισσαί.
ornamented accordingly as the gates of the inner court, and arranged accordingly as the peristyles of the outer court, [with] triple porticoes fronting one another.
4
וְלִפְנֵי הַלְּשָׁכוֹת מַהֲלַךְ עֶשֶׂר אַמּוֹת רֹחַב אֶל־הַפְּנִימִית דֶּרֶךְ אַמָּה אֶחָת וּפִתְחֵיהֶם לַצָּפוֹן
And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits breadth inward, a way of one cubit; and their doors were toward the north.
Καὶ κατέναντι τῶν ἐξεδρῶν περίπατος πηχῶν δέκα τὸ πλάτος, ἐπὶ πήχεις ἑκατὸν τὸ μῆκος, καὶ τὰ θυρώματα αὐτῶν πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν,
And in front of the chambers was a walk ten cubits in breadth, the length [reaching] to a hundred cubits; and their doors were northward.
5
וְהַלְּשָׁכוֹת הָעֶלְיוֹנֹת קְצֻרוֹת כִּי־יוֹכְלוּ אַתִּיקִים מֵהֵנָה מֵהַתַּחְתֹּנוֹת וּמֵהַתִּכֹנוֹת בִּנְיָן
Now the upper chambers were shorter; for the galleries took away from these, more than from the lower and the middlemost, in the building.
καὶ οἱ περίπατοι οἱ ὑπερῷοι ὡσαύτως· ὅτι ἐξείχετο τὸ περίστυλον ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἐκ τοῦ ὑποκάτωθεν περιστύλου, καὶ τὸ διάστημα· οὕτως περίστυλον καὶ διάστημα, καὶ οὕτως στοαὶ δύο.
And the upper walks were in like manner: for the peristyle projected from it, [even] from the range of columns below, and [there was] a space between; so [were there] a peristyle and a space between, and so [were there] two porticoes.
6
כִּי מְשֻׁלָּשׁוֹת הֵנָּה וְאֵין לָהֶן עַמּוּדִים כְּעַמּוּדֵי הַחֲצֵרוֹת עַל־כֵּן נֶאֱצַל מֵהַתַּחְתּוֹנוֹת וּמֵהַתִּיכֹנוֹת מֵהָאָרֶץ
For they were in three stories, and they had not pillars as the pillars of the courts; therefore room was taken away from the lowest and the middlemost, in comparison with the ground.
Διότι τριπλαῖ ἦσαν, καὶ στύλους οὐκ εἶχον καθὼς οἱ στύλοι τῶν ἐξωτέρων· διατοῦτο ἐξείχοντο τῶν ὑποκάτωθεν καὶ τῶν μέσων ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς.
For they were triple, and they had not pillars like the pillars of the outer ones: therefore they projected from the lower ones and the middle ones from the ground.
7
וְגָדֵר אֲשֶׁר־לַחוּץ לְעֻמַּת הַלְּשָׁכוֹת דֶּרֶךְ הֶחָצֵר הַחִצוֹנָה אֶל־פְּנֵי הַלְּשָׁכוֹת אָרְכּוֹ חֲמִשִּׁים אַמָּה
And the wall that was without by the side of the chambers, toward the outer court in front of the chambers, the length thereof was fifty cubits.
Καὶ φῶς ἔξωθεν, ὃν τρόπον αἱ ἐξέδραι τῆς αὐλῆς τῆς ἐξωτέρας, αἱ βλέπουσαι ἀπέναντι τῶν ἐξεδρῶν τῶν πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, μῆκος πηχῶν πεντήκοντα.
And [there was] light without, corresponding to the chambers of the outer court looking toward the front of the northern chambers; the length [of them was] fifty cubits.
8
כִּי־אֹרֶךְ הַלְּשָׁכוֹת אֲשֶׁר לֶחָצֵר הַחִצוֹנָה חֲמִשִּׁים אַמָּה וְהִנֵּה עַל־פְּנֵי הַהֵיכָל מֵאָה אַמָּה
For the length of the chambers that were toward the outer court was fifty cubits; and, lo, before the temple were a hundred cubits.
Ὅτι τὸ μῆκος τῶν ἐξεδρῶν τῶν βλεπουσῶν εἰς τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν ἐξωτέραν, ἦν πηχῶν πεντήκοντα, καὶ αὗταί εἰσιν αἱ ἀντιπρόσωποι ταύταις· τὸ πᾶν πηχῶν ἑκατόν.
For the length of the chambers looking toward the inner court was fifty cubits, and these are the ones that front the others; the whole was a hundred cubits.
9
ומתחתה לשכות וּמִתַּחַת הַלְּשָׁכוֹת הָאֵלֶּה המבוא הַמֵּבִיא מֵהַקָּדִים בְּבֹאוֹ לָהֵנָּה מֵהֶחָצֵר הַחִצֹנָה
And from under these chambers was the entry on the east side, as one goeth into them from the outer court.
Καὶ αἱ θύραι τῶν ἐξεδρῶν τούτων τῆς εἰσόδου τῆς πρὸς ἀνατολὰς, τοῦ εἰσπορεύεσθαι διʼ αὐτῶν ἐκ τῆς αὐλῆς τῆς ἐξωτέρας,
And [there were] doors of these chambers for an outlet toward the east, so that one should go through them out of the outer court,
10
בְּרֹחַב גֶּדֶר הֶחָצֵר דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים אֶל־פְּנֵי הַגִּזְרָה וְאֶל־פְּנֵי הַבִּנְיָן לְשָׁכוֹת
In the breadth of the wall of the court toward the east, before the separate place, and before the building, there were chambers,
κατὰ τὸ φῶς τοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ περιπάτου, καὶ τὰ πρὸς Νότον κατὰ πρόσωπον τοῦ Νότου κατὰ πρόσωπον τοῦ ἀπολοίπου, καὶ κατὰ πρόσωπον τοῦ διορίζοντος, καὶ αἱ ἐξέδραι.
by the opening of the walk at the corner; and the south parts were toward the south, toward the remaining space, and toward the partition, and [so were] the chambers.
11
וְדֶרֶךְ לִפְנֵיהֶם כְּמַרְאֵה הַלְּשָׁכוֹת אֲשֶׁר דֶּרֶךְ הַצָּפוֹן כְּאָרְכָּן כֵּן רָחְבָּן וְכֹל מוֹצָאֵיהֶן וּכְמִשְׁפְּטֵיהֶן וּכְפִתְחֵיהֶן
with a way before them; like the appearance of the chambers which were toward the north, as long as they, and as broad as they, with all their goings out, and according to their fashions; and as their doors,
Καὶ ὁ περίπατος κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῶν, κατὰ τὰ μέτρα ἐξεδρῶν τῶν πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, καὶ κατὰ τὸ μῆκος αὐτῶν, καὶ κατὰ τὸ εὖρος αὐτῶν, καὶ κατὰ πάσας τὰς ἐξόδους αὐτῶν, καὶ κατὰ πάσας τὰς ἐπιστροφὰς αὐτῶν, καὶ κατὰ τὰ φῶτα αὐτῶν, καὶ κατὰ τὰ θυρώματα αὐτῶν,
And the walk was in front of them, according to the measures of the chambers toward the north, both according to the length of them, and according to the breadth of them, and according to all their openings, and according to all their turnings, and according to their lights, and according to their doors.
12
וּכְפִתְחֵי הַלְּשָׁכוֹת אֲשֶׁר דֶּרֶךְ הַדָּרוֹם פֶּתַח בְּרֹאשׁ דָּרֶךְ דֶּרֶךְ בִּפְנֵי הַגְּדֶרֶת הֲגִינָה דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים בְּבוֹאָן
so were also the doors of the chambers that were toward the south, there was a door in the head of the way, even the way directly before the wall, toward the way from the east, as one entereth into them.
τῶν ἐξεδρῶν τῶν πρὸς Νότον, καὶ κατὰ τὰ θυρώματα ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς τοῦ περιπάτου, ὡς ἐπὶ φῶς διαστμήατος καλάμου, καὶ κατὰ ἀνατολὰς τοῦ εἰσπορεύεσθαι διʼ αὐτῶν.
[So were the measures] of the chambers toward the south, and according to the doors at the entrance of the walk, as it were the distance of a reed for light, and eastward as one went in by them.
13
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי לִשְׁכוֹת הַצָּפוֹן לִשְׁכוֹת הַדָּרוֹם אֲשֶׁר אֶל־פְּנֵי הַגִּזְרָה הֵנָּה לִשְׁכוֹת הַקֹּדֶשׁ אֲשֶׁר יֹאכְלוּ־שָׁם הַכֹּהֲנִים אֲשֶׁר־קְרוֹבִים לַיהוָה קָדְשֵׁי הַקֳּדָשִׁים שָׁם יַנִּיחוּ קָדְשֵׁי הַקֳּדָשִׁים וְהַמִּנְחָה וְהַחַטָּאת וְהָאָשָׁם כִּי הַמָּקוֹם קָדֹשׁ
Then said he unto me: 'The north chambers and the south chambers, which are before the separate place, they are the holy chambers, where the priests that are near unto HaShem shall eat the most holy things; there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meal-offering, and the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering; for the place is holy.
Καὶ εἶπε πρὸς μὲ, αἱ ἐξέδραι αἱ πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, καὶ αἱ ἐξέδραι αἱ πρὸς Νότον, οὖσαι κατὰ πρόσωπον τῶν διαστημάτων, αὗταί εἰσιν αἱ ἐξέδραι τοῦ ἁγίου, ἐν αἷς φάγονται ἐκεῖ οἱ ἱερεῖς υἱοὶ Σαδδοὺκ, οἱ ἐγγίζοντες πρὸς Κύριον, τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ ἐκεῖ θήσουσι τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ τὴν θυσίαν, καὶ τὰ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, καὶ τὰ περὶ ἀγνοίας, διότι ὁ τόπος ἅγιος.
And he said to me, The chambers toward the north, and the chambers toward the south, in front of the void spaces, these are the chambers of the sanctuary, wherein the priests the sons of Zadok, who draw nigh to the Lord, shall eat the most holy things: and there shall they lay the most holy things, and the meat offering, and the sin offerings, and the trespass offerings; because the place is holy.
14
בְּבֹאָם הַכֹּהֲנִים וְלֹא־יֵצְאוּ מֵהַקֹּדֶשׁ אֶל־הֶחָצֵר הַחִיצוֹנָה וְשָׁם יַנִּיחוּ בִגְדֵיהֶם אֲשֶׁר־יְשָׁרְתוּ בָהֶן כִּי־קֹדֶשׁ הֵנָּה ילבשו וְלָבְשׁוּ בְּגָדִים אֲחֵרִים וְקָרְבוּ אֶל־אֲשֶׁר לָעָם
When the priests enter in, then shall they not go out of the holy place into the outer court, but there they shall lay their garments wherein they minister, for they are holy; and they shall put on other garments, and shall approach to that which pertaineth to the people.'
Οὐκ εἰσελεύσονται ἐκεῖ πάρεξ τῶν ἱερέων, οὐκ ἐξελεύσονται ἐκ τοῦ ἁγίου εἰς τὴν αὐλὴν τὴν ἐξωτέραν, ὅπως διαπαντὸς ἅγιοι ὦσιν οἱ προσάγοντες, καὶ μὴ ἅπτωνται τοῦ στολισμοῦ αὐτῶν, ἐν οἷς λειτουργοῦσιν ἐν αὐτοῖς, διότι ἅγιά ἐστι· καὶ ἐνδύσονται ἱμάτια ἕτερα, ὅταν ἅπτωνται τοῦ λαοῦ.
None shall go in thither except the priests, [and] they shall not go forth of the holy place into the outer court, that they that draw nigh [to me] may be continually holy, and may not touch their garments in which they minister, [with defilement], for they are holy; and they shall put on other garments whenever they come in contact with the people.
15
וְכִלָּה אֶת־מִדּוֹת הַבַּיִת הַפְּנִימִי וְהוֹצִיאַנִי דֶּרֶךְ הַשַּׁעַר אֲשֶׁר פָּנָיו דֶּרֶךְ הַקָּדִים וּמְדָדוֹ סָבִיב סָבִיב
Now when he had made an end of measuring the inner house, he brought me forth by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east, and measured it round about.
Καὶ συνετελέσθη ἡ διαμέτρησις τοῦ οἴκου ἔσωθεν· καὶ ἐξήγαγέ με καθʼ ὁδὸν τῆς πύλης τῆς βλεπούσης πρὸς ἀνατολὰς, καὶ διεμέτρησε τὸ ὑπόδειγμα τοῦ οἴκου κυκλόθεν ἐν διατάξει.
So the measurement of the house within was accomplished: and he brought me forth by the way of the gate that looks eastward, and measured the plan of the house round about in order.
16
מָדַד רוּחַ הַקָּדִים בִּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה חֲמֵשׁ־אמות מֵאוֹת קָנִים בִּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה סָבִיב
He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
Καὶ ἔστη κατὰ νώτου τῆς πύλης τῆς βλεπούσης κατὰ ἀνατολὰς, καὶ διεμέτρησε πεντακοσίους ἐν τῷ καλάμῳ τοῦ μέτρου.
And he stood behind the gate looking eastward, and measured five hundred [cubits] with the measuring reed.
17
מָדַד רוּחַ הַצָּפוֹן חֲמֵשׁ־מֵאוֹת קָנִים בִּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה סָבִיב
He measured the north side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed round about.
Καὶ ἐπέστρεψε πρὸς Βοῤῥᾶν, καὶ διεμέτρησε τὸ κατὰ πρόσωπον τοῦ Βοῤῥᾶ, πήχεις πεντακοσίους ἐν τῷ καλάμῳ τοῦ μέτρου.
And he turned to the north and measured in front of the north [side] five hundred cubits with the measuring reed.
18
אֵת רוּחַ הַדָּרוֹם מָדָד חֲמֵשׁ־מֵאוֹת קָנִים בִּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה
He measured the south side, five hundred reeds, with the measuring reed.
Καὶ ἐπέστρεψε πρὸς θάλασσαν, καὶ διεμέτρησε τὸ κατὰ πρόσωπον θαλάσσης, πεντακοσίους ἐν τῷ καλάμῳ τοῦ μέτρου.
And he turned to the west, and measured in front of the west side, five hundred [cubits] with the measuring reed.
19
סָבַב אֶל־רוּחַ הַיָּם מָדַד חֲמֵשׁ־מֵאוֹת קָנִים בִּקְנֵה הַמִּדָּה
He turned about to the west side, and measured five hundred reeds with the measuring reed.
Καὶ ἐπέστρεψε πρὸς Νότον, καὶ διεμέτρησε κατέναντι τοῦ Νότου, πεντακοσίους ἐν τῷ καλάμῳ τοῦ μέτρου,
And he turned to the south, and measured in front of the south side, five hundred [cubits] by the measuring reed.
20
לְאַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת מְדָדוֹ חוֹמָה לוֹ סָבִיב סָבִיב אֹרֶךְ חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת וְרֹחַב חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת לְהַבְדִּיל בֵּין הַקֹּדֶשׁ לְחֹל
He measured it by the four sides; it had a wall round about, the length five hundred, and the breadth five hundred, to make a separation between that which was holy and that which was common.
τὰ τέσσαρα μέρη τοῦ αὐτοῦ καλάμου· καὶ διέταξεν αὐτὸν, καὶ περίβολον αὐτῶν κύκλῳ, πεντακοσίων πρὸς ἀνατολὰς, καὶ πεντακοσίων πηχῶν εὖρος, τοῦ διαστέλλειν ἀναμέσον τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ ἀναμέσον τοῦ προτειχίσματος, τοῦ ἐν διατάξει τοῦ οἴκου.
The [four sides he measured] by the same reed, and he marked out the house and the circumference of the parts round about, [a space] of five hundred [cubits] eastward, and a breadth of five hundred cubits, to make a division between the sanctuary and the outer wall, that [belonged to] the design of the house.

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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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