Textorah

Genesis 11

1
ו͏ַיְהִי כָל־הָאָרֶץ שָׂפָה אֶחָת וּדְבָרִים אֲחָדִים
And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
Καὶ ἦν πᾶσα ἡ γῆ χεῖλος ἓν, καὶ φωνὴ μία πᾶσι.
And all the earth was one lip, and there was one language to all.
2
ו͏ַיְהִי בְּנָסְעָם מִקֶּדֶם ו͏ַיִּמְצְאוּ בִקְעָה בְּאֶרֶץ שִׁנְעָר וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם
And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ κινῆσαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, εὗρον πεδίον ἐν γῇ Σεναὰρ, καὶ κατῴκησαν ἐκεῖ.
And it came to pass as they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there.
3
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל־רֵעֵהוּ הָבָה נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים וְנִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה וַתְּהִי לָהֶם הַלְּבֵנָה לְאָבֶן וְהַחֵמָר הָיָה לָהֶם לַחֹמֶר
And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
Καὶ εἶπεν ἄνθρωπος τῷ πλησίον αὐτοῦ, δεῦτε πλινθεύσωμεν πλίνθους, καὶ ὀπτήσωμεν αὐτὰς πυρί· καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτοῖς ἡ πλίνθος εἰς λίθον, καὶ ἄσφαλτος ἦν αὐτοῖς ὁ πηλός.
And a man said to his neighbor, Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And the brick was to them for stone, and their mortar was bitumen.
4
וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָבָה נִבְנֶה־לָּנוּ עִיר וּמִגְדָּל וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם וְנַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם פֶּן־נָפוּץ עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ
And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'
Καὶ εἶπαν, δεῦτε οἰκοδομήσωμεν ἑαυτοῖς πόλιν καὶ πύργον, οὗ ἔσται ἡ κεφαλὴ ἕως τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ποιήσωμεν ἑαυτοῖς ὄνομα, πρὸ τοῦ διασπαρῆναι ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ προσώπου πάσης τῆς γῆς.
And they said, Come, let us build to ourselves a city and tower, whose top shall be to heaven, and let us make to ourselves a name, before we are scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth.
5
וַיֵּרֶד יְהוָה לִרְאֹת אֶת־הָעִיר וְאֶת־הַמִּגְדָּל אֲשֶׁר בָּנוּ בְּנֵי הָאָדָם
And HaShem came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
Καὶ κατέβη Κύριος ἰδεῖν τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὸν πύργον, ὃν ᾠκοδόμησαν οἱ υἱοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built.
6
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה הֵן עַם אֶחָד וְשָׂפָה אַחַת לְכֻלָּם וְזֶה הַחִלָּם לַעֲשׂוֹת וְעַתָּה לֹא־יִבָּצֵר מֵהֶם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר יָזְמוּ ל͏ַעֲשׂוֹת
And HaShem said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος, ἰδοὺ γένος ἓν, καὶ χεῖλος ἓν πάντων, καὶ τοῦτο ἤρξαντο ποιῆσαι, καὶ νῦν οὐκ ἐκλείψει ἀπʼ αὐτῶν πάντα ὅσα ἂν ἐπιθῶνται ποιεῖν.
And the Lord said, Behold, [there is] one race, and one lip of all, and they have begun to do this, and now nothing shall fail from them of all that they may have undertaken to do.
7
הָבָה נ͏ֵרְדָה וְנָבְלָה שָׁם שְׂפָתָם אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ אִישׁ שְׂפַת רֵעֵהוּ
Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.'
Δεῦτε, καὶ καταβάντες συγχέωμεν αὐτῶν ἐκεῖ τὴν γλῶσσαν, ἵνα μὴ ἀκούσωσιν ἕκαστος τὴν φωνὴν τοῦ πλησίον.
Come, and having gone down let us there confound their tongue, that they may not understand each the voice of his neighbor.
8
וַיָּפֶץ יְהוָה אֹתָם מִשָּׁם עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ ו͏ַיַּחְדְּלוּ לִבְנֹת הָעִיר
So HaShem scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
Καὶ διέσπειρεν αὐτοὺς Κύριος ἐκεῖθεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον πάσης τῆς γῆς· καὶ ἐπαύσαντο οἰκοδομοῦντες τῆν πόλιν καὶ τὸν πύργον.
And the Lord scattered them thence over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower.
9
עַל־כֵּן קָרָא שְׁמָהּ בָּבֶל כִּי־שָׁם בָּלַל יְהוָה שְׂפַת כָּל־הָאָרֶץ וּמִשָּׁם הֱפִיצָם יְהוָה עַל־פְּנֵי כָּל־הָאָרֶץ
Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because HaShem did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did HaShem scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Διὰ τοῦτο ἐκλήθη τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῆς, Σύγχυσις, ὅτι ἐκεῖ συνέχεε Κύριος τὰ χείλη πάσης τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐκεῖθεν διέσπειρεν αὐτοὺς Κύριος ἐπὶ πρόσωπον πάσης τῆς γῆς.
On this account its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the languages of all the earth, and thence the Lord scattered them upon the face of all the earth.
10
אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת שֵׁם שֵׁם בֶּן־מְאַת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־אַרְפַּכְשָׁד שְׁנָתַיִם אַחַר הַמַּבּוּל
These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood.
Καὶ αὗται αἱ γενέσεις Σήμ· καὶ ἦν Σὴμ υἱὸς ἑκατὸν ἐτῶν, ὅτε ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἀρφαξὰδ, δευτέρου ἔτους μετὰ τὸν κατακλυσμόν.
And these [are] the generations of Shem: and Shem was a hundred years old when he begot Arpachshad, the second year after the flood.
11
ו͏ַיְחִי־שֵׁם א͏ַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־אַרְפַּכְשָׁד חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Shem lived after he begot Arpachshad five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Σὴμ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ἀρφαξὰδ, ἔτη πεντακόσια, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Shem lived, after he had begotten Arpachshad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
12
וְאַרְפַּכְשַׁד חַי חָמֵשׁ וּשְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־שָׁלַח
And Arpachshad lived five and thirty years, and begot Shelah.
Καὶ ἔζησεν Ἀρφαξὰδ ἑκατὸν τριακονταπέντε ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Καϊνᾶν.
And Arpachshad lived a hundred and thirty-five years, and begot Cainan.
13
ו͏ַיְחִי אַרְפַּכְשַׁד א͏ַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־שֶׁלַח שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Arpachshad lived after he begot Shelah four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησεν Ἀρφαξὰδ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Καϊνᾶν, ἔτη τετρακόσια, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε. Καὶ ἔζησε Καϊνᾶν ἑκατὸν καὶ τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Σαλά· καὶ ἔξησε Καϊνᾶν, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Σαλὰ, ἔτη τριακόσια τριάκοντα, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Arpachshad lived after he had begotten Cainan, four hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died. And Cainan lived a hundred and thirty years and begot Shelah; and Cainan lived after he had begotten Shelah, three hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
14
וְשֶׁלַח חַי שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־עֵבֶר
And Shelah lived thirty years, and begot Eber.
Καὶ ἔζησε Σαλὰ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἕβερ.
And Shelah lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot Eber.
15
ו͏ַיְחִי־שֶׁלַח אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־עֵבֶר שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Shelah lived after he begot Eber four hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Σαλὰ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ἕβερ, τριακόσια τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας· καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Shelah lived after he had begotten Eber, three hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
16
וַיְחִי־עֵבֶר אַרְבַּע וּשְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־פָּלֶג
And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begot Peleg.
Καὶ ἔζησεν Ἕβερ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα τέσσαρα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Φαλέγ.
And Eber lived a hundred and thirty-four years, and begot Peleg.
17
וַיְחִי־עֵבֶר אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־פֶּלֶג שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Eber lived after he begot Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔξησεν Ἕβερ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Φαλὲγ, ἔτη διακόσια ἑβδομήκοντα, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Eber lived after he had begotten Peleg two hundred and seventy years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
18
ו͏ַיְחִי־פֶלֶג שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־רְעוּ
And Peleg lived thirty years, and begot Reu.
Καὶ ἔζησε Φαλὲγ τριάκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ῥαγαῦ.
And Peleg lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot Reu.
19
ו͏ַיְחִי־פֶלֶג אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־רְעוּ תֵּשַׁע שָׁנִים וּמָאתַיִם שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Peleg lived after he begot Reu two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Φαλὲγ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ῥαγαῦ, ἐννέα καὶ διακόσια ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς και θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Peleg lived after he had begotten Reu, two hundred and nine years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
20
וַיְחִי רְעוּ שְׁתַּיִם וּשְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־שְׂרוּג
And Reu lived two and thirty years, and begot Serug.
Καὶ ἔζησε Ῥαγαὺ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα καὶ δύο ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Σερούχ.
And Reu lived a hundred thirty and two years, and begot Serug.
21
וַיְחִי רְעוּ אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־שְׂרוּג שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים וּמָאתַיִם שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Reu lived after he begot Serug two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Ῥαγαῦ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Σεροὺχ, διακόσια ἑπτὰ ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Reu lived after he had begotten Serug, two hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
22
וַיְחִי שְׂרוּג שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־נָחוֹר
And Serug lived thirty years, and begot Nahor.
Καὶ ἔζησε Σεροὺχ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ναχώρ.
And Serug lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot Nahor.
23
וַיְחִי שְׂרוּג אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־נָחוֹר מָאתַיִם שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Serug lived after he begot Nahor two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Σεροὺχ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Ναχὼρ, ἔτη διακόσια, καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Serug lived after he had begotten Nahor, two hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.
24
וַיְחִי נָחוֹר תֵּשַׁע וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־תָּרַח
And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begot Terah.
Καὶ ἔζησε Ναχὼρ ἔτη ἑκατὸν ἑβδομηκονταεννέα, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Θάῤῥα.
And Nahor lived a hundred and seventy-nine years, and begot Terah.
25
וַיְחִי נָחוֹר אַחֲרֵי הוֹלִידוֹ אֶת־תֶּרַח תְּשַׁע־עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה וּמְאַת שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד בָּנִים וּבָנוֹת
And Nahor lived after he begot Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and begot sons and daughters.
Καὶ ἔζησε Ναχὼρ, μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Θάῤῥα, ἔτη ἑκατὸν εἰκοσιπὲντε, καὶ ἐγεννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας, καὶ ἀπέθανε.
And Nahor lived after he had begotten Terah, a hundred and twenty-five years, and begot sons and daughters, and he died.
26
ו͏ַיְחִי־תֶרַח שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה וַיּוֹלֶד אֶת־אַבְרָם אֶת־נָחוֹר וְאֶת־הָרָן
And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Καὶ ἔζησε Θάῤῥα ἑβδομήκοντα ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἄβραμ, καὶ τὸν Ναχὼρ, καὶ τὸν Ἀῤῥάν.
And Terah lived seventy years, and begot Abram, and Nahor, and Haran.
27
וְאֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת תֶּרַח תֶּרַח הוֹלִיד אֶת־אַבְרָם אֶת־נָחוֹר וְאֶת־הָרָן וְהָרָן הוֹלִיד אֶת־לוֹט
Now these are the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.
Αὗται δὲ αἱ γενέσεις Θάῤῥα· Θάῤῥα ἐγέννησε τὸν Ἅβραμ, καὶ τὸν Ναχὼρ, καὶ τὸν Ἀῤῥάν· καὶ Ἀῤῥὰν ἐγέννησε τὸν Λώτ.
And these [are] the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram and Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begot Lot.
28
וַיָּמָת הָרָן עַל־פְּנֵי תֶּרַח אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ מוֹלַדְתּוֹ בְּאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים
And Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.
Καὶ ἀπέθανεν Ἀῤῥὰν ἐνώπιον Θάῤῥα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ γῇ ᾗ ἐγενήθη, ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ τῶν Χαλδαίων.
And Haran died in the presence of Terah his father, in the land in which he was born, in the country of the Chaldees.
29
וַיִּקַּח אַבְרָם וְנָחוֹר לָהֶם נָשִׁים שֵׁם אֵשֶׁת־אַבְרָם שָׂרָי וְשֵׁם אֵשֶׁת־נָחוֹר מִלְכָּה בַּת־הָרָן אֲבִי־מִלְכָּה ו͏ַאֲבִי יִסְכָּה
And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.
Καὶ ἔλαβον Ἅβραμ καὶ Ναχὼρ ἑαυτοῖς γυναῖκας· ὄνομα τῇ γυναικὶ Ἅβραμ, Σάρα, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ γυναικὶ Ναχὼρ, Μελχά, θυγάτηρ Ἀῤῥάν· καὶ πατὴρ Μελχὰ, καὶ πατὴρ Ἰεσχά.
And Abram and Nahor took to themselves wives, the name of the wife of Abram was Sarai, and the name of the wife of Nahor, Milcah, daughter of Haran, and he was the father of Milcah, the father of Iscah.
30
וַתְּהִי שָׂרַי עֲקָרָה אֵין לָהּ וָלָד
And Sarai was barren; she had no child.
Καὶ ἦν Σάρα στεῖρα, καὶ οὐκ ἐτεκνοποίει.
And Sarai was barren, and did not bear children.
31
וַיִּקַּח תֶּרַח אֶת־אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וְאֶת־לוֹט בֶּן־הָרָן בֶּן־בְּנוֹ וְאֵת שָׂרַי כַּלָּתוֹ אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם בְּנוֹ וַיֵּצְאוּ אִתָּם מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים לָלֶכֶת אַרְצָה כְּנַעַן וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד־חָרָן וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Καὶ ἔλαβε Θάῤῥα τὸν Ἅβραμ υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸν Λὼτ υἱὸν Ἀῤῥάν, υἱὸν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὴν Σάραν τὴν νύμφην αὐτοῦ, γυναῖκα Ἅβραμ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξήγαγεν αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῆς χώρας τῶν Χαλδαίων, πορευθῆναι εἰς γῆν Χαναάν· καὶ ἦλθον ἕως Χαῤῥὰν, καὶ κατῴκησεν ἐκεῖ.
And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, the son of his son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and led them forth out of the land of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan, and they came as far as Haran, and he dwelt there.
32
וַיִּהְיוּ יְמֵי־תֶרַח חָמֵשׁ שָׁנִים וּמָאתַיִם שָׁנָה וַיָּמָת תֶּרַח בְּחָרָן
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.
Καὶ ἐγένοντο πᾶσαι αἱ ἡμέραι Θάῤῥα ἐν γῇ Χαῤῥὰν, διακόσια πέντε ἔτη· καὶ ἀπέθανε Θάῤῥα ἐν Χαῤῥάν.
And all the days of Terah in the land of Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.

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.