Textorah

Genesis 6

1
וַיְהִי כִּי־הֵחֵל ה͏ָאָדָם לָרֹב עַל־פְּנֵי ה͏ָאֲדָמָה וּבָנוֹת יֻלְּדוּ לָהֶם
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἡνίκα ἤρξαντο οἱ ἄνθρωποι πολλοὶ γίνεσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ θυγατέρες ἐγεννήθησαν αὐτοῖς.
And it came to pass when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them,
2
וַיִּרְאוּ בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּנוֹת הָאָדָם כִּי טֹבֹת הֵנָּה וַיִּקְחוּ לָהֶם נָשִׁים מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר בָּחָרוּ
that the sons of G-d saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.
Ἰδόντες δὲ υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ τὰς θυγατέρας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅτι καλαί εἰσιν, ἔλαβον ἑαυτοῖς γυναῖκας ἀπὸ πασῶν, ὧν ἐξελέξαντο.
that the sons of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose.
3
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה לֹא־יָדוֹן רוּחִי בָאָדָם לְעֹלָם בְּשַׁגַּם הוּא בָשָׂר וְהָיוּ יָמָיו מֵאָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה
And HaShem said: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.'
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, οὐ μὴ καταμείνῃ τὸ πνεῦμά μου ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τούτοις εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτοὺς σάρκας· ἔσονται δὲ αἱ ἡμέραι αὐτῶν, ἑκατὸν εἴκοσιν ἔτη.
And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men forever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be a hundred and twenty years.
4
הַנְּפִלִים הָיוּ בָאָרֶץ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וְגַם אַחֲרֵי־כֵן אֲשֶׁר יָבֹאוּ בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים אֶל־בְּנוֹת ה͏ָאָדָם וְיָלְדוּ לָהֶם הֵמָּה הַגִּבֹּרִים אֲשֶׁר מֵעוֹלָם אַנְשֵׁי הַשֵּׁם
The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of G-d came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
Οἱ δὲ γίγαντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, καὶ μετʼ ἐκεῖνο, ὡς ἂν εἰσεπορεύοντο οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ πρὸς τὰς θυγατέρας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ ἐγεννῶσαν αὐτοῖς· ἐκεῖνοι ἦσαν οἱ γίγαντες οἱ ἀπʼ αἰῶνος, οἱ ἄνθρωποι οἱ ὀνομαστοί.
Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore [children] to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown.
5
וַיַּרְא יְהוָה כִּי רַבָּה רָעַת הָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וְכָל־יֵצֶר מַחְשְׁבֹת לִבּוֹ רַק רַע כָּל־הַיּוֹם
And HaShem saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Ἰδὼν δὲ Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, ὅτι ἐπληθύνθησαν αἱ κακίαι τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ πᾶς τις διανοεῖται ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ ἐπιμελῶς ἐπὶ τὰ πονηρὰ πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας·
And the Lord God having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually,
6
וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה כִּי־עָשָׂה אֶת־ה͏ָאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּב אֶל־לִבּוֹ
And it repented HaShem that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.
Καὶ ἐνεθυμήθη ὁ Θεὸς, ὅτι ἐποίησε τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ διενοήθη.
then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered [it] deeply.
7
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶמְחֶה אֶת־הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָאתִי מֵעַל פְּנֵי ה͏ָאֲדָמָה מ͏ֵאָדָם עַד־בְּהֵמָה עַד־רֶמֶשׂ וְעַד־עוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם כִּי נִחַמְתִּי כִּי עֲשִׂיתִם
And HaShem said: 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.'
Καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Θεὸς, ἀπαλείψω τὸν ἄνθρωπον, ὃν ἐποίησα, ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γῆς, ἀπὸ ἀνθρώπου ἕως κτήνους, καὶ ἀπὸ ἑρπετῶν ἕως πετεινῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· ὅτι ἐνεθυμήθην, ὅτι ἐποίησα αὐτούς.
And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am grieved that I have made them.
8
וְנֹחַ מָצָא חֵן בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה
But Noah found grace in the eyes of HaShem.
Νῶε δὲ εὗρε χάριν ἐναντίον Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ.
But Noah found grace before the Lord God.
9
אֵלֶּה תּוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק תָּמִים הָיָה בְּדֹרֹתָיו אֶת־ה͏ָאֱלֹהִים הִתְהַלֶּךְ־נֹחַ
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was in his generations a man righteous and wholehearted; Noah walked with G-d.
Αὗται δὲ αἱ γενέσεις Νῶε. Νῶε ἄνθρωπος δίκαιος, τέλειος ὢν ἐν τῇ γενεᾷ αὐτοῦ, τῷ Θεῷ εὐηρέστησε Νῶε.
And these [are] the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man; being perfect in his generation, Noah was well-pleasing to God.
10
וַיּוֹלֶד נֹחַ שְׁלֹשָׁה בָנִים אֶת־שֵׁם אֶת־חָם וְאֶת־יָפֶת
And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Ἐγέννησε δὲ Νῶε τρεῖς υἱοὺς, τὸν Σὴμ, τὸν Χὰμ, τὸν Ἰάφεθ.
And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth.
11
וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ לִפְנֵי ה͏ָאֱלֹהִים וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס
And the earth was corrupt before G-d, and the earth was filled with violence.
Ἐφθάρη δὲ ἡ γῆ ἐναντίον τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ ἐπλήσθη ἡ γῆ ἀδικίας.
But the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with iniquity.
12
וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְהִנֵּה נִשְׁחָתָה כִּי־הִשְׁחִית כָּל־בָּשָׂר אֶת־דַּרְכּוֹ עַל־הָאָרֶץ
And G-d saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
Καὶ εἶδε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἦν κατεφθαρμένη· ὅτι κατέφθειρε πᾶσα σὰρξ τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
And the Lord God saw the earth, and it was corrupted; because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.
13
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים לְנֹחַ קֵץ כָּל־בָּשָׂר בָּא לְפָנַי כִּי־מָלְאָה הָאָרֶץ חָמָס מִפְּנֵיהֶם וְהִנְנִי מַשְׁחִיתָם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ
And G-d said unto Noah: 'The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τῷ Νῶε, καιρὸς παντὸς ἀνθρώπου ἥκει ἐναντίον μου, ὅτι ἐπλήσθη ἡ γῆ ἀδικίας ἀπʼ αὐτῶν· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ καταφθείρω αὐτοὺς καὶ τὴν γῆν.
And the Lord God said to Noah, A period of all men is come before me; because the earth has been filled with iniquity by them, and, behold, I destroy them and the earth.
14
עֲשֵׂה לְךָ תֵּבַת עֲצֵי־גֹפֶר קִנִּים תּ͏ַעֲשֶׂה אֶת־הַתֵּבָה וְכָפַרְתָּ אֹתָהּ מִבַּיִת וּמִחוּץ בַּכֹּפֶר
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; with rooms shalt thou make the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
Ποίησον οὖν σεαυτῷ κιβωτὸν ἐκ ξύλων τετραγώνων· νοσσιὰς ποιήσεις τὴν κιβωτόν· καὶ ἀσφαλτώσεις αὐτὴν ἔσωθεν καὶ ἔξωθεν τῇ ἀσφάλτῳ.
Make therefore for thyself an ark of square timber; thou shalt make the ark in compartments, and thou shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15
וְזֶה אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשֶׂה אֹתָהּ שְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת אַמָּה אֹרֶךְ הַתֵּבָה חֲמִשִּׁים אַמָּה רָחְבָּהּ וּשְׁלֹשִׁים אַמָּה קוֹמָתָהּ
And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
Καὶ οὕτω ποιήσεις τὴν κιβωτόν· τριακοσίων πήχεων τὸ μῆκος τῆς κιβωτοῦ, καὶ πεντήκοντα πήχεων τὸ πλάτος, καὶ τριάκοντα πήχεων τὸ ὕψος αὐτῆς.
And thus shalt thou make the ark; three hundred cubits the length of the ark, and fifty cubits the breadth, and thirty cubits the height of it.
16
צֹהַר תּ͏ַעֲשֶׂה לַתֵּבָה וְאֶל־אַמָּה תְּכַלֶנָּה מִלְמַעְלָה וּפֶתַח הַתֵּבָה בְּצִדָּהּ תָּשִׂים תַּחְתִּיִּם שְׁנִיִּם וּשְׁלִשִׁים תּ͏ַעֲשֶׂהָ
A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
Ἐπισυνάγων ποιήσεις τὴν κιβωτὸν, καὶ εἰς πῆχυν συντελέσεις αὐτὴν ἄνωθεν· τὴν δὲ θύραν τῆς κιβωτοῦ ποιήσεις ἐκ πλαγίων· κατάγαια διώροφα καὶ τριώροφα ποιήσεις αὐτήν.
Thou shalt narrow the ark in making it, and in a cubit above thou shalt finish it, and the door of the ark thou shalt make on the side; with lower, second, and third stories thou shalt make it.
17
וַאֲנִי הִנְנִי מֵבִיא אֶת־הַמַּבּוּל מַיִם עַל־הָאָרֶץ לְשַׁחֵת כָּל־בָּשָׂר אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ רוּחַ חַיִּים מִתַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־בָּאָרֶץ יִגְוָע
And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish.
Ἐγὼ δὲ ἰδοὺ ἐπάγω τὸν κατακλυσμὸν, ὕδωρ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, καταφθεῖραι πᾶσαν σάρκα, ἐν ᾗ ἐστι πνεῦμα ζωῆς ὑποκάτω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· καὶ ὅσα ἂν ᾖ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τελευτήσει.
And behold I bring a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven, and whatsoever things are upon the earth shall die.
18
וַהֲקִמֹתִי אֶת־בְּרִיתִי אִתָּךְ וּבָאתָ אֶל־הַתֵּבָה אַתָּה וּבָנֶיךָ וְאִשְׁתְּךָ וּנְשֵׁי־בָנֶיךָ אִתָּךְ
But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.
Καὶ στήσω τὴν διαθήκην μου μετά σου· εἰσελεύσῃ δὲ εἰς τὴν κιβωτὸν σὺ, καὶ οἱ υἱοί σου, καὶ ἡ γυνή σου, καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τῶν υἱῶν σου μετά σου.
And I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt enter into the ark, and thy sons and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
19
וּמִכָּל־הָחַי מִכָּל־בָּשָׂר שְׁנַיִם מִכֹּל תָּבִיא אֶל־הַתֵּבָה לְהַחֲיֹת אִתָּךְ זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה יִהְיוּ
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν, καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἑρπετῶν, καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν θηρίων, καὶ ἀπὸ πάσης σαρκὸς δύο δύο ἀπὸ πάντων εἰσάξεις εἰς τὴν κιβωτὸν, ἵνα τρέφῃς μετὰ σεαυτοῦ· ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἔσονται.
And of all cattle and of all reptiles and of all wild beasts, even of all flesh, thou shalt bring by pairs of all, into the ark, that thou mayest feed them with thyself: male and female they shall be.
20
מֵהָעוֹף לְמִינֵהוּ וּמִן־הַבְּהֵמָה לְמִינָהּ מִכֹּל רֶמֶשׂ ה͏ָאֲדָמָה לְמִינֵהוּ שְׁנַיִם מִכֹּל יָבֹאוּ אֵלֶיךָ לְה͏ַחֲיוֹת
Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
Ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ὀρνέων τῶν πετεινῶν κατὰ γένος, καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν κατὰ γένος, καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένος αὐτῶν, δύο δύο ἀπὸ πάντων εἰσελεύσονται πρὸς σὲ τρέφεσθαι μετά σου, ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ.
Of all winged birds after their kind, and of all cattle after their kind, and of all reptiles creeping upon the earth after their kind, pairs of all shall come in to thee, male and female to be fed with thee.
21
וְאַתָּה קַח־לְךָ מִכָּל־מ͏ַאֲכָל אֲשֶׁר י͏ֵאָכֵל וְאָסַפְתָּ אֵלֶיךָ וְהָיָה לְךָ וְלָהֶם לְאָכְלָה
And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.'
Σὺ δὲ λήψῃ σεαυτῷ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν βρωμάτων ἃ ἔδεσθε, καὶ συνάξεις πρὸς σεαυτὸν, καὶ ἔσται σοι καὶ ἐκείνοις φαγεῖν.
And thou shalt take to thyself of all kinds of food which ye eat, and thou shalt gather them to thyself, and it shall be for thee and them to eat.
22
וַיַּעַשׂ נֹחַ כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה אֹתוֹ אֱלֹהִים כֵּן עָשָׂה
Thus did Noah; according to all that G-d commanded him, so did he.
Καὶ ἐποίησε Νῶε πάντα ὅσα ἐνετείλατο αὐτῷ Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς, οὕτως ἐποίησε.
And Noah did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him, so did he.

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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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