Textorah

Genesis 8

1
וַיִּזְכֹּר אֱלֹהִים אֶת־נֹחַ וְאֵת כָּל־ה͏ַחַיָּה וְאֶת־כָּל־הַבְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר אִתּוֹ בַּתֵּבָה וַיַּעֲבֵר אֱלֹהִים רוּחַ עַל־הָאָרֶץ וַיָּשֹׁכּוּ הַמָּיִם
And G-d remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and G-d made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
Καὶ ἀνεμνήσθη ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Νῶε, καὶ πάντων τῶν θηρίων, καὶ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν, καὶ πάντων τῶν πετεινῶν, καὶ πάντων τῶν ἑρπετῶν τῶν ἑρπόντων, ὅσα ἦν μετʼ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ κιβωτῷ· καὶ ἐπήγαγεν ὁ Θεὸς πνεῦμα ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, καὶ ἐκόπασε τὸ ὕδωρ.
And God remembered Noah, and all the wild beasts, and all the cattle, and all the birds, and all the reptiles that creep, as many as were with him in the ark, and God brought a wind upon the earth, and the water stayed.
2
וַיִּסָּכְרוּ מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם ו͏ַאֲרֻבֹּת הַשָּׁמָיִם וַיִּכָּלֵא הַגֶּשֶׁם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם
the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
Καὶ ἐπεκαλύφθησαν αἱ πηγαὶ τῆς ἀβύσσου, καὶ οἱ καταῤῥάκται τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ συνεσχέθη ὁ ὑετὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ.
And the fountains of the deep were closed up, and the floodgates of heaven, and the rain from heaven was withheld.
3
וַיָּשֻׁבוּ הַמַּיִם מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ הָלוֹךְ וָשׁוֹב וַיַּחְסְרוּ הַמַּיִם מִקְצֵה חֲמִשִּׁים וּמְאַת יוֹם
And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased.
Καὶ ἐνεδίδου τὸ ὕδωρ πορευόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς· καὶ ἠλαττονοῦτο τὸ ὕδωρ μετὰ πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν ἡμέρας.
And the water subsided, and went off the earth, and after a hundred and fifty days the water was diminished, and the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
4
וַתָּנַח הַתֵּבָה בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בְּשִׁבְעָה־עָשָׂר יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ עַל הָרֵי אֲרָרָט
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5
וְהַמַּיִם הָיוּ הָלוֹךְ וְחָסוֹר עַד הַחֹדֶשׁ ה͏ָעֲשִׂירִי בּ͏ָעֲשִׂירִי בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ נִרְאוּ רָאשֵׁי ה͏ֶהָרִים
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
Καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἡ κιβωτὸς ἐν μηνὶ τῷ ἑβδόμῳ, ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνὸς, ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη τὰ Ἀραράτ.
And the water continued to decrease until the tenth month.
Τὸ δὲ ὕδωρ ἠλαττονοῦτο ἕως τοῦ δεκάτου μηνός. Καὶ ἐν τῷ δεκάτῳ μηνὶ, τῇ πρώτῃ τοῦ μηνὸς, ὤφθησαν αἱ κεφαλαὶ τῶν ὀρέων.
And in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the heads of the mountains were seen.
6
ו͏ַיְהִי מִקֵּץ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם וַיִּפְתַּח נֹחַ אֶת־חַלּוֹן הַתֵּבָה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה
And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
Καὶ ἐγένετο μετὰ τεσσαράκοντα ἡμέρας ἠνέῳξε Νῶε τὴν θυρίδα τῆς κιβωτοῦ, ἣν ἐποίησε.
And it came to pass after forty days Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7
וַיְשַׁלַּח אֶת־ה͏ָעֹרֵב וַיֵּצֵא יָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב עַד־יְבֹשֶׁת הַמַּיִם מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ
And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλε τὸν κόρακα· καὶ ἐξελθὼν, οὐκ ἀνέστρεψεν ἕως τοῦ ξηρανθῆναι τὸ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς.
And he sent forth a raven; and it went forth and returned not until the water was dried from off the earth.
8
וַיְשַׁלַּח אֶת־הַיּוֹנָה מֵאִתּוֹ לִרְאוֹת הֲקַלּוּ הַמַּיִם מֵעַל פְּנֵי ה͏ָאֲדָמָה
And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλε τὴν περιστερὰν ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ, ἰδεῖν εἰ κεκόπακε τὸ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς.
And he sent a dove after it to see if the water had ceased from off the earth.
9
וְלֹא־מָצְאָה הַיּוֹנָה מָנוֹחַ לְכַף־רַגְלָהּ וַתָּשָׁב אֵלָיו אֶל־הַתֵּבָה כִּי־מַיִם עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ וַיִּשְׁלַח יָדוֹ וַיִּקָּחֶהָ וַיָּבֵא אֹתָהּ אֵלָיו אֶל־הַתֵּבָה
But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark.
Καὶ οὐχ εὑροῦσα ἡ περιστερὰ ἀνάπαυσιν τοῖς ποσὶν αὐτῆς, ἀνέστρεψε πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν κιβωτὸν, ὅτι ὕδωρ ἦν ἐπὶ πᾶν τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γῆς· καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἔλαβεν αὐτὴν, καὶ εἰσήγαγεν αὐτὴν πρὸς ἑαυτὸν εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν.
And the dove not having found rest for her feet, returned to him into the ark, because the water was on all the face of the earth, and he stretched out his hand and took her, and brought her to himself into the ark.
10
וַיָּחֶל עוֹד שִׁבְעַת יָמִים אֲחֵרִים וַיֹּסֶף שַׁלַּח אֶת־הַיּוֹנָה מִן־הַתֵּבָה
And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.
Καὶ ἐπισχὼν ἔτι ἡμέρας ἑπτὰ ἑτέρας, πάλιν ἐξαπέστειλε τὴν περιστερὰν ἐκ τῆς κιβωτοῦ.
And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove from the ark.
11
וַתָּבֹא אֵלָיו הַיּוֹנָה לְעֵת עֶרֶב וְהִנֵּה עֲלֵה־זַיִת טָרָף בְּפִיהָ וַיֵּדַע נֹחַ כִּי־קַלּוּ הַמַּיִם מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ
And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
Καὶ ἀνέστρεψε πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ περιστερὰ τὸ πρὸς ἑσπέραν· καὶ εἶχε φύλλον ἐλαίας κάρφος ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῆς· καὶ ἔγνω Νῶε, ὅτι κεκόπακε τὸ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς.
And the dove returned to him in the evening, and had a leaf of olive, a sprig in her mouth; and Noah knew that the water had ceased from off the earth.
12
וַיִּיָּחֶל עוֹד שִׁבְעַת יָמִים אֲחֵרִים וַיְשַׁלַּח אֶת־הַיּוֹנָה וְלֹא־יָסְפָה שׁוּב־אֵלָיו עוֹד
And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more.
Καὶ ἐπισχὼν ἔτι ἡμέρας ἑπτὰ ἑτέρας, πάλιν ἐξαπέστειλε τὴν περιστερὰν, καὶ οὐ προσέθετο τοῦ ἐπιστρέψαι πρὸς αὐτὸν ἔτι.
And having waited yet seven other days, he again sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him again anymore.
13
ו͏ַיְהִי בְּאַחַת וְשֵׁשׁ־מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה בּ͏ָרִאשׁוֹן בְּאֶחָד לַחֹדֶשׁ חָרְבוּ הַמַּיִם מֵעַל הָאָרֶץ וַיָּסַר נֹחַ אֶת־מִכְסֵה הַתֵּבָה וַיַּרְא וְהִנֵּה ח͏ָרְבוּ פְּנֵי ה͏ָאֲדָמָה
And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dried.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἑνὶ καὶ ἑξακοσιοστῷ ἔτει ἐν τῇ ζωῇ τοῦ Νῶε, τοῦ πρώτου μηνὸς, μιᾷ τοῦ μηνὸς, ἐξέλιπε τὸ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς. Καὶ ἀπεκάλυψε Νῶε τὴν στέγην τῆς κιβωτοῦ, ἣν ἐποίησε· καὶ εἶδεν ὅτι ἐξέλιπε τὸ ὕδωρ ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γῆς.
And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year of the life of Noah, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the water subsided from off the earth, and Noah opened the covering of the ark which he had made, and he saw that the water had subsided from the face of the earth.
14
וּבַחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי בְּשִׁבְעָה וְעֶשְׂרִים יוֹם לַחֹדֶשׁ יָבְשָׁה הָאָרֶץ
And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry.
Ἐν δὲ τῷ δευτέρῳ μηνὶ ἐξηράνθη ἡ γῆ, ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνός.
And in the second month the earth was dried, on the twenty-seventh day of the month.
15
וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים אֶל־נֹחַ לֵאמֹר
And G-d spoke unto Noah, saying:
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς πρὸς Νῶε, λέγων,
And the Lord God spoke to Noah, saying,
16
צֵא מִן־הַתֵּבָה אַתָּה וְאִשְׁתְּךָ וּבָנֶיךָ וּנְשֵׁי־בָנֶיךָ אִתָּךְ
'Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.
Ἔξελθε ἐκ τῆς κιβωτοῦ σὺ, καὶ ἡ γυνή σου, καὶ οἱ υἱοί σου, καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τῶν υἱῶν σου μετὰ σοῦ,
Come out from the ark, thou and thy wife and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
17
כָּל־הַחַיָּה אֲשֶׁר־אִתְּךָ מִכָּל־בָּשָׂר בָּעוֹף וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל־הָרֶמֶשׂ הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ הוצא הַיְצֵא אִתָּךְ וְשׁ͏ָרְצוּ בָאָרֶץ וּפָרוּ וְרָבוּ עַל־הָאָרֶץ
Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.'
Καὶ πάντα τὰ θηρία ὅσα ἐστὶ μετὰ σοῦ, καὶ πᾶσα σὰρξ ἀπὸ πετεινῶν ἕως κτηνῶν, καὶ πᾶν ἑρπετὸν κινούμενον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἐξάγαγε μετὰ σεαυτοῦ. καὶ αὐξάνεσθε καὶ πληθύνεσθε ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.
And all the wild beasts as many as are with thee, and all flesh both of birds and beasts, and every reptile moving upon the earth, bring forth with thee: and increase ye and multiply upon the earth.
18
וַיֵּצֵא־נֹחַ וּבָנָיו וְאִשְׁתּוֹ וּנְשֵׁי־בָנָיו אִתּוֹ
And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him;
Καὶ ἐξῆλθε Νῶε, καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ μετʼ αὐτοῦ·
And Noah came forth, and his wife and his sons, and his sons’ wives with him.
19
כָּל־ה͏ַחַיָּה כָּל־הָרֶמֶשׂ וְכָל־הָעוֹף כֹּל רוֹמֵשׂ עַל־הָאָרֶץ לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתֵיהֶם יָצְאוּ מִן־הַתֵּבָה
every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families; went forth out of the ark.
Καὶ πάντα τὰ θηρία, καὶ πάντα τὰ κτήνη, καὶ πᾶν πετεινὸν, καὶ πᾶν ἑρπετὸν κινούμενον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς κατὰ γένος αὐτῶν, ἐξήλθοσαν ἐκ τῆς κιβωτοῦ.
And all the wild beasts and all the cattle and every bird, and every reptile creeping upon the earth after their kind, came forth out of the ark.
20
וַיִּבֶן נֹחַ מִזְבֵּחַ ל͏ַיהוָה וַיִּקַּח מִכֹּל הַבְּהֵמָה הַטְּהוֹרָה וּמִכֹּל הָעוֹף הַטָּהֹר וַיַּעַל עֹלֹת בַּמִּזְבֵּחַ
And Noah builded an altar unto HaShem; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar.
Καὶ ᾠκοδόμησε Νῶε θυσιαστήριον τῷ Κυρίῳ· καὶ ἔλαβεν ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν κτηνῶν τῶν καθαρῶν, καὶ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν πετεινῶν τῶν καθαρῶν, καὶ ἀνήνεγκεν εἰς ὁλοκάρπωσιν ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον.
And Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of all clean beasts, and of all clean birds, and offered a whole burnt offering upon the altar.
21
וַיָּרַח יְהוָה אֶת־רֵיחַ הַנִּיחֹחַ וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־לִבּוֹ לֹא־אֹסִף לְקַלֵּל עוֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה בַּעֲבוּר ה͏ָאָדָם כִּי יֵצֶר לֵב הָאָדָם רַע מִנְּעֻרָיו וְלֹא־אֹסִף עוֹד לְהַכּוֹת אֶת־כָּל־חַי כּ͏ַאֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי
And HaShem smelled the sweet savour; and HaShem said in His heart: 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
Καὶ ὠσφράνθη Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας. Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς διανοηθείς, οὐ προσθήσω ἔτι καταράσασθαι τὴν γῆν διὰ τὰ ἔργα τῶν ἀνθρώπων· ὅτι ἔγκειται ἡ διάνοια τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπιμελῶς ἐπὶ τὰ πονηρὰ ἐκ νεότητος αὐτοῦ· οὐ προσθήσω οὖν ἔτι πατάξαι πᾶσαν σάρκα ζῶσαν, καθὼς ἐποίησα.
And the Lord God smelled a smell of sweetness, and the Lord God having considered, said, I will not anymore curse the earth, because of the works of men, because the imagination of man is intently bent upon evil things from his youth, I will not therefore anymore smite all living flesh as I have done.
22
עֹד כָּל־יְמֵי הָאָרֶץ זֶרַע וְקָצִיר וְקֹר וָחֹם וְקַיִץ וָחֹרֶף וְיוֹם וָלַיְלָה לֹא יִשְׁבֹּתוּ
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'
Πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς γῆς, σπέρμα καὶ θερισμὸς, ψύχος καὶ καῦμα, θέρος καὶ ἔαρ, ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα, οὐ καταπαύσουσι.
All the days of the earth, seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, shall not cease by day or night.

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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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