Textorah

Isaiah 51

1
שִׁמְעוּ אֵלַי רֹדְפֵי צֶדֶק מְבַקְשֵׁי יְהוָה הַבִּיטוּ אֶל־צוּר חֻצַּבְתֶּם וְאֶל־מַקֶּבֶת בּוֹר נֻקַּרְתֶּם
Hearken to Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek HaShem; look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged.
Ἀκούσατε μου οἱ διώκοντες τὸ δίκαιον, καὶ ζητοῦντες τὸν Κύριον, ἐμβλέψατε εἰς τὴν στερεὰν πέτραν, ἣν ἐλατομήσατε, καὶ εἰς τὸν βόθυνον τοῦ λάκκου, ὃν ὠρύξατε.
Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which ye have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which ye have dug.
2
הַבִּיטוּ אֶל־אַבְרָהָם אֲבִיכֶם וְאֶל־שָׂרָה תְּחוֹלֶלְכֶם כִּי־אֶחָד קְרָאתִיו וַאֲבָרְכֵהוּ וְאַרְבֵּהוּ
Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.
Ἐμβλέψατε εἰς Ἁβραὰμ τὸν πατέρα ὑμῶν, καὶ εἰς Σάῤῥαν τὴν ὠδίνουσαν ὑμᾶς· ὅτι εἷς ἦν, καὶ ἐκάλεσα αὐτὸν, καὶ εὐλόγησα αὐτὸν, καὶ ἠγάπησα αὐτὸν, καὶ ἐπλήθυνα αὐτόν.
Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him.
3
כִּי־נִחַם יְהוָה צִיּוֹן נִחַם כָּל־חָרְבֹתֶיהָ וַיָּשֶׂם מִדְבָּרָהּ כְּעֵדֶן וְעַרְבָתָהּ כְּגַן־יְהוָה שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה יִמָּצֵא בָהּ תּוֹדָה וְקוֹל זִמְרָה
For HaShem hath comforted Zion; He hath comforted all her waste places, and hath made her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of HaShem; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Καὶ σὲ νῦν παρακαλέσω, Σιὼν, καὶ παρεκάλεσα πάντα τὰ ἔρημα αὐτῆς, καὶ θήσω τὰ ἔρημα αὐτῆς ὡς παράδεισον, καὶ τὰ πρὸς δυσμὰς αὐτῆς ὡς παράδεισον Κυρίου· εὐφροσύνην καὶ ἀγαλλίαμα εὑρήσουσιν ἐν αὐτῇ, ἐξομολόγησιν καὶ φωνὴν αἰνέσεως.
And now I will comfort thee, O Zion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as a garden, and her western places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.
4
הַקְשִׁיבוּ אֵלַי עַמִּי וּלְאוּמִּי אֵלַי הַאֲזִינוּ כִּי תוֹרָה מֵאִתִּי תֵצֵא וּמִשְׁפָּטִי לְאוֹר עַמִּים אַרְגִּיעַ
Attend unto Me, O My people, and give ear unto Me, O My nation; for instruction shall go forth from Me, and My right on a sudden for a light of the peoples.
Ἀκούσατέ μου, ἀκούσατέ μου λαός μου, καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς πρὸς μὲ ἐνωτίσασθε, ὅτι νόμος παρʼ ἐμοῦ ἐξελεύσεται, καὶ ἡ κρίσις μου εἰς φῶς ἐθνῶν.
Hear me, hear me, my people; and ye kings, hearken to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment [shall be] for a light of the nations.
5
קָרוֹב צִדְקִי יָצָא יִשְׁעִי וּזְרֹעַי עַמִּים יִשְׁפֹּטוּ אֵלַי אִיִּים יְקַוּוּ וְאֶל־זְרֹעִי יְיַחֵלוּן
My favour is near, My salvation is gone forth, and Mine arms shall judge the peoples; the isles shall wait for Me, and on Mine arm shall they trust.
Ἐγγίζει ταχὺ ἡ δικαιοσύνη μου, καὶ ἐξελεύσεται ὡς φῶς τὸ σωτήριόν μου, καὶ εἰς τὸν βραχίονά μου ἔθνη ἐλπιοῦσιν· ἐμὲ νῆσοι ὑπομενοῦσι, καὶ εἰς τὸν βραχίονά μου ἐλπιοῦσιν.
My righteousness speedily draws nigh, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and on mine arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
6
שְׂאוּ לַשָּׁמַיִם עֵינֵיכֶם וְהַבִּיטוּ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ מִתַּחַת כִּי־שָׁמַיִם כֶּעָשָׁן נִמְלָחוּ וְהָאָרֶץ כַּבֶּגֶד תִּבְלֶה וְיֹשְׁבֶיהָ כְּמוֹ־כֵן יְמוּתוּן וִישׁוּעָתִי לְעוֹלָם תִּהְיֶה וְצִדְקָתִי לֹא תֵחָת
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but My salvation shall be for ever, and My favour shall not be abolished.
Ἄρατε εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ὑμῶν, καὶ ἐμβλέψατε εἰς τὴν γῆν κάτω· ὅτι ὁ οὐρανὸς ὡς καπνὸς ἐστερεώθη, ἡ δὲ γῆ ὡς ἱμάτιον παλαιωθήσεται, οἱ δὲ κατοικοῦντες ὥσπερ ταῦτα ἀποθανοῦνται, τὸ δὲ σωτήριόν μου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ἔσται, ἡ δὲ δικαιοσύνη μου οὐ μὴ ἐκλίπῃ.
Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness shall not fail.
7
שִׁמְעוּ אֵלַי יֹדְעֵי צֶדֶק עַם תּוֹרָתִי בְלִבָּם אַל־תִּירְאוּ חֶרְפַּת אֱנוֹשׁ וּמִגִּדֻּפֹתָם אַל־תֵּחָתּוּ
Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law; fear ye not the taunt of men, neither be ye dismayed at their revilings.
Ἀκούσατέ μου οἱ εἰδότες κρίσιν, λαὸς οὗ ὁ νόμος μου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν· μὴ φοβεῖσθε ὀνειδισμὸν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ τῷ φαυλισμῷ αὐτῶν μὴ ἡττᾶσθε·
Hear me, ye that know judgment, the people in whose heart is my law: fear not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their contempt.
8
כִּי כַבֶּגֶד יֹאכְלֵם עָשׁ וְכַצֶּמֶר יֹאכְלֵם סָס וְצִדְקָתִי לְעוֹלָם תִּהְיֶה וִישׁוּעָתִי לְדוֹר דּוֹרִים
For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but My favour shall be for ever, and My salvation unto all generations.
Ὡς γὰρ ἱμάτιον βρωθήσεται ὑπὸ χρόνου, καὶ ὡς ἔρια βρωθήσεται ὑπὸ σητός· ἡ δὲ δικαιοσύνη μου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ἔσται, τὸ δὲ σωτήριόν μου εἰς γενεὰς γενεῶν.
For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth, [so shall they be consumed]; but my righteousness shall be forever, and my salvation for all generations.
9
עוּרִי עוּרִי לִבְשִׁי־עֹז זְרוֹעַ יְהוָה עוּרִי כִּימֵי קֶדֶם דֹּרוֹת עוֹלָמִים הֲלוֹא אַתְּ־הִיא הַמַּחְצֶבֶת רַהַב מְחוֹלֶלֶת תַּנִּין
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of HaShem; awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Art thou not it that hewed Rahab in pieces, that pierced the dragon?
Ἐξεγείρου ἐξεγείρου Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ἔνδυσαι τὴν ἰσχὺν τοῦ βραχίονός σου, ἐξεγείρου ὡς ἐν ἀρχῇ ἡμέρας, ὡς γενεὰ αἰῶνος.
Awake, awake, O Jerusalem, and put on the strength of thine arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation.
10
הֲלוֹא אַתְּ־הִיא הַמַּחֲרֶבֶת יָם מֵי תְּהוֹם רַבָּה הַשָּׂמָה מַעֲמַקֵּי־יָם דֶּרֶךְ לַעֲבֹר גְּאוּלִים
Art thou not it that dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
Οὐ σὺ εἶ ἡ ἐρημοῦσα θάλασσαν, ὕδωρ ἀβύσσου πλῆθος; ἡ θεῖσα τὰ βάθη τῆς θαλάσσης ὁδὸν διαβάσεως ῥυομένοις καὶ λελυτρωμένοις;
Art thou not it that dried the sea, the water, [even] the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered and redeemed?
11
וּפְדוּיֵי יְהוָה יְשׁוּבוּן וּבָאוּ צִיּוֹן בְּרִנָּה וְשִׂמְחַת עוֹלָם עַל־רֹאשָׁם שָׂשׂוֹן וְשִׂמְחָה יַשִּׂיגוּן נָסוּ יָגוֹן וַאֲנָחָה
And the ransomed of HaShem shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
ὑπὸ γὰρ Κυρίου ἀποστραφήσονται, καὶ ἥξουσιν εἰς Σιὼν μετʼ εὐφροσύνης καὶ ἀγαλλιάματος αἰωνίου· ἐπὶ κεφαλῆς γὰρ αὐτῶν αἴνεσις καὶ εὐφροσύνη καταλήμψεται αὐτούς· ἀπέδρα ὀδύνη καὶ λύπη καὶ στεναγμός.
for by [the help of] the Lord they shall return, and come to Zion with joy and everlasting exultation, for praise and joy shall come upon their head: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.
12
אָנֹכִי אָנֹכִי הוּא מְנַחֶמְכֶם מִי־אַתְּ וַתִּירְאִי מֵאֱנוֹשׁ יָמוּת וּמִבֶּן־אָדָם חָצִיר יִנָּתֵן
I, even I, am He that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou art afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass;
Ἐγώ εἰμι, ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ παρακαλῶν σε· γνῶθι τίς οὖσα ἐφοβήθης ἀπὸ ἀνθρώπου θνητοῦ, καὶ ἀπὸ υἱοῦ ἀνθρώπου, οἳ ὡσεὶ χόρτος ἐξηράνθησαν.
I, [even] I, am he that comforts thee: consider who thou art, that thou wast afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass.
13
וַתִּשְׁכַּח יְהוָה עֹשֶׂךָ נוֹטֶה שָׁמַיִם וְיֹסֵד אָרֶץ וַתְּפַחֵד תָּמִיד כָּל־הַיּוֹם מִפְּנֵי חֲמַת הַמֵּצִיק כַּאֲשֶׁר כּוֹנֵן לְהַשְׁחִית וְאַיֵּה חֲמַת הַמֵּצִיק
And hast forgotten HaShem thy Maker, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fearest continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, as he maketh ready to destroy? And where is the fury of the oppressor?
Καὶ ἐπελάθου Θεὸν τὸν ποιήσαντά σε, τὸν ποιήσαντα τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ θεμελιώσαντα τὴν γῆν· καὶ ἐφόβου ἀεὶ πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ θυμοῦ τοῦ θλίβοντός σε· ὃν τρόπον γὰρ ἐβουλεύσατο τοῦ ἆραί σε, καὶ νῦν ποῦ ὁ θυμὸς τοῦ θλίβοντός σε;
And thou hast forgotten God who made thee, who made the sky and founded the earth; and thou wert continually afraid because of the wrath of him that afflicted thee: for [whereas] he counseled to take thee away, yet now where is the wrath of him that afflicted thee?
14
מִהַר צֹעֶה לְהִפָּתֵחַ וְלֹא־יָמוּת לַשַּׁחַת וְלֹא יֶחְסַר לַחְמוֹ
He that is bent down shall speedily be loosed; and he shall not go down dying into the pit, neither shall his bread fail.
Ἐν γὰρ τῷ σώζεσθαί σε οὐ στήσεται, οὐδὲ χρονιεῖ,
For in thy deliverance he shall not halt, nor tarry;
15
וְאָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ רֹגַע הַיָּם וַיֶּהֱמוּ גַּלָּיו יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת שְׁמוֹ
For I am HaShem thy G-d, who stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar; HaShem of hosts is His name.
ὅτι ἐγὼ ὁ Θεός σου, ὁ ταράσσων τὴν θάλασσαν, καὶ ἠχῶν τὰ κύματα αὐτῆς· Κύριος σαβαὼθ ὄνομά μοι.
for I am thy God, that troubles the sea, and causes the waves thereof to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name.
16
וָאָשִׂים דְּבָרַי בְּפִיךָ וּבְצֵל יָדִי כִּסִּיתִיךָ לִנְטֹעַ שָׁמַיִם וְלִיסֹד אָרֶץ וְלֵאמֹר לְצִיּוֹן עַמִּי־אָתָּה
And I have put My words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of My hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion: 'Thou art My people.'
Θήσω τοὺς λόγους μου εἰς τὸ στόμα σου, καὶ ὑπὸ τὴν σκιὰν τῆς χειρός μου σκεπάσω σε, ἐν ᾗ ἔστησα τὸν οὐρανὸν, καὶ ἐθεμελίωσα τὴν γῆν· καὶ ἐρεῖ Σιὼν, λαός μου εἶ σύ.
I will put my words into thy mouth, and I will shelter thee under the shadow of my hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and [the Lord] shall say to Zion, Thou art my people.
17
הִתְעוֹרְרִי הִתְעוֹרְרִי קוּמִי יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֲשֶׁר שָׁתִית מִיַּד יְהוָה אֶת־כּוֹס חֲמָתוֹ אֶת־קֻבַּעַת כּוֹס הַתַּרְעֵלָה שָׁתִית מָצִית
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of HaShem the cup of His fury; thou hast drunken the beaker, even the cup of staggering, and drained it.
Ἐξεγείρου ἐξεγείρου, ἀνάστηθι Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ἡ πιοῦσα ἐκ χειρὸς Κυρίου τὸ ποτήριον τοῦ θυμοῦ αὐτοῦ· τὸ ποτήριον γὰρ τῆς πτώσεως, τὸ κόνδυ τοῦ θυμοῦ ἐξέπιες καὶ ἐξεκένωσας,
Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for thou hast drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of wrath:
18
אֵין־מְנַהֵל לָהּ מִכָּל־בָּנִים יָלָדָה וְאֵין מַחֲזִיק בְּיָדָהּ מִכָּל־בָּנִים גִּדֵּלָה
There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the sons that she hath brought up.
καὶ οὐκ ἦν ὁ παρακαλῶν σε ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν τέκνων σου ὧν ἔτεκες, καὶ οὐκ ἦν ὁ ἀντιλαμβανόμενος τῆς χειρός σου, οὐδὲ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν υἱῶν σου ὧν ὕψωσας.
and there was none to comfort thee of all the children whom thou borest; and there was none to take hold of thy hand, not even of all the children whom thou hast reared.
19
שְׁתַּיִם הֵנָּה קֹרְאֹתַיִךְ מִי יָנוּד לָךְ הַשֹּׁד וְהַשֶּׁבֶר וְהָרָעָב וְהַחֶרֶב מִי אֲנַחֲמֵךְ
These two things are befallen thee; who shall bemoan thee? desolation and destruction, and the famine and the sword; how shall I comfort thee?
Διὸ ταῦτα ἀντικείμενά σοι, τίς συλλυπηθήσεταί σοι; πτῶμα καὶ σύντριμμα, λιμὸς καὶ μάχαιρα, τίς παρακαλέσει σε;
Wherefore these things are against thee; who shall sympathize with thee in thy grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort thee?
20
בָּנַיִךְ עֻלְּפוּ שָׁכְבוּ בְּרֹאשׁ כָּל־חוּצוֹת כְּתוֹא מִכְמָר הַמְלֵאִים חֲמַת־יְהוָה גַּעֲרַת אֱלֹהָיִךְ
Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as an antelope in a net; they are full of the fury of HaShem, the rebuke of thy G-d.
Οἱ υἱοί σου οἱ ἀπορούμενοι, οἱ καθεύδοντες ἐπʼ ἄκρου πάσης ἐξόδου ὡς σευτλίον ἡμίεφθον, οἱ πλήρεις θυμοῦ Κυρίου, ἐκλελυμένοι διὰ Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ.
Thy sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God.
21
לָכֵן שִׁמְעִי־נָא זֹאת עֲנִיָּה וּשְׁכֻרַת וְלֹא מִיָּיִן
Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine;
Διατοῦτο ἄκουε τεταπεινωμένη, καὶ μεθύουσα οὐκ ἀπὸ οἴνου.
Therefore hear, thou afflicted one, and drunken, [but] not with wine;
22
כֹּה־אָמַר אֲדֹנַיִךְ יְהוָה וֵאלֹהַיִךְ יָרִיב עַמּוֹ הִנֵּה לָקַחְתִּי מִיָּדֵךְ אֶת־כּוֹס הַתַּרְעֵלָה אֶת־קֻבַּעַת כּוֹס חֲמָתִי לֹא־תוֹסִיפִי לִשְׁתּוֹתָהּ עוֹד
Thus saith thy L-rd HaShem, and thy G-d that pleadeth the cause of His people: behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of staggering; the beaker, even the cup of My fury, thou shalt no more drink it again;
Οὕτως λέγει Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς ὁ κρίνων τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ, ἰδοὺ εἴληφα ἐκ τῆς χειρός σου τὸ ποτήριον τῆς πτώσεως, τὸ κόνδυ τοῦ θυμοῦ μου, καὶ οὐ προσθήσῃ ἔτι πιεῖν αὐτό·
thus saith the Lord God that judges his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my wrath; and thou shalt not drink it anymore.
23
וְשַׂמְתִּיהָ בְּיַד־מוֹגַיִךְ אֲשֶׁר־אָמְרוּ לְנַפְשֵׁךְ שְׁחִי וְנַעֲבֹרָה וַתָּשִׂימִי כָאָרֶץ גֵּוֵךְ וְכַחוּץ לַעֹבְרִים
And I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; that have said to thy soul: 'Bow down, that we may go over'; and thou hast laid thy back as the ground, and as the street, to them that go over.
καὶ δώσω αὐτὸ εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τῶν ἀδικησάντων σε καὶ τῶν ταπεινωσάντων σε, οἳ εἶπαν τῇ ψυχῇ σου, κύψον, ἵνα παρέλθωμεν· καὶ ἔθηκας ἴσα τῇ γῇ τὰ μέσα σου ἔξω τοῖς παραπορευομένοις.
And I will give it into the hands of them that injured thee, and them that afflicted thee; who said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and thou didst level thy body with the ground to them passing by without.

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.