Textorah

Jeremiah 12

1
צַדִּיק אַתָּה יְהוָה כִּי אָרִיב אֵלֶיךָ אַךְ מִשְׁפָּטִים אֲדַבֵּר אוֹתָךְ מַדּוּעַ דֶּרֶךְ רְשָׁעִים צָלֵחָה שָׁלוּ כָּל־בֹּגְדֵי בָגֶד
Right wouldest Thou be, O HaShem, were I to contend with Thee, yet will I reason with Thee: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they secure that deal very treacherously?
Δίκαιος εἶ Κύριε, ὅτι ἀπολογήσομαι πρὸς σέ· πλὴν κρίματα λαλήσω πρὸς σέ· τί ὅτι ὁδὸς ἀσεβῶν εὐοδοῦται; εὐθήνησαν πάντες οἱ ἀθετοῦντες ἀθετήματα;
Righteous art thou, O Lord, that I may make my defense to thee, yea, I will speak to thee [of] judgments. Why [is it] that the way of ungodly [men] prospers? [that] all that deal very treacherously are flourishing?
2
נְטַעְתָּם גַּם־שֹׁרָשׁוּ יֵלְכוּ גַּם־עָשׂוּ פֶרִי קָרוֹב אַתָּה בְּפִיהֶם וְרָחוֹק מִכִּלְיוֹתֵיהֶם
Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root; they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit; Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
Ἐφύτευσας αὐτοὺς, καὶ ἐῤῥιζώθησαν· ἐτεκνοποιήσαντο, καὶ ἐποίησαν καρπόν· ἐγγὺς εἶ σὺ τοῦ στόματος αὐτῶν, καὶ πόῤῥω ἀπὸ τῶν νεφρῶν αὐτῶν.
Thou hast planted them, and they have taken root; they have begotten children, and become fruitful; thou art near to their mouth, and far from their reins.
3
וְאַתָּה יְהוָה יְדַעְתָּנִי תִּרְאֵנִי וּבָחַנְתָּ לִבִּי אִתָּךְ הַתִּקֵם כְּצֹאן לְטִבְחָה וְהַקְדִּשֵׁם לְיוֹם הֲרֵגָה
But Thou, O HaShem, knowest me, Thou seest me, and triest my heart toward Thee; pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
Καὶ σύ Κύριε γινώσκεις με, δεδοκίμακας τὴν καρδίαν μου ἐναντίον σου· ἅγνισον αὐτοὺς εἰς ἡμέραν σφαγῆς αὐτῶν.
But thou, Lord, knowest me; thou hast proved my heart before thee; purify them for the day of their slaughter.
4
עַד־מָתַי תֶּאֱבַל הָאָרֶץ וְעֵשֶׂב כָּל־הַשָּׂדֶה יִיבָשׁ מֵרָעַת יֹשְׁבֵי־בָהּ סָפְתָה בְהֵמוֹת וָעוֹף כִּי אָמְרוּ לֹא יִרְאֶה אֶת־אַחֲרִיתֵנוּ
How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole field wither? For the wickedness of them that dwell therein, the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said: 'He seeth not our end.'
Ἕως πότε πενθήσει ἡ γῆ, καὶ πᾶς ὁ χόρτος τοῦ ἀγροῦ ξηρανθήσεται ἀπὸ κακίας τῶν κατοικούντων ἐν αὐτῆ; ἠφανίσθησαν κτήνη καὶ πετεινὰ, ὅτι εἶπαν, οὐκ ὄψεται ὁ Θεὸς ὁδοὺς ἡμῶν.
How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of the field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell in it? the beasts and birds are utterly destroyed; because [the people] said, God shall not see our ways.
5
כִּי אֶת־רַגְלִים רַצְתָּה וַיַּלְאוּךָ וְאֵיךְ תְּתַחֲרֶה אֶת־הַסּוּסִים וּבְאֶרֶץ שָׁלוֹם אַתָּה בוֹטֵחַ וְאֵיךְ תַּעֲשֶׂה בִּגְאוֹן הַיַּרְדֵּן
'If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And though in a land of peace thou art secure, yet how wilt thou do in the thickets of the Jordan?
Σοῦ οἱ πόδες τρέχουσι, καὶ ἐκλύουσί σε· πῶς παρασκευάσῃ ἐφʼ ἵπποις; καὶ ἐν γῇ εἰρήνης σου πέποιθας· πῶς ποιήσεις ἐν φρυάγματι τοῦ Ἰορδάνου;
Thy feet run, and they cause thee to faint; how wilt thou prepare [to ride] upon horses? and thou hast been confident in the land of thy peace? how wilt thou do in the roaring of Jordan?
6
כִּי גַם־אַחֶיךָ וּבֵית־אָבִיךָ גַּם־הֵמָּה בָּגְדוּ בָךְ גַּם־הֵמָּה קָרְאוּ אַחֲרֶיךָ מָלֵא אַל־תַּאֲמֵן בָּם כִּי־יְדַבְּרוּ אֵלֶיךָ טוֹבוֹת
For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee, even they have cried aloud after thee; believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.'
Ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί σου καὶ ὁ οἶκος τοῦ πατρός σου, καὶ οὗτοι ἠθέτησάν σε, καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐβόησαν, ἐκ τῶν ὀπίσω σου ἐπισυνήχθησαν· μὴ πιστεύσῃς ἐν αὐτοῖς, ὅτι λαλήσουσι πρὸς σὲ καλά.
For even thy brethren and the house of thy father, even these have dealt treacherously with thee; and they have cried out, they are gathered together in pursuit of thee; trust not thou in them, though they shall speak fair [words] to thee.
7
עָזַבְתִּי אֶת־בֵּיתִי נָטַשְׁתִּי אֶת־נַחֲלָתִי נָתַתִּי אֶת־יְדִדוּת נַפְשִׁי בְּכַף אֹיְבֶיהָ
I have forsaken My house, I have cast off My heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.
Ἐγκαταλέλοιπα τὸν οἶκόν μου, ἀφῆκα τὴν κληρονομίαν μου, ἔδωκα τὴν ἠγαπημένην ψυχήν μου εἰς χεῖρας ἐχθρῶν αὐτῆς.
I have forsaken my house, I have left my heritage; I have given my beloved one into the hands of her enemies.
8
הָיְתָה־לִּי נַחֲלָתִי כְּאַרְיֵה בַיָּעַר נָתְנָה עָלַי בְּקוֹלָהּ עַל־כֵּן שְׂנֵאתִיהָ
My heritage is become unto Me as a lion in the forest; she hath uttered her voice against Me; therefore have I hated her.
Ἐγενήθη ἡ κληρονομία μου ἐμοὶ ὡς λέων ἐν δρυμῷ, ἔδωκεν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ τὴν φωνὴν αὐτῆς, διατοῦτο ἐμίσησα αὐτήν.
My inheritance has become to me as a lion in a forest; she has uttered her voice against me; therefore have I hated her.
9
הַעַיִט צָבוּעַ נַחֲלָתִי לִי הַעַיִט סָבִיב עָלֶיהָ לְכוּ אִסְפוּ כָּל־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה הֵתָיוּ לְאָכְלָה
Is My heritage unto Me as a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey against her round about? Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour.
Μὴ σπήλαιον ὑαίνης ἡ κληρονομία μου ἐμοὶ, ἢ σπήλαιον κύκλῳ αὐτῆς; βαδίσατε, συναγάγετε πάντα τὰ θηρία τοῦ ἀγροῦ, καὶ ἐλθέτωσαν τοῦ φαγεῖν αὐτήν.
Is not my inheritance to me a hyena’s cave, or a cave round about her? Go ye, gather together all the wild beasts of the field, and let them come to devour her.
10
רֹעִים רַבִּים שִׁחֲתוּ כַרְמִי בֹּסְסוּ אֶת־חֶלְקָתִי נָתְנוּ אֶת־חֶלְקַת חֶמְדָּתִי לְמִדְבַּר שְׁמָמָה
Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard, they have trodden My portion under foot, they have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
Ποιμένες πολλοὶ διέφθειραν τὸν ἀμπελῶνά μου, ἐμόλυναν τὴν μερίδα μου, ἔδωκαν τὴν μερίδα τὴν ἐπιθυμητήν μου εἰς ἔρημον ἄβατον,
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have defiled my portion, they have made my desirable portion a trackless wilderness;
11
שָׂמָהּ לִשְׁמָמָה אָבְלָה עָלַי שְׁמֵמָה נָשַׁמָּה כָּל־הָאָרֶץ כִּי אֵין אִישׁ שָׂם עַל־לֵב
They have made it a desolation, it mourneth unto Me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.
ἐτέθη εἰς ἀφανισμὸν ἀπωλείας· διʼ ἐμὲ ἀφανισμῷ ἠφανίσθη πᾶσα ἡ γῆ, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀνὴρ τιθέμενος ἐν καρδίᾳ.
it is made a complete ruin: for my sake the whole land has been utterly ruined, because there is none that lays [the matter] to heart.
12
עַל־כָּל־שְׁפָיִם בַּמִּדְבָּר בָּאוּ שֹׁדְדִים כִּי חֶרֶב לַיהוָה אֹכְלָה מִקְצֵה־אֶרֶץ וְעַד־קְצֵה הָאָרֶץ אֵין שָׁלוֹם לְכָל־בָּשָׂר
Upon all the high hills in the wilderness spoilers are come; for the sword of HaShem devoureth from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land, no flesh hath peace.
Ἐπὶ πᾶσαν διεκβολὴν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἦλθον ταλαιπωροῦντες, ὅτι μάχαιρα τοῦ Κυρίου καταφάγεται ἀπʼ ἄκρου τῆς γῆς ἕως ἄκρου τῆς γῆς· οὐκ ἔστιν εἰρήνη πάσῃ σαρκί.
The ravagers are come to every passage in the wilderness: for the sword of the Lord will devour from one end of the land to the other: no flesh has any peace.
13
זָרְעוּ חִטִּים וְקֹצִים קָצָרוּ נֶחְלוּ לֹא יוֹעִלוּ וּבֹשׁוּ מִתְּבוּאֹתֵיכֶם מֵחֲרוֹן אַף־יְהוָה
They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain, they profit not; be ye then ashamed of your increase, because of the fierce anger of HaShem.
Σπείρατε πυροὺς, καὶ ἀκάνθας θερίζετε· οἱ κλῆροι αὐτῶν οὐκ ὠφελήσουσιν αὐτούς· αἰσχύνθητε ἀπὸ καυχήσεως ὑμῶν, ἀπὸ ὀνειδισμοῦ ἔναντι Κυρίου.
Sow wheat, and reap thorns; their portions shall not profit them: be ashamed of your boasting, because of reproach before the Lord.
14
כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה עַל־כָּל־שְׁכֵנַי הָרָעִים הַנֹּגְעִים בַּנַּחֲלָה אֲשֶׁר־הִנְחַלְתִּי אֶת־עַמִּי אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל הִנְנִי נֹתְשָׁם מֵעַל אַדְמָתָם וְאֶת־בֵּית יְהוּדָה אֶתּוֹשׁ מִתּוֹכָם
Thus saith HaShem: As for all Mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit, behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.
Ὅτι τάδε λέγει Κύριος περὶ πάντων τῶν γειτόνων τῶν πονηρῶν, τῶν ἁπτομένων τῆς κληρονομίας μου, ἧς ἐμέρισα τῷ λαῷ μου Ἰσραὴλ, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποσπῶ αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς αὐτῶν, καὶ τὸν Ἰούδαν ἐκβαλῶ ἐκ μέσου αὐτῶν.
For thus saith the Lord concerning all the evil neighbors that touch mine inheritance, which I have divided to my people Israel; Behold, I [will] draw them away from their land, and I will cast out Judah from the midst of them.
15
וְהָיָה אַחֲרֵי נָתְשִׁי אוֹתָם אָשׁוּב וְרִחַמְתִּים וַהֲשִׁבֹתִים אִישׁ לְנַחֲלָתוֹ וְאִישׁ לְאַרְצוֹ
And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them; and I will bring them back, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
Καὶ ἔσται μετὰ τὸ ἐκβαλεῖν με αὐτοὺς, ἐπιστρέψω καὶ ἐλεήσω αὐτοὺς, καὶ κατοικιῶ αὐτοὺς, ἕκαστον εἰς τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἕκαστον εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτοῦ.
And it shall come to pass, after I have cast them out, [that] I will return, and have mercy upon them, and will cause them to dwell every one in his inheritance, and every one in his land.
16
וְהָיָה אִם־לָמֹד יִלְמְדוּ אֶת־דַּרְכֵי עַמִּי לְהִשָּׁבֵעַ בִּשְׁמִי חַי־יְהוָה כַּאֲשֶׁר לִמְּדוּ אֶת־עַמִּי לְהִשָּׁבֵעַ בַּבָּעַל וְנִבְנוּ בְּתוֹךְ עַמִּי
And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of My people to swear by My name: 'As HaShem liveth,' even as they taught My people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built up in the midst of My people.
Καὶ ἔσται ἐὰν μαθόντες μάθωσι τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ λαοῦ μου, τοῦ ὀμνύειν τῷ ὀνόματί μου, ζῇ Κύριος, καθὼς ἐδίδαξαν τὸν λαόν μου ὀμνύειν τῇ Βάαλ, καὶ οἰκοδομηθήσεται ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ λαοῦ μου.
And it shall be, if they will indeed learn the way of my people, to swear by my name, [saying], The Lord lives; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall [that nation] be built in the midst of my people.
17
וְאִם לֹא יִשְׁמָעוּ וְנָתַשְׁתִּי אֶת־הַגּוֹי הַהוּא נָתוֹשׁ וְאַבֵּד נְאֻם־יְהוָה
But if they will not hearken, then will I pluck up that nation, plucking up and destroying it, saith HaShem.
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἐπιστρέψωσι, καὶ ἐξαρῶ τὸ ἔθνος ἐκεῖνο ἐξάρσει καὶ ἀπωλείᾳ.
But if they will not return, then will I cut off that nation with utter ruin and destruction.

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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

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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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