Textorah

Jeremiah 37

1
וַיִּמְלָךְ־מֶלֶךְ צִדְקִיָּהוּ בֶּן־יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ תַּחַת כָּנְיָהוּ בֶּן־יְהוֹיָקִים אֲשֶׁר הִמְלִיךְ נְבוּכַדְרֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל בְּאֶרֶץ יְהוּדָה
And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.
Καὶ ἐβασίλευσε Σεδεκίας υἱὸς Ἰωσεία ἀντὶ Ἰωακείμ, ὃν ἐβασίλευσε Ναβουχοδονόσορ βασιλεύειν τοῦ Ἰούδα.
And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar appointed to reign over Judah.
2
וְלֹא שָׁמַע הוּא וַעֲבָדָיו וְעַם הָאָרֶץ אֶל־דִּבְרֵי יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּיַד יִרְמְיָהוּ הַנָּבִיא
But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of HaShem, which He spoke by the prophet Jeremiah.
Καὶ οὐκ ἤκουσαν αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ καὶ ὁ λαὸς τῆς γῆς τοῦς λόγους Κυρίου, οὓς ἐλάλησεν ἐν χειρὶ Ἱερεμίου.
And he and his servants and the people of the land hearkened not to the words of the Lord, which he spoke by Jeremiah.
3
וַיִּשְׁלַח הַמֶּלֶךְ צִדְקִיָּהוּ אֶת־יְהוּכַל בֶּן־שֶׁלֶמְיָה וְאֶת־צְפַנְיָהוּ בֶן־מַעֲשֵׂיָה הַכֹּהֵן אֶל־יִרְמְיָהוּ הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר הִתְפַּלֶּל־נָא בַעֲדֵנוּ אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ
And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying: 'Pray now unto HaShem our G-d for us.'
Καὶ ἀπέστειλεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Σεδεκίας τὸν Ἰωάχαλ υἱὸν Σελεμίου, καὶ τὸν Σοφονίαν υἱὸν Μαασαίου τὸν ἱερέα πρὸς Ἱερεμίαν λέγων, πρόσευξαι δὴ περὶ ἡμῶν πρὸς Κύριον.
And King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the priest son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah, saying, Pray now for us to the Lord.
4
וְיִרְמְיָהוּ בָּא וְיֹצֵא בְּתוֹךְ הָעָם וְלֹא־נָתְנוּ אֹתוֹ בֵּית הכליא הַכְּלוּא
Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people; for they had not put him into prison.
Καὶ Ἱερεμίας ἦλθε καὶ διῆλθε διὰ μέσου τῆς πόλεως, καὶ οὐκ ἔδωκαν αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τῆς φυλακῆς.
Now Jeremiah came and went through the midst of the city: for they [had] not put him into the house of the prison.
5
וְחֵיל פַּרְעֹה יָצָא מִמִּצְרָיִם וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ הַכַּשְׂדִּים הַצָּרִים עַל־יְרוּשָׁלִַם אֶת־שִׁמְעָם וַיֵּעָלוּ מֵעַל יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם
And Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt; and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they broke up from Jerusalem.
Καὶ δύναμις Φαραὼ ἐξῆλθεν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου, καὶ ἤκουσαν οἱ Χαλδαῖοι τὴν ἀκοὴν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἀνέβησαν ἐπὶ Ἰερουσαλήμ.
And the host of Pharaoh was come forth out of Egypt; and the Chaldeans heard the report of them, and they went up from Jerusalem.
6
וַיְהִי דְּבַר־יְהוָה אֶל־יִרְמְיָהוּ הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר
Then came the word of HaShem unto the prophet Jeremiah, saying:
Καὶ ἐγένετο λόγος Κυρίου πρὸς Ἱερεμίαν, λέγων,
And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,
7
כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כֹּה תֹאמְרוּ אֶל־מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה הַשֹּׁלֵחַ אֶתְכֶם אֵלַי לְדָרְשֵׁנִי הִנֵּה חֵיל פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּצֵא לָכֶם לְעֶזְרָה שָׁב לְאַרְצוֹ מִצְרָיִם
'Thus saith HaShem, the G-d of Israel: Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto Me to inquire of Me: Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.
οὕτως εἶπε Κύριος, οὕτως ἐρεῖς πρὸς βασιλέα Ἰούδα τὸν ἀποστείλαντα πρὸς σὲ, τοῦ ἐκζητῆσαί με, ἰδοὺ δύναμις· Φαραὼ ἡ ἐξελθοῦσα ὑμῖν εἰς βοήθειαν· ἀποστρέψουσιν εἰς γῆν Αἰγύπτου,
Thus said the Lord; Thus shalt thou say to the king of Judah who sent to thee, to seek me; Behold, the army of Pharaoh which is come forth to help you: they shall return to the land of Egypt:
8
וְשָׁבוּ הַכַּשְׂדִּים וְנִלְחֲמוּ עַל־הָעִיר הַזֹּאת וּלְכָדֻהָ וּשְׂרָפֻהָ בָאֵשׁ
And the Chaldeans shall return, and fight against this city; and they shall take it, and burn it with fire.
καὶ ἀναστρέψουσιν αὐτοὶ οἱ Χαλδαῖοι, καὶ πολεμήσουσιν ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν ταύτην, καὶ συλλήψονται αὐτὴν, καὶ καύσουσιν αὐτὴν ἐν πυρί.
and the Chaldeans themselves shall turn again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire.
9
כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה אַל־תַּשִּׁאוּ נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם לֵאמֹר הָלֹךְ יֵלְכוּ מֵעָלֵינוּ הַכַּשְׂדִּים כִּי־לֹא יֵלֵכוּ
Thus saith HaShem: Deceive not yourselves, saying: The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; for they shall not depart.
Ὅτι οὕτως εἶπε Κύριος, μὴ ὑπολάβητε ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὑμῶν, λέγοντες, ἀποτρέχοντες ἀπελεύσονται ἀφʼ ἡμῶν οἱ Χαλδαῖοι· ὅτι οὐ μὴ ἀπέλθωσι.
For thus saith the Lord; Suppose not in your hearts, saying, The Chaldeans will certainly depart from us: for they shall not depart.
10
כִּי אִם־הִכִּיתֶם כָּל־חֵיל כַּשְׂדִּים הַנִּלְחָמִים אִתְּכֶם וְנִשְׁאֲרוּ בָם אֲנָשִׁים מְדֻקָּרִים אִישׁ בְּאָהֳלוֹ יָקוּמוּ וְשָׂרְפוּ אֶת־הָעִיר הַזֹּאת בָּאֵשׁ
For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet would they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.'
Καὶ ἐὰν πατάξητε πᾶσαν δύναμιν τῶν Χαλδαίων τοὺς πολεμοῦντας ὑμᾶς, καὶ καταλειφθῶσί τινες ἐκκεκεντημένοι, ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ τόπῳ αὐτοῦ οὗτοι ἀναστήσονται, καὶ καύσουσι τὴν πόλιν ταύτην ἐν πυρί.
And though ye should smite the whole host of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there should be left a few wounded [men], these should rise up each in his place, and burn this city with fire.
11
וְהָיָה בְּהֵעָלוֹת חֵיל הַכַּשְׂדִּים מֵעַל יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם מִפְּנֵי חֵיל פַּרְעֹה
And it came to pass, that when the army of the Chaldeans was broken up from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh's army,
Καὶ ἐγένετο ὅτε ἀνέβη ἡ δύναμις τῶν Χαλδαίων ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς δυνάμεως Φαραὼ,
And it came to pass, when the host of the Chaldeans had gone up from Jerusalem for fear of the host of Pharaoh,
12
וַיֵּצֵא יִרְמְיָהוּ מִירוּשָׁלִַם לָלֶכֶת אֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן לַחֲלִק מִשָּׁם בְּתוֹךְ הָעָם
then Jeremiah went forth out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the midst of the people.
ἐξῆλθεν Ἱερεμίας ἀπὸ Ἱερουσαλὴμ τοῦ πορευθῆναι εἰς γῆν Βενιαμεὶν, τοῦ ἀγοράσαι ἐκεῖθεν ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ λαοῦ·
that Jeremiah went forth from Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to buy thence [a property] in the midst of the people.
13
וַיְהִי־הוּא בְּשַׁעַר בִּנְיָמִן וְשָׁם בַּעַל פְּקִדֻת וּשְׁמוֹ יִרְאִיָּיה בֶּן־שֶׁלֶמְיָה בֶּן־חֲנַנְיָה וַיִּתְפֹּשׂ אֶת־יִרְמְיָהוּ הַנָּבִיא לֵאמֹר אֶל־הַכַּשְׂדִּים אַתָּה נֹפֵל
And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the ward was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying: 'Thou fallest away to the Chaldeans.'
Καὶ ἐγένετο αὐτὸς ἐν πύλῃ Βενιαμὶν, καὶ ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπος παρʼ ᾧ κατέλυε, Σαρουΐα υἱὸς Σελεμίου, υἱοῦ Ἀνανίου, καὶ συνέλαβε τὸν Ἱερεμίαν, λέγων, πρὸς τοὺς Χαλδαίους σὺ φεύγεις.
And he was in the gate of Benjamin, and [there was] there a man with whom he lodged, Irijah the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he caught Jeremiah, saying, Thou art fleeing to the Chaldeans.
14
וַיֹּאמֶר יִרְמְיָהוּ שֶׁקֶר אֵינֶנִּי נֹפֵל עַל־הַכַּשְׂדִּים וְלֹא שָׁמַע אֵלָיו וַיִּתְפֹּשׂ יִרְאִיָּיה בְּיִרְמְיָהוּ וַיְבִאֵהוּ אֶל־הַשָּׂרִים
Then said Jeremiah: 'It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans'; but he hearkened not to him; so Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.
Καὶ εἶπε, ψεῦδος, οὐκ εἰς τοὺς Χαλδαίους ἐγὼ φεύγω· καὶ οὐκ εἰσήκουσεν αὐτοῦ· καὶ συνέλαβε Σαρουΐα τὸν Ἱερεμίαν, καὶ εἰσήγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τοὺς ἄρχοντας.
And he said, [It is] false; I do not flee to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him; and Irijah caught Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.
15
וַיִּקְצְפוּ הַשָּׂרִים עַל־יִרְמְיָהוּ וְהִכּוּ אֹתוֹ וְנָתְנוּ אוֹתוֹ בֵּית הָאֵסוּר בֵּית יְהוֹנָתָן הַסֹּפֵר כִּי־אֹתוֹ עָשׂוּ לְבֵית הַכֶּלֶא
And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.
Καὶ ἐπικράνθησαν οἱ ἄρχοντες ἐπὶ Ἱερεμίαν, καὶ ἐπάταξαν αὐτὸν, καὶ ἀπέστειλαν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν Ἰωνάθαν τοῦ γραμματέως, ὅτι ταύτην ἐποίησαν εἰς οἰκίαν φυλακῆς.
And the princes were very angry with Jeremiah, and smote him, and sent him into the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made this a prison.
16
כִּי בָא יִרְמְיָהוּ אֶל־בֵּית הַבּוֹר וְאֶל־הַחֲנֻיוֹת וַיֵּשֶׁב־שָׁם יִרְמְיָהוּ יָמִים רַבִּים
When Jeremiah was come into the dungeon-house, and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days;
Καὶ ἦλθεν Ἱερεμίας εἰς οἰκίαν τοῦ λάκκου, καὶ εἰς τὴν χερὲθ, καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐκεῖ ἡμέρας πολλάς.
So Jeremiah came into the dungeon, and into the cells, and he remained there many days.
17
וַיִּשְׁלַח הַמֶּלֶךְ צִדְקִיָּהוּ וַיִּקָּחֵהוּ וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הַמֶּלֶךְ בְּבֵיתוֹ בַּסֵּתֶר וַיֹּאמֶר הֲיֵשׁ דָּבָר מֵאֵת יְהוָה וַיֹּאמֶר יִרְמְיָהוּ יֵשׁ וַיֹּאמֶר בְּיַד מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל תִּנָּתֵן
then Zedekiah the king sent, and fetched him; and the king asked him secretly in his house, and said: 'Is there any word from HaShem?' And Jeremiah said: 'There is.' He said also: 'Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.'
Καὶ ἀπέστειλε Σεδεκίας, καὶ ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὸν, καὶ ἠρώτα αὐτὸν ὁ βασιλεὺς κρυφαίως εἰπεῖν, εἰ ἔστιν ὁ λόγος παρὰ Κυρίου; καὶ εἶπεν, ἔστιν· εἰς χεῖρας βασιλέως Βαβυλῶνος παραδοθήσῃ.
Then Zedekiah sent, and called him; and the king asked him secretly, saying, Is there a word from the Lord? and he said, There is: thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.
18
וַיֹּאמֶר יִרְמְיָהוּ אֶל־הַמֶּלֶךְ צִדְקִיָּהוּ מֶה חָטָאתִי לְךָ וְלַעֲבָדֶיךָ וְלָעָם הַזֶּה כִּי־נְתַתֶּם אוֹתִי אֶל־בֵּית הַכֶּלֶא
Moreover Jeremiah said unto king Zedekiah: 'Wherein have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison?
Καὶ εἶπεν Ἱερεμίας τῷ βασιλεῖ, τί ἠδίκησά σε, καὶ τοὺς παῖδάς σου, καὶ τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον, ὅτι σὺ δίδως με εἰς οἰκίαν φυλακῆς;
And Jeremiah said to the king, Wherein have I wronged thee, or thy servants, or this people, that thou puttest me in prison?
19
ואיו וְאַיֵּה נְבִיאֵיכֶם אֲשֶׁר־נִבְּאוּ לָכֶם לֵאמֹר לֹא־יָבֹא מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל עֲלֵיכֶם וְעַל הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת
Where now are your prophets that prophesied unto you, saying: The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land?
Καὶ ποῦ εἰσιν οἱ προφῆται ὑμῶν οἱ προφητεύσαντες ὑμῖν, λέγοντες, ὅτι οὐ μὴ ἔλθῃ βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ταύτην;
And where are your prophets who prophesied to you saying, The king of Babylon shall not come against this land?
20
וְעַתָּה שְׁמַע־נָא אֲדֹנִי הַמֶּלֶךְ תִּפָּל־נָא תְחִנָּתִי לְפָנֶיךָ וְאַל־תְּשִׁבֵנִי בֵּית יְהוֹנָתָן הַסֹּפֵר וְלֹא אָמוּת שָׁם
And now hear, I pray thee, O my lord the king: let my supplication, I pray thee, be presented before thee; that thou cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.'
Καὶ νῦν, Κύριε βασιλεῦ, πεσέτω τὸ ἔλεός μου κατὰ πρόσωπόν σου· καὶ τί ἀποστρέφεις με εἰς οἰκίαν Ἰωνάθαν τοῦ γραμματέως; καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνω ἐκεῖ.
Now therefore, my lord the king, let my supplication come before thy face: and why dost thou send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe? and let me not on any account die there.
21
וַיְצַוֶּה הַמֶּלֶךְ צִדְקִיָּהוּ וַיַּפְקִדוּ אֶת־יִרְמְיָהוּ בַּחֲצַר הַמַּטָּרָה וְנָתֹן לוֹ כִכַּר־לֶחֶם לַיּוֹם מִחוּץ הָאֹפִים עַד־תֹּם כָּל־הַלֶּחֶם מִן־הָעִיר וַיֵּשֶׁב יִרְמְיָהוּ בַּחֲצַר הַמַּטָּרָה
Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard, and they gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers' street, until all the bread in the city was spent. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
Καὶ συνέταξεν ὁ βασιλεὺς, καὶ ἐνεβάλοσαν αὐτὸν εἰς οἰκίαν τῆς φυλακῆς, καὶ ἐδίδοσαν αὐτῷ ἄρτον ἕνα τῆς ἡμέρας, ἔξωθεν οὗ πέσσουσιν, ἕως ἐξέλιπον οἱ ἄρτοι ἐκ τῆς πόλεως· καὶ ἐκάθισεν Ἱερεμίας ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ τῆς φυλακῆς.
Then the king commanded, and they cast him into the prison, and gave him a loaf a day out of the place where they bake, until the bread failed out of the city. So Jeremiah continued in the court of the prison.

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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.