Textorah

Job 36

1
וַיֹּסֶף אֱלִיהוּא וַיֹּאמַר
Elihu also proceeded, and said:
Προσθεὶς δὲ ἔτι Ἐλιοὺς, λέγει,
And Elihu further continued, and said,
2
כַּתַּר־לִי זְעֵיר וַאֲחַוֶּךָּ כִּי עוֹד לֶאֱלוֹהַּ מִלִּים
Suffer me a little, and I will tell thee; for there are yet words on G-d's behalf.
Μεῖνόν με μικρὸν ἔτι, ἵνα διδάξω σε· ἔτι γὰρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐστι λέξις.
Wait for me yet a little while, that I may teach thee: For there is yet speech in me.
3
אֶשָּׂא דֵעִי לְמֵרָחוֹק וּלְפֹעֲלִי אֶתֵּן־צֶדֶק
I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
Ἀναλαβὼν τὴν ἐπιστήμην μου μακράν, ἔργοις δέ μου δίκαια ἐρῶ ἐπʼ ἀληθείας,
Having fetched my knowledge from afar, And according to my works,
4
כִּי־אָמְנָם לֹא־שֶׁקֶר מִלָּי תְּמִים דֵּעוֹת עִמָּךְ
For truly my words are not false; one that is upright in mind is with thee.
καὶ οὐκ ἄδικα ῥήματα ἀδίκως συνιεῖς.
I will speak just things truly, And thou shalt not unjustly receive unjust words.
5
הֶן־אֵל כַּבִּיר וְלֹא יִמְאָס כַּבִּיר כֹּחַ לֵב
Behold, G-d is mighty, yet He despiseth not any; He is mighty in strength of understanding.
Γίνωσκε δὲ, ὅτι ὁ Κύριος οὐ μὴ ἀποποιήσηται τὸν ἄκακον, δυνατὸς ἰσχύϊ καρδίας
But know that the Lord will not cast off an innocent man: Being mighty in strength of wisdom,
6
לֹא־יְחַיֶּה רָשָׁע וּמִשְׁפַּט עֲנִיִּים יִתֵּן
He preserveth not the life of the wicked; but giveth to the poor their right.
ἀσεβῆ οὐ μὴ ζωοποιήσῃ, καὶ κρίμα πτωχῶν δώσει.
He will not by any means save alive the ungodly: And he will grant the judgment of the poor.
7
לֹא־יִגְרַע מִצַּדִּיק עֵינָיו וְאֶת־מְלָכִים לַכִּסֵּא וַיֹּשִׁיבֵם לָנֶצַח וַיִּגְבָּהוּ
He withdraweth not His eyes from the righteous; but with kings upon the throne He setteth them for ever, and they are exalted.
Οὐκ ἀφελεῖ ἀπὸ δικαίου ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ, καὶ μετὰ βασιλέων εἰς θρόνον, καὶ καθιεῖ αὐτοὺς εἰς νῖκος, καὶ ὑψωθήσονται.
He will not turn away his eyes from the righteous, But [they shall be] with kings on the throne: And he will establish them in triumph, and they shall be exalted.
8
וְאִם־אֲסוּרִים בַּזִּקִּים יִלָּכְדוּן בְּחַבְלֵי־עֹנִי
And if they be bound in fetters, and be holden in cords of affliction;
Καὶ οἱ πεπεδημένοι ἐν χειροπέδαις, συσχεθήσονται ἐν σχοινίοις πενίας.
But they that are bound in fetters Shall be holden in cords of poverty.
9
וַיַּגֵּד לָהֶם פָּעֳלָם וּפִשְׁעֵיהֶם כִּי יִתְגַּבָּרוּ
Then He declareth unto them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly.
Καὶ ἀναγγελεῖ αὐτοῖς τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν, ὅτι ἰσχύσουσιν.
And he shall recount to them their works, And their transgressions, for such will act with violence.
10
וַיִּגֶל אָזְנָם לַמּוּסָר וַיֹּאמֶר כִּי־יְשֻׁבוּן מֵאָוֶן
He openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth that they return from iniquity.
11
אִם־יִשְׁמְעוּ וְיַעֲבֹדוּ יְכַלּוּ יְמֵיהֶם בַּטּוֹב וּשְׁנֵיהֶם בַּנְּעִימִים
If they hearken and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
Ἐὰν ἀκούσωσι, καὶ δουλεύσωσι, συντελέσουσι τὰς ἡμέρας αὐτῶν ἐν ἀγαθοῖς, καὶ τὰ ἔτη αὐτῶν ἐν εὐπρεπείαις.
If they should hear and serve [him], They shall spend their days in prosperity, And their years in honor.
12
וְאִם־לֹא יִשְׁמְעוּ בְּשֶׁלַח יַעֲבֹרוּ וְיִגְוְעוּ כִּבְלִי־דָעַת
But if they hearken not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.
Ἀλλὰ τοῦ δικαίου εἰσακούσεται· καὶ εἶπεν ὅτι ἐπιστραφήσονται ἐξ ἀδικίας.
But he will hearken to the righteous: And he has said that they shall turn from unrighteousness.
Ἀσεβεῖς δὲ οὐ διασώζει, παρὰ τὸ μὴ βούλεσθαι αὐτοὺς εἰδέναι τὸν Κύριον, καὶ διότι νουθετούμενοι ἀνήκοοι ἦσαν.
But he preserves not the ungodly; because they are not willing to know the Lord, And because when reproved they were disobedient.
13
וְחַנְפֵי־לֵב יָשִׂימוּ אָף לֹא יְשַׁוְּעוּ כִּי אֲסָרָם
But they that are godless in heart lay up anger; they cry not for help when He bindeth them.
Καὶ ὑποκριταὶ καρδίᾳ τάξουσι θυμόν, οὐ βοήσονται, ὅτι ἔδησεν αὐτούς.
And the hypocrites in heart will array wrath [against themselves]; They will not cry, because he has bound them.
14
תָּמֹת בַּנֹּעַר נַפְשָׁם וְחַיָּתָם בַּקְּדֵשִׁים
Their soul perisheth in youth, and their life as that of the depraved.
Ἀποθάνοι τοίνυν ἐν νεότητι ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτῶν, ἡ δὲ ζωὴ αὐτῶν τιτρωσκομένη ὑπὸ ἀγγέλων,
Therefore let their soul die in youth, And their life be wounded by messengers [of death].
15
יְחַלֵּץ עָנִי בְעָנְיוֹ וְיִגֶל בַּלַּחַץ אָזְנָם
He delivereth the afflicted by His affliction, and openeth their ear by tribulation.
ἀνθʼ ὧν ἔθλιψαν ἀσθενῆ καὶ ἀδύνατον, κρίμα δὲ πραέων ἐκθήσει.
Because they afflicted the weak and helpless: And he will vindicate the judgment of the meek.
16
וְאַף הֲסִיתְךָ מִפִּי־צָר רַחַב לֹא־מוּצָק תַּחְתֶּיהָ וְנַחַת שֻׁלְחָנְךָ מָלֵא דָשֶׁן
Yea, He hath allured thee out of distress into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which is set on thy table is full of fatness;
Καὶ προσεπιηπάτησέ σε ἐκ στόματος ἐχθροῦ, ἄβυσσος κατάχυσις ὑποκάτω αὐτῆς, καὶ κατέβη τράπεζά σου πλήρης πιότητος.
And he has also enticed thee out of the mouth of the enemy:
17
וְדִין־רָשָׁע מָלֵאתָ דִּין וּמִשְׁפָּט יִתְמֹכוּ
And thou art full of the judgment of the wicked; judgment and justice take hold on them.
Οὐχ ὑστερήσει δὲ ἀπὸ δικαίων κρίμα,
[There is] a deep gulf [and] a rushing stream beneath it, And thy table came down full of fatness. Judgment shall not fail from the righteous;
18
כִּי־חֵמָה פֶּן־יְסִיתְךָ בְסָפֶק וְרָב־כֹּפֶר אַל־יַטֶּךָּ
For beware of wrath, lest thou be led away by thy sufficiency; neither let the greatness of the ransom turn thee aside.
θυμὸς δὲ ἐπʼ ἀσεβεῖς ἔσται, διʼ ἀσέβειαν δώρων ὧν ἐδέχοντο ἐπʼ ἀδικίαις.
But there shall be wrath upon the ungodly, By reason of the ungodliness of the bribes which they received for iniquities.
Μή σε ἐκκλινάτω ἑκὼν ὁ νοῦς δεήσεως ἐν ἀνάγκῃ ὄντων ἀδυνάτων,
Let not [thy] mind willingly turn thee aside From the petition of the feeble that are in distress.
19
הֲיַעֲרֹךְ שׁוּעֲךָ לֹא בְצָר וְכֹל מַאֲמַצֵּי־כֹחַ
Will thy riches avail, that are without stint, or all the forces of thy strength?
20
אַל־תִּשְׁאַף הַלָּיְלָה לַעֲלוֹת עַמִּים תַּחְתָּם
Desire not the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.
καὶ πάντας τοὺς κραταιοῦντας ἰσχὺν μὴ ἐξελκύσῃς τὴν νύκτα, τοῦ ἀναβῆναι λαοὺς ἀντʼ αὐτῶν,
And draw not forth all the mighty [men] by night, So that the people should go up instead of them.
21
הִשָּׁמֶר אַל־תֵּפֶן אֶל־אָוֶן כִּי־עַל־זֶה בָּחַרְתָּ מֵעֹנִי
Take heed, regard not iniquity; for this hast thou chosen rather than affliction.
ἀλλὰ φύλαξαι μὴ πράξῃς ἄτοκα· ἐπὶ τοὺτων γὰρ ἐξείλω ἀπὸ πτωχείας.
But take heed lest thou do that which is wrong: For of this thou hast made choice because of poverty.
22
הֶן־אֵל יַשְׂגִּיב בְּכֹחוֹ מִי כָמֹהוּ מוֹרֶה
Behold, G-d doeth loftily in His power; who is a teacher like Him?
Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἰσχυρὸς κραταιώσει ἐν ἰσχύι αὐτοῦ· τίς γάρ ἐστι κατʼ αὐτὸν δυνάστης;
Behold, the Mighty One shall prevail by his strength: For who is powerful as he is?
23
מִי־פָקַד עָלָיו דַּרְכּוֹ וּמִי־אָמַר פָּעַלְתָּ עַוְלָה
Who hath enjoined Him His way? Or who hath said: 'Thou hast wrought unrighteousness'?
Τίς δέ ἐστιν ὁ ἐτάζων αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα; ἢ τίς ὁ εἰπὼν, ἔπραξεν ἄδικα;
And who is he that examines his works? Or who can say, He has wrought injustice?
24
זְכֹר כִּי־תַשְׂגִּיא פָעֳלוֹ אֲשֶׁר שֹׁרְרוּ אֲנָשִׁים
Remember that thou magnify His work, whereof men have sung.
Μνήσθητι, ὅτι μεγάλα ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα, ὧν ἦρξαν ἄνδρες.
Remember that his works are great [Beyond] those which men have attempted.
25
כָּל־אָדָם חָזוּ־בוֹ אֱנוֹשׁ יַבִּיט מֵרָחוֹק
All men have looked thereon; man beholdeth it afar off.
Πᾶς ἄνθρωπος εἶδεν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, ὅσοι τιτρωσκόμενοί εἰσι βροτοί.
Every man has seen in himself, How many mortals are wounded.
26
הֶן־אֵל שַׂגִּיא וְלֹא נֵדָע מִסְפַּר שָׁנָיו וְלֹא־חֵקֶר
Behold, G-d is great, beyond our knowledge; the number of His years is unsearchable.
Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἰσχυρὸς πολύς, καὶ οὐ γνωσόμεθα· ἀριθμὸς ἐτῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπέραντος.
Behold, the Mighty One is great, and we shall not know [him]: The number of his years is even infinite.
27
כִּי יְגָרַע נִטְפֵי־מָיִם יָזֹקּוּ מָטָר לְאֵדוֹ
For He draweth away the drops of water, which distil rain from His vapour;
Ἀριθμηταὶ δὲ αὐτῷ σταγόνες ὑετοῦ, καὶ ἐπιχυθήσονται ὑετῷ εἰς νεφέλην.
And the drops of rain are numbered by him, And shall be poured out in rain to form a cloud.
28
אֲשֶׁר־יִזְּלוּ שְׁחָקִים יִרְעֲפוּ עֲלֵי אָדָם רָב
Which the skies pour down and drop upon the multitudes of men.
Ῥυήσονται παλαιώματα, ἐσκίασε δὲ νέφη ἐπὶ ἀμυθήτῳ βροτῷ· 28aὥραν ἔθετο κτήνεσιν, οἴδασι δὲ κοίτης τάξιν· 28bἐπὶ τούτοις πᾶσιν οὐκ ἐξίσταταί σου ἡ διάνοια, οὐδὲ διαλλάσσεταί σου ἡ καρδία ἀπὸ σώματος.
The ancient [heavens] shall flow, And the clouds overshadow innumerable mortals:
29
אַף אִם־יָבִין מִפְרְשֵׂי־עָב תְּשֻׁאוֹת סֻכָּתוֹ
Yea, can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, the crashings of His pavilion?
Καὶ ἐὰν συνῇ ἐπεκτάσεις νεφέλης, ἰσότητα σκηνῆς αὐτοῦ,
And though one should understand the outspreadings of the clouds, [Or] the measure of his tabernacle;
30
הֵן־פָּרַשׂ עָלָיו אוֹרוֹ וְשָׁרְשֵׁי הַיָּם כִּסָּה
Behold, He spreadeth His light upon it; and He covereth the depths of the sea.
ἰδοὺ ἐκτενεῖ ἐπʼ αὐτὸν ἠδὼ, καὶ ῥιζώματα τῆς θαλάσσης ἐκάλυψεν.
Behold he will stretch his bow against him, And he covers the bottom of the sea.
31
כִּי־בָם יָדִין עַמִּים יִתֶּן־אֹכֶל לְמַכְבִּיר
For by these He judgeth the peoples; He giveth food in abundance.
Ἐν γὰρ αὐτοῖς κρινεῖ λαούς, δώσει τροφὴν τῷ ἰσχύοντι.
For by them he will judge the nations: He will give food to him that has strength.
32
עַל־כַּפַּיִם כִּסָּה־אוֹר וַיְצַו עָלֶיהָ בְמַפְגִּיעַ
He covereth His hands with the lightning, and giveth it a charge that it strike the mark.
Ἐπὶ χειρῶν ἐκάλυψε φῶς, καὶ ἐνετείλατο περὶ αὐτῆς ἐν ἀπαντῶντι.
He has hidden the light in [his] hands, And given charge concerning it to the interposing [cloud].
33
יַגִּיד עָלָיו רֵעוֹ מִקְנֶה אַף עַל־עוֹלֶה
The noise thereof telleth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the storm that cometh up.
Ἀναγγελεῖ περὶ αὐτοῦ φίλον αὐτοῦ Κύριος, κτῆσι καὶ περὶ ἀδικίας.
The Lord will declare concerning this [to] his friend: [But there is] a portion also for unrighteousness.

How it works

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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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