Textorah

Judges 21

1
וְאִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל נִשְׁבַּע בַּמִּצְפָּה לֵאמֹר אִישׁ מִמֶּנּוּ לֹא־יִתֵּן בִּתּוֹ לְבִנְיָמִן לְאִשָּׁה
Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpah, saying: 'There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife.'
Καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ὤμοσαν ἐν Μασσηφὰθ, λέγοντες, ἀνὴρ ἐξ ἡμῶν οὐ δώσει θυγατέρα αὐτοῦ τῷ Βενιαμὶν εἰς γυναῖκα.
Now the children of Israel swore in Mizpah, saying, No man of us shall give his daughter to Benjamin for a wife.
2
וַיָּבֹא הָעָם בֵּית־אֵל וַיֵּשְׁבוּ שָׁם עַד־הָעֶרֶב לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים וַיִּשְׂאוּ קוֹלָם וַיִּבְכּוּ בְּכִי גָדוֹל
And the people came to Beth-el, and sat there till even before G-d, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore.
Καὶ ἦλθεν ὁ λαὸς εἰς Βαιθὴλ, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐκεῖ ἕως ἑσπέρας ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ· καὶ ᾖραν φωνὴν αὐτῶν, καὶ ἔκλαυσαν κλαυθμὸν μέγαν,
And the people came to Bethel, and sat there until evening before God: and they lifted up their voice and wept with a great weeping;
3
וַיֹּאמְרוּ לָמָה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיְתָה זֹּאת בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל לְהִפָּקֵד הַיּוֹם מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל שֵׁבֶט אֶחָד
And they said: 'O HaShem, the G-d of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?'
καὶ εἶπαν, εἰς τί Κύριε Θεὲ Ισραὴλ ἐγενήθη αὕτη, τοῦ ἐπισκεπῆναι σήμερον ἀπὸ Ἰσραὴλ φυλὴν μίαν;
and said, Wherefore, O Lord God of Israel, has this come to pass, that today one tribe should be counted [as missing] from Israel?
4
וַיְהִי מִמָּחֳרָת וַיַּשְׁכִּימוּ הָעָם וַיִּבְנוּ־שָׁם מִזְבֵּחַ וַיַּעֲלוּ עֹלוֹת וּשְׁלָמִים
And it came to pass on the morrow that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings.
Καὶ ἐγένετο τῇ ἐπαύριον, καὶ ὤρθρισεν ὁ λαὸς, καὶ ᾠκοδόμησαν ἐκεῖ θυσιαστήριον, καὶ ἀνήνεγκαν ὁλοκαυτώσεις καὶ τελείας.
And it came to pass on the morrow that the people rose up early, and built there an altar, and offered up whole burnt offerings and peace offerings.
5
וַיֹּאמְרוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל מִי אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה בַקָּהָל מִכָּל־שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־יְהוָה כִּי הַשְּׁבוּעָה הַגְּדוֹלָה הָיְתָה לַאֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה אֶל־יְהוָה הַמִּצְפָּה לֵאמֹר מוֹת יוּמָת
And the children of Israel said: 'Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up in the assembly unto HaShem?' For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up unto HaShem to Mizpah, saying: 'He shall surely be put to death.'
Καὶ εἶπαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ, τίς οὐκ ἀνέβη ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀπὸ πασῶν φυλῶν Ἰσραὴλ πρὸς Κύριον; ὅτι ὁ ὅρκος μέγας ἦν τοῖς οὐκ ἀναβεβηκόσι πρὸς Κύριον εἰς Μασσηφὰθ, λέγοντες, θανάτῳ θανατωθήσεται.
And the children of Israel said, Who of all the tribes of Israel, went not up in the congregation to the Lord? for there was a great oath concerning those who went not up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying, He shall surely be put to death.
6
וַיִּנָּחֲמוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־בִּנְיָמִן אָחִיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ נִגְדַּע הַיּוֹם שֵׁבֶט אֶחָד מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל
And the children of Israel repented them for Benjamin their brother, and said: 'There is one tribe cut off from Israel this day.
Καὶ παρεκλήθησαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ πρὸς Βενιαμὶν ἀδελφὸν αὐτῶν, καὶ εἶπαν, ἐξεκόπη σήμερον φυλὴ μία ἀπὸ Ἰσραήλ.
And the children of Israel relented toward Benjamin their brother, and said, Today one tribe is cut off from Israel.
7
מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה לָהֶם לַנּוֹתָרִים לְנָשִׁים וַאֲנַחְנוּ נִשְׁבַּעְנוּ בַיהוָה לְבִלְתִּי תֵּת־לָהֶם מִבְּנוֹתֵינוּ לְנָשִׁים
How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by HaShem that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?'
Τί ποιήσωμεν αὐτοῖς τοῖς περισσοῖς τοῖς ὑπολειφθεῖσιν εἰς γυναῖκας; καὶ ἡμεῖς ὠμόσαμεν ἐν Κυρίῳ τοῦ μὴ δοῦναι αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν θυγατέρων ἡμῶν εἰς γυναῖκας.
What shall we do for wives for the rest that remain? whereas we have sworn by the Lord, not to give them of our daughters for wives.
8
וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִי אֶחָד מִשִּׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה אֶל־יְהוָה הַמִּצְפָּה וְהִנֵּה לֹא בָא־אִישׁ אֶל־הַמַּחֲנֶה מִיָּבֵישׁ גִּלְעָד אֶל־הַקָּהָל
And they said: 'What one is there of the tribes of Israel that came not up unto HaShem to Mizpah?' And, behold, there came none to the camp from Jabesh-gilead to the assembly.
Καὶ εἶπαν, τίς εἷς ἀπὸ φυλῶν Ἰσραὴλ, ὃς οὐκ ἀνέβη πρὸς Κύριον εἰς Μασσηφάθ; Καὶ ἰδοὺ οὐκ ἦλθεν ἀνὴρ εἰς τὴν παρεμβολὴν ἀπὸ Ἰαβεῖς Γαλαὰδ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν.
And they said, What one [man is there] of the tribes of Israel, who went not up to the Lord to Mizpah? and, behold, no man came to the camp from Jabesh-gilead to the assembly.
9
וַיִּתְפָּקֵד הָעָם וְהִנֵּה אֵין־שָׁם אִישׁ מִיּוֹשְׁבֵי יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד
For when the people were numbered, behold, there were none of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead there.
Καὶ ἐπεσκέπη ὁ λαὸς, καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ οἰκούντων Ἰαβὶς Γαλαάδ.
And the people were numbered, and there was not there a man from the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead.
10
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ־שָׁם הָעֵדָה שְׁנֵים־עָשָׂר אֶלֶף אִישׁ מִבְּנֵי הֶחָיִל וַיְצַוּוּ אוֹתָם לֵאמֹר לְכוּ וְהִכִּיתֶם אֶת־יוֹשְׁבֵי יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד לְפִי־חֶרֶב וְהַנָּשִׁים וְהַטָּף
And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the valiantest, and commanded them, saying: 'Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword, with the women and the little ones.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλεν ἐκεῖ ἡ συναγωγὴ δώδεκα χιλιάδας ἀνδρῶν ἀπὸ υἱῶν τῆς δυνάμεως, καὶ ἐνετείλαντο αὐτοῖς λέγοντες, πορεύεσθε καὶ πατάξατε τοὺς οἰκοῦντας Ἰαβεῖς Γαλαὰδ ἐν στόματι ῥομφαίας.
And the congregation sent thither twelve thousand men of the strongest, and they charged them, saying, Go ye and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword.
11
וְזֶה הַדָּבָר אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּ כָּל־זָכָר וְכָל־אִשָּׁה יֹדַעַת מִשְׁכַּב־זָכָר תַּחֲרִימוּ
And this is the thing that ye shall do: ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.'
Καὶ τοῦτο ποιήσετε· πᾶν ἄρσεν καὶ πᾶσαν γυναῖκα εἰδυῖαν κοίτην ἄρσενος, ἀναθεματιεῖτε· τὰς δὲ παρθένους, περιποιήσεσθε· καὶ ἐποίησαν οὕτως.
And this shall ye do: every male and every woman that has known the lying with man ye shall devote [to destruction], but the virgins ye shall save alive: and they did so.
12
וַיִּמְצְאוּ מִיּוֹשְׁבֵי יָבֵישׁ גִּלְעָד אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת נַעֲרָה בְתוּלָה אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדְעָה אִישׁ לְמִשְׁכַּב זָכָר וַיָּבִיאוּ אוֹתָם אֶל־הַמַּחֲנֶה שִׁלֹה אֲשֶׁר בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.
Καὶ εὗρον ἀπὸ οἰκούντων Ἰαβεῖς Γαλαὰδ, τετρακοσίας νεάνιδας παρθένους, αἵτινες οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἄνδρα εἰς κοίτην ἄρσενος, καὶ ἤνεγκαν αὐτὰς εἰς τὴν παρεμβολὴν εἰς Σηλὼμ τὴν ἐν γῇ Χαναάν.
And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, who had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them to Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
13
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ כָּל־הָעֵדָה וַיְדַבְּרוּ אֶל־בְּנֵי בִנְיָמִן אֲשֶׁר בְּסֶלַע רִמּוֹן וַיִּקְרְאוּ לָהֶם שָׁלוֹם
And the whole congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin that were in the rock of Rimmon, and proclaimed peace unto them.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλαν πᾶσα ἡ συναγωγὴ, καὶ ἐλάλησαν πρὸς τοὺς υἱοὺς Βενιαμεὶν ἐν τῇ πέτρᾳ Ῥεμμὼν, καὶ ἐκάλεσαν αὐτοὺς εἰς εἰρήνην.
And all the congregation sent and spoke to the children of Benjamin in the rock Rimmon, and invited them to [make] peace.
14
וַיָּשָׁב בִּנְיָמִן בָּעֵת הַהִיא וַיִּתְּנוּ לָהֶם הַנָּשִׁים אֲשֶׁר חִיּוּ מִנְּשֵׁי יָבֵשׁ גִּלְעָד וְלֹא־מָצְאוּ לָהֶם כֵּן
And Benjamin returned at that time; and they gave them the women whom they had saved alive of the women of Jabesh-gilead; and yet so they sufficed them not.
Καὶ ἐπέστρεψε Βενιαμὶν πρὸς τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ, καὶ ἔδωκαν αὐτοῖς οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ τὰς γυναῖκας ἃς ἐζωοποίησαν ἀπὸ τῶν θυγατέρων Ἰαβὶς Γαλαάδ· καὶ ἤρεσεν αὐτοῖς οὕτω.
And Benjamin returned to the children of Israel at that time, and the children of Israel gave them the women whom they [had] saved alive of the daughters of Jabesh-gilead; and they were content.
15
וְהָעָם נִחָם לְבִנְיָמִן כִּי־עָשָׂה יְהוָה פֶּרֶץ בְּשִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
And the people repented them for Benjamin, because that HaShem had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
Καὶ ὁ λαὸς παρεκλήθη ἐπὶ τῷ Βενιαμὶν, ὅτι ἐποίησε Κύριος διακοπὴν ἐν ταῖς φυλαῖς Ἰσραήλ.
And the people relented for Benjamin, because the Lord had made a breach in the tribes of Israel.
16
וַיֹּאמְרוּ זִקְנֵי הָעֵדָה מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה לַנּוֹתָרִים לְנָשִׁים כִּי־נִשְׁמְדָה מִבִּנְיָמִן אִשָּׁה
Then the elders of the congregation said: 'How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?'
Καὶ εἶπον οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τῆς συναγωγῆς, τί ποιήσωμεν τοῖς περισσοῖς εἰς γυναῖκας; ὅτι ἠφανίσθη ἀπὸ Βενιαμὶν γυνή.
And the elders of the congregation said, What shall we do for wives for them that remain? for the women have been destroyed out of Benjamin.
17
וַיֹּאמְרוּ יְרֻשַּׁת פְּלֵיטָה לְבִנְיָמִן וְלֹא־יִמָּחֶה שֵׁבֶט מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל
And they said: 'They that are escaped must be as an inheritance for Benjamin, that a tribe be not blotted out from Israel.
Καὶ εἶπαν, κληρονομία διασωζομένων τῶν Βενιαμίν· καὶ οὐκ ἐξαλειφθήσεται φυλὴ ἀπὸ Ἰσραὴλ,
And they said, [There must be] an inheritance of them that are escaped of Benjamin; and [so] a tribe shall not be destroyed out of Israel.
18
וַאֲנַחְנוּ לֹא נוּכַל לָתֵת־לָהֶם נָשִׁים מִבְּנוֹתֵינוּ כִּי־נִשְׁבְּעוּ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר אָרוּר נֹתֵן אִשָּׁה לְבִנְיָמִן
Howbeit we may not give them wives of our daughters.' For the children of Israel had sworn, saying: 'Cursed be he that giveth a wife to Benjamin.'
ὅτι ἡμεῖς οὐ δυνησόμεθα δοῦναι αὐτοῖς γυναῖκας ἀπὸ τῶν θυγατέρων ἡμῶν, ὅτι ὠμόσαμεν ἐν υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ, λέγοντες, ἐπικατάρατος ὁ διδοὺς γυναῖκα τῷ Βενιαμίν.
For we shall not be able to give them wives of our daughters, because we swore among the children of Israel, saying, Cursed [is] he that gives a wife to Benjamin.
19
וַיֹּאמְרוּ הִנֵּה חַג־יְהוָה בְּשִׁלוֹ מִיָּמִים יָמִימָה אֲשֶׁר מִצְּפוֹנָה לְבֵית־אֵל מִזְרְחָה הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ לִמְסִלָּה הָעֹלָה מִבֵּית־אֵל שְׁכֶמָה וּמִנֶּגֶב לִלְבוֹנָה
And they said: 'Behold, there is the feast of HaShem from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.'
Καὶ εἶπαν, ἰδοὺ δὴ ἑορτὴ Κυρίου ἐν Σηλὼμ ἀφʼ ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμέρας, ἥ ἐστιν ἀπὸ Βοῤῥᾶ τῆς Βαιθὴλ, κατʼ ἀνατολὰς ἡλίου ἐπὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ τῆς ἀναβαινούσης ἀπὸ Βαιθὴλ εἰς Συχὲμ, καὶ ἀπὸ Νότου τῆς Λεβωνᾶ.
And they said, Lo! now [there is] a feast of the Lord from year to year in Shiloh, which is on the north of Bethel, eastward on the way that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and from the south of Lebonah.
20
ויצו וַיְצַוּוּ אֶת־בְּנֵי בִנְיָמִן לֵאמֹר לְכוּ וַאֲרַבְתֶּם בַּכְּרָמִים
And they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying: 'Go and lie in wait in the vineyards;
Καὶ ἐνετείλαντο τοῖς υἱοῖς Βενιαμεὶν, λέγοντες, πορεύεσθε καὶ ἐνεδρεύσατε ἐν τοῖς ἀμπελῶσι,
And they charged the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards;
21
וּרְאִיתֶם וְהִנֵּה אִם־יֵצְאוּ בְנוֹת־שִׁילוֹ לָחוּל בַּמְּחֹלוֹת וִיצָאתֶם מִן־הַכְּרָמִים וַחֲטַפְתֶּם לָכֶם אִישׁ אִשְׁתּוֹ מִבְּנוֹת שִׁילוֹ וַהֲלַכְתֶּם אֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן
and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.
καὶ ὄψεσθε, καὶ ἰδοὺ, ἐὰν ἐξέλθωσιν αἱ θυγατέρες τῶν οἰκούντων Σηλὼ χορεύειν ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς, καὶ ἐξελεύσεσθε ἐκ τῶν ἀμπελώνων, καὶ ἁρπάσατε αὑτοῖς ἀνὴρ γυναῖκα ἀπὸ τῶν θυγατέρων Σηλὼμ, καὶ πορεύεσθε εἰς γῆν Βενιαμίν.
and ye shall see; and lo! if there come out the daughters of the inhabitants of Shiloh to dance in dances, then shall ye go out of the vineyards and seize for yourselves every man a wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go ye into the land of Benjamin.
22
וְהָיָה כִּי־יָבֹאוּ אֲבוֹתָם אוֹ אֲחֵיהֶם לרוב לָרִיב אֵלֵינוּ וְאָמַרְנוּ אֲלֵיהֶם חָנּוּנוּ אוֹתָם כִּי לֹא לָקַחְנוּ אִישׁ אִשְׁתּוֹ בַּמִּלְחָמָה כִּי לֹא אַתֶּם נְתַתֶּם לָהֶם כָּעֵת תֶּאְשָׁמוּ
And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come to strive with us, that we will say unto them: Grant them graciously unto us; because we took not for each man of them his wife in battle; neither did ye give them unto them, that ye should now be guilty.'
Καὶ ἔσται ὅταν ἔλθωσιν οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν ἢ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτῶν κρίνεσθαι πρὸς ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἐροῦμεν αὐτοῖς, ἔλεος ποιήσατε ἡμῖν αὐτὰς, ὅτι οὐκ ἐλάβομεν ἀνὴρ γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ παρατάξει, ὅτι οὐχ ὑμεῖς ἐδώκατε αὐτοῖς, ὡς κλῆρος πλημμελήσατε.
And it shall come to pass, when their fathers or their brethren come to dispute with us, that we will say to them, Grant them freely to us, for we have not taken every man his wife in the battle: because ye did not give to them according to the occasion, ye transgressed.
23
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ־כֵן בְּנֵי בִנְיָמִן וַיִּשְׂאוּ נָשִׁים לְמִסְפָּרָם מִן־הַמְּחֹלְלוֹת אֲשֶׁר גָּזָלוּ וַיֵּלְכוּ וַיָּשׁוּבוּ אֶל־נַחֲלָתָם וַיִּבְנוּ אֶת־הֶעָרִים וַיֵּשְׁבוּ בָּהֶם
And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they carried off; and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and built the cities, and dwelt in them.
Καὶ ἐποίησαν οὕτως οἱ υἱοὶ Βενιαμίν· καὶ ἔλαβον γυναῖκας εἰς ἀριθμὸν αὐτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν χορευουσῶν ὧν ἥρπασαν· καὶ ἐπορεύθησαν, καὶ ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτῶν· καὶ ᾠκοδόμησαν τὰς πόλεις, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐν αὐταῖς.
And the children of Benjamin did so; and they took wives according to their number from the dancers whom they seized: and they went and returned to their inheritance, and built the cities, and dwelt in them.
24
וַיִּתְהַלְּכוּ מִשָּׁם בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּעֵת הַהִיא אִישׁ לְשִׁבְטוֹ וּלְמִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ וַיֵּצְאוּ מִשָּׁם אִישׁ לְנַחֲלָתוֹ
And the children of Israel departed thence at that time, every man to his tribe and to his family, and they went out from thence every man to his inheritance.
Καὶ περιεπάτησαν ἐκεῖθεν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀνὴρ εἰς φυλὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς συγγένειαν αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐξῆλθον ἐκεῖθεν ἀνὴρ εἰς τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ.
And the children of Israel went thence at that time every man to his tribe and his kindred; and they went thence every man to his inheritance.
25
בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם אֵין מֶלֶךְ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל אִישׁ הַיָּשָׁר בְּעֵינָיו יַעֲשֶׂה 618 21 4 4
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Ἐν δὲ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις οὐκ ἦν βασιλεὺς ἐν Ἰσραήλ· ἀνὴρ τὸ εὐθὲς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ ἐποίει.
And in those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own sight.

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.