Textorah

Lamentations 2

1
אֵיכָה יָעִיב בְּאַפּוֹ אֲדֹנָי אֶת־בַּת־צִיּוֹן הִשְׁלִיךְ מִשָּׁמַיִם אֶרֶץ תִּפְאֶרֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלֹא־זָכַר הֲדֹם־רַגְלָיו בְּיוֹם אַפּוֹ
How hath the L-rd covered with a cloud the daughter of Zion in His anger! He hath cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and hath not remembered His footstool in the day of His anger.
ΑΛΕΦ. Πῶς ἐγνόφωσεν ἐν ὀργῇ αὐτοῦ Κύριος τὴν θυγατέρα Σιών; κατέῤῥιψεν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εἰς γῆν δόξασμα Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ οὐκ ἐμνήσθη ὑποποδίου ποδῶν αὐτοῦ.
How has the Lord darkened in his wrath The daughter of Zion! He has cast down the glory of Israel From heaven to earth, And has not remembered his footstool.
2
בִּלַּע אֲדֹנָי לא וְלֹא חָמַל אֵת כָּל־נְאוֹת יַעֲקֹב הָרַס בְּעֶבְרָתוֹ מִבְצְרֵי בַת־יְהוּדָה הִגִּיעַ לָאָרֶץ חִלֵּל מַמְלָכָה וְשָׂרֶיהָ
The L-rd hath swallowed up unsparingly all the habitations of Jacob; He hath thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He hath brought them down to the ground; He hath profaned the kingdom and the princes thereof.
ΒΗΘ. Ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς αὐτοῦ κατεπόντισε Κύριος, οὐ φεισάμενος· πάντα τὰ ὡραῖα Ἰακὼβ καθεῖλεν ἐν θυμῷ αὐτοῦ, τὰ ὀχυρώματα τῆς θυγατρὸς Ἰούδα ἐκόλλησεν εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἐβεβήλωσε βασιλέα αὐτῆς, καὶ ἄρχοντας αὐτῆς.
In the day of his wrath The Lord has overwhelmed [her] as in the sea, [And] not spared: He has brought down in his fury All the beautiful things of Jacob; He has brought down to the ground The strongholds of the daughter of Judah: He has profaned her king and her princes.
3
גָּדַע בָּחֳרִי אַף כֹּל קֶרֶן יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵשִׁיב אָחוֹר יְמִינוֹ מִפְּנֵי אוֹיֵב וַיִּבְעַר בְּיַעֲקֹב כְּאֵשׁ לֶהָבָה אָכְלָה סָבִיב
He hath cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He hath drawn back His right hand from before the enemy; and He hath burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, which devoureth round about.
ΓΙΜΕΛ. Συνέκλασεν ἐν ὀργῇ θυμοῦ αὐτοῦ πᾶν κέρας Ἰσραὴλ, ἀπέστρεψεν ὀπίσω δεξιὰν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ προσώπου ἐχθροῦ, καὶ ἀνῆψεν ἐν Ἰακὼβ ὡς πῦρ φλόγα, καὶ κατέφαγε πάντα τὰ κύκλῳ.
He has broken in his fierce anger All the horn of Israel: He has turned back his right hand From the face of the enemy, And has kindled a flame in Jacob as fire, And it has devoured all things round about.
4
דָּרַךְ קַשְׁתּוֹ כְּאוֹיֵב נִצָּב יְמִינוֹ כְּצָר וַיַּהֲרֹג כֹּל מַחֲמַדֵּי־עָיִן בְּאֹהֶל בַּת־צִיּוֹן שָׁפַךְ כָּאֵשׁ חֲמָתוֹ
He hath bent His bow like an enemy, standing with His right hand as an adversary, and hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye; in the tent of the daughter of Zion He hath poured out His fury like fire.
ΔΑΛΕΘ. Ἐνέτεινε τόξον αὐτοῦ ὡς ἐχθρὸς ὑπεναντίος, ἐστερέωσε δεξιὰν αὐτοῦ ὡς ὑπεναντίος, καὶ ἀπέκτεινε πάντα τὰ ἐπιθυμήματα τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν μου ἐν σκηνῇ θυγατρὸς Σιὼν, ἐξέχεεν ὡς πῦρ τὸν θυμὸν αὐτοῦ.
He has bent his bow as an opposing enemy: He has strengthened his right hand as an adversary, And has destroyed all the desirable things of my eyes In the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion: He has poured forth his anger as fire.
5
הָיָה אֲדֹנָי כְּאוֹיֵב בִּלַּע יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּלַּע כָּל־אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ שִׁחֵת מִבְצָרָיו וַיֶּרֶב בְּבַת־יְהוּדָה תַּאֲנִיָּה וַאֲנִיָּה
The L-rd is become as an enemy, He hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, He hath destroyed his strongholds; and He hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and moaning.
Η. Ἐγενήθη Κύριος ὡς ἐχθρὸς, κατεπόντισεν Ἰσραὴλ, κατεπόντισε τὰς βάρεις αὐτῆς, διέφθειρε τὰ ὀχυρώματα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐπλήθυνε τῇ θυγατρὶ Ἰούδα ταπεινουμένην καὶ τεταπεινωμένην.
The Lord is become as an enemy: He has overwhelmed Israel as in the sea, He has overwhelmed her palaces: He has destroyed his strongholds, And has multiplied the afflicted and humbled ones To the daughter of Judah.
6
וַיַּחְמֹס כַּגַּן שֻׂכּוֹ שִׁחֵת מוֹעֲדוֹ שִׁכַּח יְהוָה בְּצִיּוֹן מוֹעֵד וְשַׁבָּת וַיִּנְאַץ בְּזַעַם־אַפּוֹ מֶלֶךְ וְכֹהֵן
And He hath stripped His tabernacle, as if it were a garden, He hath destroyed His place of assembly; HaShem hath caused to be forgotten in Zion appointed season and sabbath, and hath rejected in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.
ΟΥΑΥ. Καὶ διεπέτασεν ὡς ἄμπελον τὸ σκήνωμα αὐτοῦ, διέφθειρεν ἑορτὴν αὐτοῦ· ἐπελάθετο Κύριος ἃ ἐποίησεν ἐν Σιὼν ἑορτῆς καὶ σαββάτου, καὶ παρώξυνεν ἐμβριμήματι ὀργῆς αὐτοῦ βασιλέα καὶ ἱερέα καὶ ἄρχοντα.
And he has scattered his tabernacle as a vine, He has marred his feast: The Lord has forgotten the feast And the Sabbath which he appointed in Zion, And in the fury of his wrath Has vexed the king, and priest, and prince.
7
זָנַח אֲדֹנָי מִזְבְּחוֹ נִאֵר מִקְדָּשׁוֹ הִסְגִּיר בְּיַד־אוֹיֵב חוֹמֹת אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ קוֹל נָתְנוּ בְּבֵית־יְהוָה כְּיוֹם מוֹעֵד
The L-rd hath cast off His altar, He hath abhorred His sanctuary, He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces; they have made a noise in the house of HaShem, as in the day of a solemn assembly.
ΖΑΙΝ. Ἀπώσατο Κύριος θυσιαστήριον αὐτοῦ, ἀπετίναξεν ἁγίασμα αὐτοῦ, συνέτριψεν ἐν χειρὶ ἐχθροῦ τεῖχος βάρεων αὐτῆς· φωνὴν ἔδωκαν ἐν οἴκῳ Κυρίου ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ἑορτῆς.
The Lord has rejected his altar, He has cast off his sanctuary, He has broken by the hand of the enemy The wall of her palaces; They have uttered their voice in the house of the Lord As on a feast day.
8
חָשַׁב יְהוָה לְהַשְׁחִית חוֹמַת בַּת־צִיּוֹן נָטָה קָו לֹא־הֵשִׁיב יָדוֹ מִבַּלֵּעַ וַיּ͏ַאֲבֶל־חֵל וְחוֹמָה יַחְדָּו אֻמְלָלוּ
HaShem hath purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He hath stretched out the line, He hath not withdrawn His hand from destroying; but He hath made the rampart and wall to mourn, they languish together.
ΗΘ. Καὶ ἐπέστρεψε διαφθεῖραι τείχος θυγατρὸς Σιών· ἐξέτεινε μέτρον, οὐκ ἀπέστρεψε χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ καταπατήματος, καὶ ἐπένθησε τὸ προτείχισμα, καὶ τεῖχος ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἠσθένησεν.
And he has turned to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion: He has stretched out the measuring line, He has not turned back his hand from afflicting [her]: Therefore the bulwark mourned, And the wall was weakened with it.
9
טָבְעוּ בָאָרֶץ שְׁעָרֶיהָ אִבַּד וְשִׁבַּר בְּרִיחֶיהָ מַלְכָּהּ וְשָׂרֶיהָ בַגּוֹיִם אֵין תּוֹרָה גַּם־נְבִיאֶיהָ לֹא־מָצְאוּ חָזוֹן מֵיְהוָה
Her gates are sunk into the ground; He hath destroyed and broken her bars; her king and her princes are among the nations, instruction is no more; yea, her prophets find no vision from HaShem.
ΤΗΘ. Ἐνεπάγησαν εἰς γῆν πύλαι αὐτῆς, ἀπώλεσε καὶ συνέτριψε μοχλοὺς αὐτῆς, βασιλέα αὐτῆς καὶ ἄρχοντα αὐτῆς ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν· οὐκ ἔστι νόμος, καί γε προφῆται αὐτῆς οὐκ εἶδον ὅρασιν παρὰ Κυρίου.
Her gates are sunk into the ground: He has destroyed and broken to pieces her bars, [And] her king and her prince among the Gentiles: There is no law, Nay, her prophets have seen no vision from the Lord.
10
יֵשְׁבוּ לָאָרֶץ יִדְּמוּ זִקְנֵי בַת־צִיּוֹן הֶעֱלוּ עָפָר עַל־רֹאשָׁם חָגְרוּ שַׂקִּים הוֹרִידוּ לָאָרֶץ רֹאשָׁן בְּתוּלֹת יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם
They sit upon the ground, and keep silence, the elders of the daughter of Zion; they have cast up dust upon their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth; the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
ΙΩΔ. Ἐκάθισαν εἰς τὴν γῆν, ἐσιώπησαν πρεσβύτεροι θυγατρὸς Σιὼν, ἀνεβίβασαν χοῦν ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτῶν, περιεζώσαντο σάκκους, κατήγαγον εἰς γῆν ἀρχηγοὺς παρθένους ἐν Ἱερουσαλήμ.
The elders of the daughter of Zion Have sat upon the ground, They have kept silence: They have cast up dust upon their heads; They have girded themselves with sackcloth: They have brought down to the ground The chief virgins in Jerusalem.
11
כָּלוּ בַדְּמָעוֹת עֵינַי חֳמַרְמְרוּ מֵעַי נִשְׁפַּךְ לָאָרֶץ כְּבֵדִי עַל־שֶׁבֶר בַּת־עַמִּי בֵּעָטֵף עוֹלֵל וְיוֹנֵק בִּרְחֹבוֹת קִרְיָה
Mine eyes do fail with tears, mine inwards burn, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the breach of the daughter of my people; because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the broad places of the city.
ΧΑΦ. Ἐξέλιπον ἐν δάκρυσιν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου, ἐταράχθη ἡ καρδία μου, ἐξεχύθη εἰς τὴν γῆν ἡ δόξα μου, ἐπὶ τὸ σύντριμμα τῆς θυγατρὸς λαοῦ μου, ἐν τῷ ἐκλείπειν νήπιον καὶ θηλάζοντα ἐν πλατείαις πόλεως.
Mine eyes have failed with tears, My heart is troubled, My glory is cast down to the ground, For the destruction of the daughter of my people; While the infant and suckling swoon In the streets of the city.
12
לְאִמֹּתָם יֹאמְרוּ אַיֵּה דָּגָן וָיָיִן בְּהִתְעַטְּפָם כֶּחָלָל בִּרְחֹבוֹת עִיר בְּהִשְׁתַּפֵּךְ נַפְשָׁם אֶל־חֵיק אִמֹּתָם
They say to their mothers: 'Where is corn and wine?' when they swoon as the wounded in the broad places of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers' bosom.
ΛΑΜΕΔ. Ταῖς μητράσιν αὐτῶν εἶπαν, ποῦ σῖτος, καὶ οἶνος; ἐν τῷ ἐκλύεσθαι αὐτοὺς ὡς τραυματίας ἐν πλατείαις πόλεως, ἐν τῷ ἐκχεῖσθαι ψυχὰς αὐτῶν εἰς κόλπον μητέρων αὐτῶν.
They said to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? While they fainted like wounded men In the streets of the city, While their souls were poured out Into their mother’s bosom.
13
מָה־אֲעִידֵךְ מָה אֲדַמֶּה־לָּךְ הַבַּת יְרוּשָׁלִַם מָה אַשְׁוֶה־לָּךְ וַאֲנַחֲמֵךְ בְּתוּלַת בַּת־צִיּוֹן כִּי־גָדוֹל כַּיָּם שִׁבְרֵךְ מִי יִרְפָּא־לָךְ
What shall I take to witness for thee? What shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea; who can heal thee?
ΜΗΜ. Τί μαρτυρήσω σοι, ἢ τί ὁμοιώσω σοι, θύγατερ Ἱερουσαλήμ; τίς σώσει καὶ παρακαλέσει σε, παρθένος θύγατερ Σιών; ὅτι ἐμεγαλύνθη ποτήριον συντριβῆς σου, τίς ἰάσεταί σε;
What shall I testify to thee, Or what shall I compare to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? Who shall save and comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For the cup of thy destruction is enlarged: Who shall heal thee?
14
נְבִיאַיִךְ חָזוּ לָךְ שָׁוְא וְתָפֵל וְלֹא־גִלּוּ עַל־עֲוֺנֵךְ לְהָשִׁיב שביתך שְׁבוּתֵךְ וַיֶּחֱזוּ לָךְ מַשְׂאוֹת שָׁוְא וּמַדּוּחִים
Thy prophets have seen visions for thee of vanity and delusion; and they have not uncovered thine iniquity, to bring back thy captivity; but have prophesied for thee burdens of vanity and seduction.
ΝΟΥΝ. Προφῆταί σου εἴδοσάν σοι μάταια καὶ ἀφροσύνην, καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψαν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀδικίαν σου, τοῦ ἐπιστρέψαι αἰχμαλωσίαν σου, καὶ εἴδοσάν σοι λήμματα μάταια καὶ ἐξώσματα.
Thy prophets have seen for thee Vanities and folly: And they have not discovered thine iniquity, To turn back thy captivity; But they have seen for thee vain burdens, And worthless visions.
15
סָפְקוּ עָלַיִךְ כַּפַּיִם כָּל־עֹבְרֵי דֶרֶךְ שָׁרְקוּ וַיָּנִעוּ רֹאשָׁם עַל־בַּת יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם הֲזֹאת הָעִיר שֶׁיֹּאמְרוּ כְּלִילַת יֹפִי מָשׂוֹשׂ לְכָל־הָאָרֶץ
All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: 'Is this the city that men called the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?'
ΣΑΜΕΧ. Ἐκρότησαν ἐπὶ σὲ χεῖρας πάντες οἱ παραπορευόμενοι ὁδὸν, ἐσύρισαν καὶ ἐκίνησαν τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν θυγατέρα Ἱερουσαλήμ. Αὕτη ἡ πόλις, ἐροῦσι, στέφανος εὐφροσύνης πάσης τῆς γῆς;
All that go by the way Have clapped their hands at thee; They have hissed and shaken their head At the daughter of Jerusalem. Is this the city, they say, The crown of joy of all the earth?
16
פָּצוּ עָלַיִךְ פִּיהֶם כָּל־אוֹיְבַיִךְ שָׁרְקוּ וַיַּחַרְקוּ־שֵׁן אָמְרוּ בִּלָּעְנוּ אַךְ זֶה הַיּוֹם שֶׁקִּוִּינֻהוּ מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ
All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say: 'We have swallowed her up; certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.'
ΑΙΝ. Διήνοιξαν ἐπὶ σὲ στόμα αὐτῶν πάντες οἱ ἐχθροί σου, ἐσυρίσαν καὶ ἔβρυξαν ὀδόντας, καὶ εἶπαν, κατεπίομεν αὐτήν· πλὴν αὕτη ἡ ἡμέρα ἣν προσεδοκῶμεν, εὕρομεν αὐτὴν, εἴδομεν.
All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: They have hissed and gnashed their teeth, And said, We have swallowed her up: Moreover this is the day which we looked for; We have found it, we have seen it.
17
עָשָׂה יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר זָמָם בִּצַּע אֶמְרָתוֹ אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה מִימֵי־קֶדֶם הָרַס וְלֹא חָמָל וַיְשַׂמַּח עָלַיִךְ אוֹיֵב הֵרִים קֶרֶן צָרָיִךְ
HaShem hath done that which He devised; He hath performed His word that He commanded in the days of old; He hath thrown down unsparingly; and He hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, He hath exalted the horn of thine adversaries.
ΦΗ. Ἐποίησε Κύριος ἃ ἐνεθυμήθη, συνετέλεσε ῥῆμα αὐτοῦ, ἃ ἐνετείλατο ἐξ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων· καθεῖλε, καὶ οὐκ ἐφείσατο, καὶ ηὔφρανεν ἐπὶ σὲ ἐχθρὸν, ὕψωσε κέρας θλίβοντός σε.
The Lord has done that which he purposed; He has accomplished his word, [Even] the things which he commanded from the ancient days: He has thrown down, and has not spared: And he has caused the enemy to rejoice over thee, He has exalted the horn of him that afflicted thee.
18
צָעַק לִבָּם אֶל־אֲדֹנָי חוֹמַת בַּת־צִיּוֹן הוֹרִידִי כַנַּחַל דִּמְעָה יוֹמָם וָלַיְלָה אַל־תִּתְּנִי פוּגַת לָךְ אַל־תִּדֹּם בַּת־עֵינֵךְ
Their heart cried unto the L-rd: 'O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night; give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye cease.
ΤΣΑΔΗ. Ἐβόησε καρδία αὐτῶν πρὸς Κύριον, τείχη Σιὼν καταγάγετε ὡς χειμάῤῥους δάκρυα ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτός· μὴ δῷς ἔκνηψιν σεαυτῇ, μὴ σιωπήσαιτο θυγάτηρ ὀφθαλμῶν σου.
Their heart cried to the Lord, Ye walls of Zion, Pour down tears like torrents day and night: Give thyself no rest; Let not the apple of thine eyes cease.
19
קוּמִי רֹנִּי בליל בַלַּיְלָה לְרֹאשׁ אַשְׁמֻרוֹת שִׁפְכִי כַמַּיִם לִבֵּךְ נֹכַח פְּנֵי אֲדֹנָי שְׂאִי אֵלָיו כַּפַּיִךְ עַל־נֶפֶשׁ עוֹלָלַיִךְ הָעֲטוּפִים בְּרָעָב בְּרֹאשׁ כָּל־חוּצוֹת
Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the L-rd; lift up thy hands toward Him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger at the head of every street.'
ΚΩΦ. Ἀνάστα, ἀγαλλίασαι ἐν νυκτὶ εἰς ἀρχὰς φυλακῆς σου, ἔκχεον ὡς ὕδωρ καρδίαν σου ἀπέναντι προσώπου Κυρίου, ἆρον πρὸς αὐτὸν χεῖράς σου περὶ ψυχῆς νηπίων σου, τῶν ἐκλυομένων λιμῷ ἐπʼ ἀρχῆς πασῶν ἐξόδων.
Arise, rejoice in the night At the beginning of thy watch: Pour out thy heart as water Before the face of the Lord: Lift up thy hands to him For the life of thine infants, Who faint for hunger At the top of all the streets.
20
רְאֵה יְהוָה וְהַבִּיטָה לְמִי עוֹלַלְתָּ כֹּה אִם־תֹּאכַלְנָה נָשִׁים פִּרְיָם עֹלֲלֵי טִפֻּחִים אִם־יֵהָרֵג בְּמִקְדַּשׁ אֲדֹנָי כֹּהֵן וְנָבִיא
'See, O HaShem, and consider, to whom Thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the L-rd?
ΡΗΧΣ. Ἴδε Κύριε καὶ ἐπίβλεψον τίνι ἐπεφύλλισας οὕτως· εἰ φάγονται γυναῖκες καρπὸν κοιλίας αὐτῶν; ἐπιφυλλίδα ἐποίησε μάγειρος, φονευθήσονται νήπια θηλάζοντα μαστούς; ἀποκτενεῖς ἐν ἁγιάσματι Κυρίου ἱερέα καὶ προφήτην;
Behold, O Lord, And see for whom thou hast gathered thus. Shall the women eat the fruit of their womb? The cook has made a gathering: Shall the infants sucking at the breasts be slain? Wilt thou slay the priest and prophet In the sanctuary of the Lord?
21
שָׁכְבוּ לָאָרֶץ חוּצוֹת נַעַר וְזָקֵן בְּתוּלֹתַי וּבַחוּרַי נָפְלוּ בֶחָרֶב הָרַגְתָּ בְּיוֹם אַפֶּךָ טָבַחְתָּ לֹא חָמָלְתָּ
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger; Thou hast slaughtered unsparingly.
ΧΣΕΝ. Ἐκοιμήθησαν εἰς τὴν ἔξοδον παιδάριον καὶ πρεσβύτης· παρθένοι μου καὶ νεανίσκοι μου ἐπορεύθησαν ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ, ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ ἀπέκτεινας, ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς σου ἐμαγείρευσας, οὐκ ἐφείσω.
The child and old man Have lain down in the street: My virgins and my young men Are gone into captivity: Thou hast slain [them] With the sword and with famine; In the day of thy wrath thou hast mangled [them], Thou hast not spared.
22
תִּקְרָא כְיוֹם מוֹעֵד מְגוּרַי מִסָּבִיב וְלֹא הָיָה בְּיוֹם אַף־יְהוָה פָּלִיט וְשָׂרִיד אֲשֶׁר־טִפַּחְתִּי וְרִבִּיתִי אֹיְבִי כִלָּם
Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side, and there was none in the day of HaShem'S anger that escaped or remained; those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.'
ΘΑΥ. Ἐκάλεσεν ἡμέραν ἑορτῆς παροικίας μου κυκλόθεν, καὶ οὐκ ἐγένοντο ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ὀργῆς Κυρίου ἀνασωζόμενος καὶ καταλελειμμένος, ὡς ἐπεκράτησα, καὶ ἐπλήθυνα ἐχθρούς μου πάντας.
He has called my sojourners round about To a solemn day, And there was not in the day of the wrath of the Lord Anyone that escaped or was left; Whereas I have strengthened and multiplied all mine enemies.

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.