Textorah

Leviticus 21

1
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֱמֹר אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִים בְּנֵי אַהֲרֹן וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם לְנֶפֶשׁ לֹא־יִטַּמָּא בְּעַמָּיו
And HaShem said unto Moses: Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them: There shall none defile himself for the dead among his people;
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγων, εἶπον τοῖς ἱερεύσι τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἀαρὼν, καὶ ἐρεῖς πρὸς αὐτούς, ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς οὐ μιανθήσονται ἐν τῷ ἔθνει αὐτῶν,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and thou shalt tell them [that] they shall not defile themselves in their nation for the dead,
2
כִּי אִם־לִשְׁאֵרוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו לְאִמּוֹ וּלְאָבִיו וְלִבְנוֹ וּלְבִתּוֹ וּלְאָחִיו
except for his kin, that is near unto him, for his mother, and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother;
ἀλλʼ ἢ ἐν τῷ οἰκείῳ τῷ ἔγγιστα αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ πατρὶ καὶ μητρὶ, καὶ υἱοῖς, καὶ θυγατράσιν, ἐπʼ ἀδελφῷ,
but [they may mourn] for a relative who is very near to them, for a father and mother, and sons and daughters, for a brother,
3
וְלַאֲחֹתוֹ הַבְּתוּלָה הַקְּרוֹבָה אֵלָיו אֲשֶׁר לֹא־הָיְתָה לְאִישׁ לָהּ יִטַּמָּא
and for his sister a virgin, that is near unto him, that hath had no husband, for her may he defile himself.
καὶ ἐπʼ ἀδελφῇ παρθένῳ τῇ ἐγγιζούσῃ αὐτῷ, τῇ μὴ ἐκδεδομένῃ ἀνδρί, ἐπὶ τούτοις μιανθήσεται.
and for a virgin sister that is near to one, that is not espoused to a man; for these one shall defile himself.
4
לֹא יִטַּמָּא בַּעַל בְּעַמָּיו לְהֵחַלּוֹ
He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
Οὐ μιανθήσεται ἐξάπινα ἐν τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ εἰς βεβήλωσιν αὐτοῦ.
He shall not defile himself suddenly among his people to profane himself.
5
לֹא־יקרחה יִקְרְחוּ קָרְחָה בְּרֹאשָׁם וּפְאַת זְקָנָם לֹא יְגַלֵּחוּ וּבִבְשָׂרָם לֹא יִשְׂרְטוּ שָׂרָטֶת
They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corners of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh.
Καὶ φαλάκρωμα οὐ ξυρηθήσεσθε τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐπὶ νεκρῷ· καὶ τὴν ὄψιν τοῦ πώγωνος οὐ ξυρήσονται· καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς σάρκας αὐτῶν οὐ κατατεμοῦσιν ἐντομίδας.
And ye shall not shave your head for the dead with a baldness on the top; and they shall not shave their beard, neither shall they make gashes on their flesh.
6
קְדֹשִׁים יִהְיוּ לֵאלֹהֵיהֶם וְלֹא יְחַלְּלוּ שֵׁם אֱלֹהֵיהֶם כִּי אֶת־אִשֵּׁי יְהוָה לֶחֶם אֱלֹהֵיהֶם הֵם מַקְרִיבִם וְהָיוּ קֹדֶשׁ
They shall be holy unto their G-d, and not profane the name of their G-d; for the offerings of HaShem made by fire, the bread of their G-d, they do offer; therefore they shall be holy.
Ἅγιοι ἔσονται τῷ Θεῷ αὐτῶν, καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσουσι τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτῶν· τὰς γὰρ θυσίας Κυρίου δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτῶν αὐτοὶ προσφέρουσι, καὶ ἔσονται ἅγιοι.
They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God; for they offer the sacrifices of the Lord as the gifts of their God, and they shall be holy.
7
אִשָּׁה זֹנָה וַחֲלָלָה לֹא יִקָּחוּ וְאִשָּׁה גְּרוּשָׁה מֵאִישָׁהּ לֹא יִקָּחוּ כִּי־קָדֹשׁ הוּא לֵאלֹהָיו
They shall not take a woman that is a harlot, or profaned; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband; for he is holy unto his G-d.
Γυναῖκα πόρνην καὶ βεβηλωμένην οὐ λήψονται, καὶ γυναῖκα ἐκβεβλημένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς, ὅτι ἅγιός ἐστι Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ αὐτοῦ.
They shall not take a woman who is a harlot and profaned, or a woman put away from her husband; for he is holy to the Lord his God.
8
וְקִדַּשְׁתּוֹ כִּי־אֶת־לֶחֶם אֱלֹהֶיךָ הוּא מַקְרִיב קָדֹשׁ יִהְיֶה־לָּךְ כִּי קָדוֹשׁ אֲנִי יְהוָה מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם
Thou shalt sanctify him therefore; for he offereth the bread of thy G-d; he shall be holy unto thee; for I HaShem, who sanctify you, am holy.
Καὶ ἁγιάσεις αὐτόν· τὰ δῶρα Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ὑμῶν οὗτος προσφέρει, ἅγιος ἔσται· ὅτι ἅγιος ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ ἁγιάζων αὐτούς.
And thou shalt hallow him; he offers the gifts of the Lord your God: he shall be holy, for I the Lord that sanctify them [am] holy.
9
וּבַת אִישׁ כֹּהֵן כִּי תֵחֵל לִזְנוֹת אֶת־אָבִיהָ הִיא מְחַלֶּלֶת בָּאֵשׁ תִּשָּׂרֵף
And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the harlot, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
Καὶ θυγάτηρ ἀνθρώπου ἱερέως ἐὰν βεβηλωθῇ τοῦ ἐκπορνεύσαι, τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς αὐτὴ βεβηλοῖ· ἐπὶ πυρὸς κατακαυθήσεται.
And if the daughter of a priest should be profaned to go a-whoring, she profanes the name of her father: she shall be burned with fire.
10
וְהַכֹּהֵן הַגָּדוֹל מֵאֶחָיו אֲ‍שֶׁר־יוּצַק עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ שֶׁמֶן הַמִּשְׁחָה וּמִלֵּא אֶת־יָדוֹ לִלְבֹּשׁ אֶת־הַבְּגָדִים אֶת־רֹאשׁוֹ לֹא יִפְרָע וּבְגָדָיו לֹא יִפְרֹם
And the priest that is highest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil is poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not let the hair of his head go loose, nor rend his clothes;
Καὶ ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ μέγας ἀπὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν αὐτοῦ, τοῦ ἐπικεχυμένου ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ ἐλαίου τοῦ χριστοῦ, καὶ τετελειωμένου ἐνδύσασθαι τὰ ἱμάτια, τὴν κεφαλὴν οὐκ ἀποκιδαρώσει, καὶ τὰ ἱμάτια οὐ διαῤῥήξει,
And the priest that is chief among his brethren, the oil having been poured upon the head of the anointed one, and he having been consecrated to put on the garments, shall not take the miter off his head, and shall not rend his garments:
11
וְעַל כָּל־נַפְשֹׁת מֵת לֹא יָבֹא לְאָבִיו וּלְאִמּוֹ לֹא יִטַּמָּא
neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father, or for his mother;
καὶ ἐπὶ πάσῃ ψυχῇ τετελευτηκυίᾳ οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται, ἐπὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ οὐδὲ ἐπὶ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ οὐ μιανθήσεται.
neither shall he go in to any dead body, neither shall he defile himself for his father or his mother.
12
וּמִן־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ לֹא יֵצֵא וְלֹא יְחַלֵּל אֵת מִקְדַּשׁ אֱלֹהָיו כִּי נֵזֶר שֶׁמֶן מִשְׁחַת אֱלֹהָיו עָלָיו אֲנִי יְהוָה
neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his G-d; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his G-d is upon him: I am HaShem.
Καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἁγίων οὐκ ἐξελεύσεται, καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσει τὸ ἡγιασμένον τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι τὸ ἅγιον ἔλαιον τὸ χριστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπʼ αὐτῷ· ἐγὼ Κύριος.
And he shall not go forth out of the sanctuary, and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, because the holy anointing oil of God [is] upon him: I [am] the Lord.
13
וְהוּא אִשָּׁה בִבְתוּלֶיהָ יִקָּח
And he shall take a wife in her virginity.
Οὗτος γυναῖκα παρθένον ἐκ τοῦ γένους αὐτοῦ λήψεται.
He shall take for a wife a virgin of his own tribe.
14
אַלְמָנָה וּגְרוּשָׁה וַחֲלָלָה זֹנָה אֶת־אֵלֶּה לֹא יִקָּח כִּי אִם־בְּתוּלָה מֵעַמָּיו יִקַּח אִשָּׁה
A widow, or one divorced, or a profaned woman, or a harlot, these shall he not take; but a virgin of his own people shall he take to wife.
Χήραν δὲ καὶ ἐκβεβλημένην καὶ βεβηλωμένην καὶ πόρνην, ταύτας οὐ λήψεται, ἀλλʼ ἢ παρθένον ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ λήψεται γυναῖκα.
But a widow, or one that is put away, or profaned, or a harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take for a wife a virgin of his own people.
15
וְלֹא־יְחַלֵּל זַרְעוֹ בְּעַמָּיו כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה מְקַדְּשׁוֹ
And he shall not profane his seed among his people; for I am HaShem who sanctify him.
Καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσει τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ· ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ ἁγιάζων αὐτόν.
And he shall not profane his seed among his people: I [am] the Lord that sanctifies him.
16
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγων,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
17
דַּבֵּר אֶל־אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר אִישׁ מִזַּרְעֲךָ לְדֹרֹתָם אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה בוֹ מוּם לֹא יִקְרַב לְהַקְרִיב לֶחֶם אֱלֹהָיו
Speak unto Aaron, saying: Whosoever he be of thy seed throughout their generations that hath a blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his G-d.
εἶπον Ἀαρὼν, ἄνθρωπος ἐκ τοῦ γένους σου εἰς τὰς γενεὰς ὑμῶν, τινὶ ἐὰν ᾖ ἐν αὐτῷ μῶμος, οὐ προσελεύσεται προσφέρειν τὰ δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτοῦ.
Say to Aaron, A man of thy tribe throughout your generations, who shall have a blemish on him, shall not draw nigh to offer the gifts of his God.
18
כִּי כָל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ מוּם לֹא יִקְרָב אִישׁ עִוֵּר אוֹ פִסֵּחַ אוֹ חָרֻם אוֹ שָׂרוּעַ
For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath any thing maimed, or anything too long,
πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ᾧ ἐστιν ἐν αὐτῷ μῶμος, οὐ προσελεύσεται· ἄνθρωπος τυφλὸς.
No man who has a blemish on him shall draw nigh; a man lame, blind, with his nose disfigured, or his ears cut,
19
אוֹ אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־יִהְיֶה בוֹ שֶׁבֶר רָגֶל אוֹ שֶׁבֶר יָד
or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed,
ἢ χωλὸς, ἢ κολοβόριν, ἢ ὠτότμητος, ἢ ἄνθρωπος ᾧ ἂν ᾖ ἐν αὐτῳ σύντριμμα χειρὸς, ἢ σύντριμμα ποδὸς,
a man who has a broken hand or a broken foot,
ἢ κυρτὸς, ἢ ἔφηλος, ἢ πτίλλος τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, ἢ ἄνθρωπος ᾧ ἂν ᾖ ἐν αὐτῷ ψώρα ἀγρία, ἢ λειχὴν, ἢ μονόρχις.
or humpbacked, or bleary-eyed, or that has lost his eyelashes, or a man who has a malignant ulcer, or tetter, or one that has lost a testicle.
20
אוֹ־גִבֵּן אוֹ־דַק אוֹ תְּבַלֻּל בְּעֵינוֹ אוֹ גָרָב אוֹ יַלֶּפֶת אוֹ מְרוֹחַ אָשֶׁךְ
or crook-backed, or a dwarf, or that hath his eye overspread, or is scabbed, or scurvy, or hath his stones crushed;
21
כָּל־אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ מוּם מִזֶּרַע אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן לֹא יִגַּשׁ לְהַקְרִיב אֶת־אִשֵּׁי יְהוָה מוּם בּוֹ אֵת לֶחֶם אֱלֹהָיו לֹא יִגַּשׁ לְהַקְרִיב
no man of the seed of Aaron the priest, that hath a blemish, shall come nigh to offer the offerings of HaShem made by fire; he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his G-d.
Πᾶς ᾧ ἐστιν ἐν αὐτῷ μῶμος, ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος Ἀαρὼν τοῦ ἱερέως, οὐκ ἐγγιεῖ τοῦ προσενεγκεῖν τὰς θυσίας τῷ Θεῷ σου, ὅτι μῶμος ἐν αὐτῷ· τὰ δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ οὐ προσελεύσεται προσενεγκεῖν.
Whoever of the seed of Aaron the priest has a blemish on him, shall not draw nigh to offer sacrifices to thy God, because he has a blemish on him; he shall not draw nigh to offer the gifts of God.
22
לֶחֶם אֱלֹהָיו מִקָּדְשֵׁי הַקֳּדָשִׁים וּמִן־הַקֳּדָשִׁים יֹאכֵל
He may eat the bread of his G-d, both of the most holy, and of the holy.
Τὰ δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων φάγεται.
The gifts of God [are] most holy, and he shall eat of the holy things.
23
אַךְ אֶל־הַפָּרֹכֶת לֹא יָבֹא וְאֶל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ לֹא יִגַּשׁ כִּי־מוּם בּוֹ וְלֹא יְחַלֵּל אֶת־מִקְדָּשַׁי כִּי אֲנִי יְהוָה מְקַדְּשָׁם
Only he shall not go in unto the veil, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not My holy places; for I am HaShem who sanctify them.
Πλὴν πρὸς τὸ καταπέτασμα οὐ προσελεύσεται, καὶ πρὸς τὸ θυσιαστήριον οὐκ ἐγγιεῖ, ὅτι μῶμον ἔχει· καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσει τὸ ἅγιον τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ ἁγιάζων αὐτούς.
Only he shall not approach the veil, and he shall not draw nigh to the altar, because he has a blemish; and he shall not profane the sanctuary of his God, for I am the Lord that sanctifies them.
24
וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־אַהֲרֹן וְאֶל־בָּנָיו וְאֶל־כָּל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
So Moses spoke unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel.
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Μωυσῆς πρὸς Ἀαρὼν καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ, καὶ πρὸς πάντας υἱοὺς Ἱσραήλ.
And Moses spoke to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel.

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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.

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