Textorah

Numbers 17

1
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
2
אֱמֹר אֶל־אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן־אַהֲרֹן הַכֹּהֵן וְיָרֵם אֶת־הַמַּחְתֹּת מִבֵּין הַשְּׂרֵפָה וְאֶת־הָאֵשׁ זְרֵה־הָלְאָה כִּי קָדֵשׁוּ
'Speak unto Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, that he take up the fire-pans out of the burning, and scatter thou the fire yonder; for they are become holy;
καὶ πρὸς Ἐλεάζαρ τὸν υἱὸν Ἀαρὼν τὸν ἱερέα, ἀνέλεσθε τὰ πυρεῖα τὰ χαλκᾶ ἐκ μέσου τῶν κατακεκαυμένων, καὶ τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἀλλότριον τοῦτο σπεῖρον ἐκεῖ, ὅτι ἡγίασαν τὰ πυρεῖα τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν τούτων ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς αὐτῶν,
and to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, Take up the brazen censers out of the midst of the men that have been burned, and scatter the strange fire yonder, for they have sanctified the censers
3
אֵת מַחְתּוֹת ה͏ַחַטָּאִים הָאֵלֶּה בְּנַפְשֹׁתָם וְעָשׂוּ אֹתָם רִקֻּעֵי פַחִים צִפּוּי לַמִּזְבֵּחַ כִּי־הִקְרִיבֻם לִפְנֵי־יְהוָה וַיִּקְדָּשׁוּ וְיִהְיוּ לְאוֹת לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
even the fire-pans of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, and let them be made beaten plates for a covering of the altar--for they are become holy, because they were offered before HaShem--that they may be a sign unto the children of Israel.'
καὶ ποίησον αὐτὰ λεπίδας ἐλατὰς περίθεμα τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ, ὅτι προσηνέχθησαν ἔναντι Κυρίου καὶ ἡγιάσθησαν· καὶ ἐγένοντο εἰς σημεῖον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ.
of these sinners against their own souls, and do thou make them beaten plates a covering to the altar, because they were brought before the Lord and hallowed; and they became a sign to the children of Israel.
4
וַיִּקַּח אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן אֵת מַחְתּוֹת הַנְּחֹשֶׁת אֲשֶׁר הִקְרִיבוּ הַשְּׂרֻפִים וַיְרַקְּעוּם צִפּוּי לַמִּזְבֵּחַ
And Eleazar the priest took the brazen fire-pans, which they that were burnt had offered; and they beat them out for a covering of the altar,
Καὶ ἔλαβεν Ἐλεάζαρ υἱοὶς Ἀαρὼν τοῦ ἱερέως τὰ πυρεῖα τὰ χαλκᾶ, ὅσα προσήνεγκαν οἱ κατακεκαυμένοι, καὶ προσέθηκαν αὐτὰ περίθεμα τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ,
And Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest took the brazen censers, which the men who had been burnt brought near, and they put them as a covering on the altar:
5
זִכָּרוֹן לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִקְרַב אִישׁ זָר אֲשֶׁר לֹא מִזֶּרַע אַהֲרֹן הוּא לְהַקְטִיר קְטֹרֶת לִפְנֵי יְהוָה וְלֹא־יִהְיֶה כְקֹרַח וְכַעֲדָתוֹ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה לוֹ
to be a memorial unto the children of Israel, to the end that no common man, that is not of the seed of Aaron, draw near to burn incense before HaShem; that he fare not as Korah, and as his company; as HaShem spoke unto him by the hand of Moses.
μνημόσυνον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ, ὅπως ἂν μὴ προσέλθῃ μηδὶς ἀλλογενής, ὃς οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ σπέρματος Ἀαρὼν, ἐπιθεῖναι θυμίαμα ἔναντι Κυρίου· καὶ οὐκ ἔσται ὥσπερ Κορὲ, καὶ ἡ ἐπισύστασις αὐτοῦ, καθὰ ἐλάλησε Κύριος ἐν χειρὶ Μωυσῆ αὐτῷ.
a memorial to the children of Israel that no stranger might draw nigh, who is not of the seed of Aaron, to offer incense before the Lord; so he shall not be as Korah and as they that conspired with him, as the Lord spoke to him by the hand of Moses.
6
וַיִּלֹּנוּ כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמָּחֳרָת עַל־מֹשֶׁה וְעַל־אַהֲרֹן לֵאמֹר אַתֶּם הֲמִתֶּם אֶת־עַם יְהוָה
But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron, saying: 'Ye have killed the people of HaShem.'
Καὶ ἐγόγγυσαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ τῇ ἐπαύριον ἐπὶ Μωυσῆν καὶ Ἀαρὼν, λέγοντες, ὑμεῖς ἀπεκτάγκατε τὸν λαὸν Κυρίου.
And the children of Israel murmured the next day against Moses and Aaron, saying, Ye have killed the people of the Lord.
7
וַיְהִי בְּהִקָּהֵל הָעֵדָה עַל־מֹשֶׁה וְעַל־אַהֲרֹן וַיִּפְנוּ אֶל־אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהִנֵּה כִסָּהוּ הֶעָנָן וַיֵּרָא כְּבוֹד יְהוָה
And it came to pass, when the congregation was assembled against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tent of meeting; and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of HaShem appeared.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἐπισυστρέφεσθαι τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐπὶ Μωυσῆν καὶ Ἀαρὼν, καὶ ὥρμησαν ἐπὶ τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ μαρτυρίου· καὶ τήνδε ἐκάλυψεν αὐτὴν ἡ νεφέλη, καὶ ὤφθη ἡ δόξα Κυρίου.
And it came to pass when the congregation combined against Moses and Aaron, that they ran impetuously to the tabernacle of witness; and the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared.
8
וַיָּבֹא מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן אֶל־פְּנֵי אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד
And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting.
Καὶ εἰσῆλθε Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρὼν κατὰ πρόσωπον τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου.
And Moses and Aaron went in, in front of the tabernacle of witness.
9
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν καὶ Ἀαρὼν, λέγων,
And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,
10
הֵרֹמּוּ מִתּוֹךְ הָעֵדָה הַזֹּאת וַאֲכַלֶּה אֹתָם כְּרָגַע וַיִּפְּלוּ עַל־פְּנֵיהֶם
'Get you up from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.' And they fell upon their faces.
ἐκχωρήσατε ἐκ μέσου τῆς συναγωγῆς ταύτης, καὶ ἐξαναλώσω αὐτοὺς εἰσάπαξ· καὶ ἔπεσον ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αὐτῶν.
Depart out of the midst of this congregation, and I will consume them at once: and they fell upon their faces.
11
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־אַהֲרֹן קַח אֶת־הַמַּחְתָּה וְתֶן־עָלֶיהָ אֵשׁ מֵעַל הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וְשִׂים קְטֹרֶת וְהוֹלֵךְ מְהֵרָה אֶל־הָעֵדָה וְכַפֵּר עֲלֵיהֶם כִּי־יָצָא הַקֶּצֶף מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה הֵחֵל הַנָּגֶף
And Moses said unto Aaron: 'Take thy fire-pan, and put fire therein from off the altar, and lay incense thereon, and carry it quickly unto the congregation, and make atonement for them; for there is wrath gone out from HaShem: the plague is begun.'
Καὶ εἶπε Μωυσῆς πρὸς Ἀαρὼν, λάβε τὸ πυρεῖον, καὶ ἐπίθες ἐπʼ αὐτὸ πῦρ ἀπὸ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, καὶ ἐπίβαλε ἐπʼ αὐτὸ θυμίαμα, καὶ ἀπένεγκε τοτάχος εἰς τὴν παρεμβολὴν, καὶ ἐξίλασαι περὶ αὐτῶν· ἐξῆλθε γὰρ ὀργὴ ἀπὸ προσώπου Κυρίου, ἦρκται θραύειν τὸν λαόν.
And Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer, and put on it fire from the altar, and put incense on it, and carry it away quickly into the camp, and make atonement for them; for wrath is gone forth from the presence of the Lord, it has begun to destroy the people.
12
וַיִּקַּח אַהֲרֹן כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר מֹשֶׁה וַיָּרָץ אֶל־תּוֹך הַקָּהָל וְהִנֵּה הֵחֵל הַנֶּגֶף בָּעָם וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־הַקְּטֹרֶת וַיְכַפֵּר עַל־הָעָם
And Aaron took as Moses spoke, and ran into the midst of the assembly; and, behold, the plague was begun among the people; and he put on the incense, and made atonement for the people.
Καὶ ἔλαβεν Ἀαρὼν καθάπερ ἐλάλησεν αὐτῷ Μωυσῆς, καὶ ἔδραμεν εἰς τὴν συναγωγήν· καὶ ἤδη ἐνῆρκτο ἡ θραῦσις ἐν τῷ λαῷ· καὶ ἐπέβαλε τὸ θυμίαμα καὶ ἐξιλάσατο περὶ τοῦ λαοῦ.
And Aaron took as Moses spoke to him, and ran among the congregation, for already the plague had begun among the people; and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people.
13
וַיַּעֲמֹד בֵּין־הַמֵּתִים וּבֵין ה͏ַחַיִּים וַתֵּעָצַר הַמַּגֵּפָה
And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.
Καὶ ἔστη ἀναμέσον τῶν τεθνηκότων καὶ τῶν ζώντων, καὶ ἐκόπασεν ἡ θραῦσις.
And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague ceased.
14
וַיִּהְיוּ הַמֵּתִים בַּמַּגֵּפָה אַרְבָּעָה עָשָׂר אֶלֶף וּשְׁבַע מֵאוֹת מִלְּבַד הַמֵּתִים עַל־דְּבַר־קֹרַח
Now they that died by the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, besides them that died about the matter of Korah.
Καὶ ἐγένοντο οἱ τεθνηκότες ἐν τῇ θραύσει τεσσαρεσκαίδεκα χιλιάδες καὶ ἑπτακόσιοι, χωρὶς τῶν τεθνηκότων ἕνεκεν Κορέ.
And they that died in the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, besides those that died on account of Korah.
15
וַיָּשָׁב אַהֲרֹן אֶל־מֹשֶׁה אֶל־פֶּתַח אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד וְהַמַּגֵּפָה נֶעֱצָרָה
And Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tent of meeting, and the plague was stayed.
Καὶ ἐπέστρεψεν Ἀαρὼν πρὸς Μωυσῆν ἐπὶ τὴν θύραν τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου, καὶ ἐκόπασεν ἡ θραῦσις.
And Aaron returned to Moses to the door of the tabernacle of witness, and the plague ceased.
16
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν,
And the Lord said to Moses,
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγων,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
17
דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְקַח מֵאִתָּם מַטֶּה מַטֶּה לְבֵית אָב מֵאֵת כָּל־נְשִׂיאֵהֶם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר מַטּוֹת אִישׁ אֶת־שְׁמוֹ תִּכְתֹּב עַל־מַטֵּהוּ
'Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of them rods, one for each fathers' house, of all their princes according to their fathers' houses, twelve rods; thou shalt write every man's name upon his rod.
λάλησον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ λάβε παρʼ αὐτῶν ῥάβδον, ῥάβδον κατʼ οἴκους πατριῶν παρὰ πάντων τῶν ἀρχόντων αὐτῶν, κατʼ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν, δώδεκα ῥάβδους, καὶ ἑκάστου τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶγραψον ἐπὶ τῆς ῥάβδου.
Speak to the children of Israel, and take rods of them, according to the houses of their families, a rod from all their princes, according to the houses of their families, twelve rods, and write the name of each on his rod.
18
וְאֵת שֵׁם אַהֲרֹן תִּכְתֹּב עַל־מַטֵּה לֵוִי כִּי מַטֶּה אֶחָד לְרֹאשׁ בֵּית אֲבוֹתָם
And thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi, for there shall be one rod for the head of their fathers' houses.
Καὶ τὸ ὄνομα Ἀαρὼν ἐπίγραψον ἐπὶ τῆς ῥάβδου Λευί· ἔστι γὰρ ῥάβδος μία· κατὰ φυλὴν οἴκου πατριῶν αὐτῶν δώσουσι.
And write the name of Aaron on the rod of Levi; for it is one rod [for each]: they shall give [them] according to the tribe of the house of their families.
19
וְהִנַּחְתָּם בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לִפְנֵי הָעֵדוּת אֲשֶׁר אִוָּעֵד לָכֶם שָׁמָּה
And thou shalt lay them up in the tent of meeting before the testimony, where I meet with you.
Καὶ θήσεις αὐτὰς ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τοῦ μαρτυρίου, κατέναντι τοῦ μαρτυρίου, ἐν οἷς γνωσθήσομαί σοι ἐκεῖ.
And thou shalt put them in the tabernacle of witness, before the testimony, where I will be made known to thee.
20
וְהָיָה הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר אֶבְחַר־בּוֹ מַטֵּהוּ יִפְרָח וַהֲשִׁכֹּתִי מֵעָלַי אֶת־תְּלֻנּוֹת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֵם מַלִּינִם עֲלֵיכֶם
And it shall come to pass, that the man whom I shall choose, his rod shall bud; and I will make to cease from Me the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against you.'
Καὶ ἔσται ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὃν ἂν ἐκλέξωμαι αὐτὸν, ἡ ῥάβδος αὐτοῦ ἐκβλαστήσει· καὶ περιελῶ ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ τὸν γογγυσμὸν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ, ἃ αὐτοὶ γογγύζουσιν ἐφʼ ὑμῖν.
And it shall be, the man whom I shall choose, his rod shall blossom; and I will remove from me the murmuring of the children of Israel, which they murmur against you.
21
וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּתְּנוּ אֵלָיו כָּל־נְשִׂיאֵיהֶם מַטֶּה לְנָשִׂיא אֶחָד מַטֶּה לְנָשִׂיא אֶחָד לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר מַטּוֹת וּמַטֵּה אַהֲרֹן בְּתוֹךְ מַטּוֹתָם
And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel; and all their princes gave him rods, for each prince one, according to their fathers' houses, even twelve rods; and the rod of Aaron was among their rods.
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Μωυσῆς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ· καὶ ἔδωκαν αὐτῷ πάντες οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν ῥάβδον· τῷ ἄρχοντι τῷ ἑνὶ ῥάβδον κατʼ ἄρχοντα, κατʼ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν, δώδεκα ῥάβδους· καὶ ἡ ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν ἀναμέσον τῶν ῥάβδων αὐτῶν.
And Moses spoke to the children of Israel, and all their chiefs gave him a rod [each], for one chief a rod, according to the house of their families, twelve rods; and the rod of Aaron [was] in the midst of the rods.
22
וַיַּנַּח מֹשֶׁה אֶת־הַמַּטֹּת לִפְנֵי יְהוָה בְּאֹהֶל הָעֵדֻת
And Moses laid up the rods before HaShem in the tent of the testimony.
Καὶ ἀπέθηκε Μωυσῆς τὰς ῥάβδους ἔναντι Κυρίου ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τοῦ μαρτυρίου.
And Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness.
23
וַיְהִי מִמָּחֳרָת וַיָּבֹא מֹשֶׁה אֶל־אֹהֶל הָעֵדוּת וְהִנֵּה פָּרַח מַטֵּה־אַהֲרֹן לְבֵית לֵוִי וַיֹּצֵא פֶרַח וַיָּצֵץ צִיץ וַיִּגְמֹל שְׁקֵדִים
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and put forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and bore ripe almonds.
Καὶ ἐγενετο τῇ ἐπαύριον, καὶ εἰσῆλθε Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρὼν ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ τοῦ μαρτυρίου· καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐβλάστησεν ἡ ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν εἰς οἶκον Λευί, καὶ ἐξήνεγκε βλαστὸν, καὶ ἐξήνθησεν ἄνθη, καὶ ἐβλάστησε κάρυα.
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi blossomed, and put forth a bud, and bloomed blossoms and produced almonds.
24
וַיֹּצֵא מֹשֶׁה אֶת־כָּל־הַמַּטֹּת מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה אֶל־כָּל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּרְאוּ וַיִּקְחוּ אִישׁ מַטֵּהוּ
And Moses brought out all the rods from before HaShem unto all the children of Israel; and they looked, and took every man his rod.
Καὶ ἐξήνεγκε Μωυσῆς πάσας τὰς ῥάβδους ἀπὸ προσώπου Κυρίου πρὸς πάντας υἱοὺς Ἰσραήλ· καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἔλαβον ἕκαστος τὴν ῥάβδον αὐτοῦ.
And Moses brought forth all the rods from before the Lord to all the sons of Israel; and they looked, and each one took his rod.
25
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה הָשֵׁב אֶת־מַטֵּה אַהֲרֹן לִפְנֵי הָעֵדוּת לְמִשְׁמֶרֶת לְאוֹת לִבְנֵי־מֶרִי וּתְכַל תְּלוּנֹּתָם מֵעָלַי וְלֹא יָמֻתוּ
And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Put back the rod of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept there, for a token against the rebellious children; that there may be made an end of their murmurings against Me, that they die not.'
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, ἀπόθες τὴν ῥάβδον Ἀαρὼν ἐνώπιον τῶν μαρτυρίων εἰς διατήρησιν, σημεῖον τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνηκόων· καὶ παυσάσθω ὁ γογγυσμὸς αὐτῶν ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνωσι.
And the Lord said to Moses, Lay up the rod of Aaron before the testimonies to be kept as a sign for the children of the disobedient; and let their murmuring cease from me, and they shall not die.
26
וַיַּעַשׂ מֹשֶׁה כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֹתוֹ כֵּן עָשָׂה
Thus did Moses; as HaShem commanded him, so did he.
Καὶ ἐποίησε Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρὼν, καθὰ συνέταξε κύριος τῷ Μωυσῇ, οὕτως ἐποίησαν.
And Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded Moses, so did they.
27
וַיֹּאמְרוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵאמֹר הֵן גָּוַעְנוּ אָבַדְנוּ כֻּלָּנוּ אָבָדְנוּ
And the children of Israel spoke unto Moses, saying: 'Behold, we perish, we are undone, we are all undone.
Καὶ εἶπαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγοντες, ἰδοὺ ἐξανηλώμεθα, ἀπολώλαμεν, παρανηλώμεθα.
And the children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, Behold, we are cut off, we are destroyed, we are consumed.
28
כֹּל הַקָּרֵב הַקָּרֵב אֶל־מִשְׁכַּן יְהוָה יָמוּת הַאִם תַּמְנוּ לִגְוֺעַ
Every one that cometh near, that cometh near unto the tabernacle of HaShem, is to die; shall we wholly perish?'
Πᾶς ὁ ἁπτόμενος τῆς σκηυῆς Κυρίου, ἀποθνήσκει· ἕως εἰς τέλος ἀποθάνωμεν;
Every one that touches the tabernacle of the Lord, dies: shall we die utterly?

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.