Textorah

Numbers 27

1
וַתִּקְרַבְנָה בְּנוֹת צְלָפְחָד בֶּן־חֵפֶר בֶּן־גִּלְעָד בֶּן־מָכִיר בֶּן־מְנַשֶּׁה לְמִשְׁפְּחֹת מְנַשֶּׁה בֶן־יוֹסֵף וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת בְּנֹתָיו מַחְלָה נֹעָה וְחָגְלָה וּמִלְכָּה וְתִרְצָה
Then drew near the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph; and these are the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
Καὶ προσελθοῦσαι αἱ θυγατέρες Σαλπαὰδ υἱοῦ Ὀφὲρ, υἱοῦ Γαλαὰδ, υἱοῦ Μαχιρ, τοῦ δήμου Μανασσῆ, τῶν υἱῶν Ἰωσὴφ, καὶ ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν, Μααλὰ, καὶ Νουὰ, καὶ Ἐγλὰ, καὶ Μελχὰ, καὶ Θερσὰ,
And the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, of the tribe of Manasseh, of the sons of Joseph, came near; and these were their names, Mahlah, and Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah;
2
וַתַּעֲמֹדְנָה לִפְנֵי מֹשֶׁה וְלִפְנֵי אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן וְלִפְנֵי הַנְּשִׂיאִם וְכָל־הָעֵדָה פֶּתַח אֹהֶל־מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר
And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, at the door of the tent of meeting, saying:
καὶ στᾶσαι ἔναντι Μωυσῆ, καὶ ἔναντι Ἐλεάζαρ τοῦ ἱερέως, καὶ ἔναντι τῶν ἀρχόντων, καὶ ἔναντι πάσης συναγωγῆς ἐπὶ τῆς θύρας τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ μαρτυρίου, λέγουσιν,
and they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes, and before all the congregation at the door of the tabernacle of witness, saying,
3
אָבִינוּ מֵת בַּמִּדְבָּר וְהוּא לֹא־הָיָה בְּתוֹךְ הָעֵדָה הַנּוֹעָדִים עַל־יְהוָה בַּעֲדַת־קֹרַח כִּי־בְחֶטְאוֹ מֵת וּבָנִים לֹא־הָיוּ לוֹ
'Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not among the company of them that gathered themselves together against HaShem in the company of Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons.
ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, καὶ αὐτὸς οὐκ ἦν ἐν μέσῳ τῆς συναγωγῆς τῆς ἐπισυστάσης ἔναντι Κυρίου ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ Κορὲ, ὅτι διʼ ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῦ ἀπέθανε, καὶ υἱοὶ οὐκ ἐγένοντο αὐτῷ· μὴ ἐξαλειφθήτω τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐκ μέσου τοῦ δήμου αὐτοῦ, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτῷ υἱός· δότε ἡμῖν κατάσχεσιν ἐν μέσῳ ἀδελφῶν πατρὸς ἡμῶν.
Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the midst of the congregation that rebelled against the Lord in the gathering of Korah; for he died for his own sin, and he had no sons. Let not the name of our father be blotted out of the midst of his people, because he has no son: give us an inheritance in the midst of our father’s brethren.
4
לָמָּה יִגָּרַע שֵׁם־אָבִינוּ מִתּוֹךְ מִשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ כִּי אֵין לוֹ בֵּן תְּנָה־לָּנוּ אֲחֻזָּה בְּתוֹךְ אֲחֵי אָבִינוּ
Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he had no son? Give unto us a possession among the brethren of our father.'
5
וַיַּקְרֵב מֹשֶׁה אֶת־מִשְׁפָּטָן לִפְנֵי יְהוָה
And Moses brought their cause before HaShem.
Καὶ προσήγαγε Μωυσῆν τὴν κρίσιν αὐτῶν ἔναντι Κυρίου.
And Moses brought their case before the Lord.
6
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
7
כֵּן בְּנוֹת צְלָפְחָד דֹּבְרֹת נָתֹן תִּתֵּן לָהֶם אֲחֻזַּת נַחֲלָה בְּתוֹךְ אֲחֵי אֲבִיהֶם וְהַעֲבַרְתָּ אֶת־נַחֲלַת אֲבִיהֶן לָהֶן
'The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.
λέγεν, ὀρθῶς θυγατέρες Σαλπαὰδ λελαλήκασι· δόμα δώσεις αὐταῖς κατάσχεσιν κληρονομίας ἐν μέσῳ ἀδελφῶν πατρὸς αὐτῶν, καὶ περιθήσεις τὸν κλῆρον τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν αὐταῖς.
The daughters of Zelophehad have spoken rightly: thou shalt surely give them a possession of inheritance in the midst of their father’s brethren, and thou shalt assign their father’s inheritance to them.
8
וְאֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל תְּדַבֵּר לֵאמֹר אִישׁ כִּי־יָמוּת וּבֵן אֵין לוֹ וְהַעֲבַרְתֶּם אֶת־נַחֲלָתוֹ לְבִתּוֹ
And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
Καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ λαλήσεις,
And thou shalt speak to the children of Israel, saying,
λέγων, ἄνθρωπος ἐὰν ἀποθάνῃ, καὶ υἱὸς μὴ ᾖ αὐτῷ, περιθήσετε τὴν κληρονομίαν αὐτοῦ τῇ θυγατρὶ αὐτοῦ·
If a man die, and have no son, ye shall assign his inheritance to his daughter.
9
וְאִם־אֵין לוֹ בַּת וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת־נַחֲלָתוֹ לְאֶחָיו
And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ᾖ θυγάτηρ αὐτῷ, δώσετε τὴν κληρονομίαν τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ.
And if he have no daughter, ye shall give his inheritance to his brother.
10
וְאִם־אֵין לוֹ אַחִים וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת־נַחֲלָתוֹ לַאֲחֵי אָבִיו
And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren.
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ὦσιν αὐτῷ ἀδελφοὶ, δώσετε τὴν κληρονομίαν τῷ ἀδελφῷ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ.
And if he have no brethren, ye shall give his inheritance to his father’s brother.
11
וְאִם־אֵין אַחִים לְאָבִיו וּנְתַתֶּם אֶת־נַחֲלָתוֹ לִשְׁאֵרוֹ הַקָּרֹב אֵלָיו מִמִּשְׁפַּחְתּוֹ וְיָרַשׁ אֹתָהּ וְהָיְתָה לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לְחֻקַּת מִשְׁפָּט כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֶת־מֹשֶׁה
And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it. And it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as HaShem commanded Moses.'
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ὦσιν ἀδελφοὶ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, δώσετε τὴν κληρονομίαν τῷ οἰκείῳ τῷ ἔγγιστα αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς αὐτοῦ, κληρονομῆσαι τὰ αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἔσται τοῦτο τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ δικαίωμα κρίσεως, καθὰ συνέταξε Κύριος τῷ Μωυσῇ.
And if there be no brethren of his father, ye shall give the inheritance to his nearest relation of his tribe, to inherit his possessions; and this shall be to the children of Israel an ordinance of judgment, as the Lord commanded Moses.
12
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה עֲלֵה אֶל־הַר הָעֲבָרִים הַזֶּה וּרְאֵה אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לִבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Get thee up into this mountain of Abarim, and behold the land which I have given unto the children of Israel.
Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, ἀνάβηθι εἰς τὸ ὄρος τὸ ἐν τῷ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, τοῦτο τὸ ὄρος Ναβαὺ, καὶ ἴδε τὴν γῆν Χαναὰν, ἣν ἐγὼ δίδωμι τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ ἐν κατασχέσει.
And the Lord said to Moses, Go up to the mountain that is in the country beyond Jordan, this Mount Nebo, and behold the land Canaan, which I give to the sons of Israel for a possession.
13
וְרָאִיתָה אֹתָהּ וְנֶאֱסַפְתָּ אֶל־עַמֶּיךָ גַּם־אָתָּה כַּאֲשֶׁר נֶאֱסַף אַהֲרֹן אָחִיךָ
And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered;
Καὶ ὄψῃ αὐτὴν, καὶ προστεθήσῃ πρὸς τὸν λαόν σου καὶ σὺ, καθὰ προσετέθη Ἀαρὼν ὁ ἀδελφός σου ἐν Ὢρ τῷ ὄρει.
And thou shalt see it, and thou also shalt be added to thy people, as Aaron thy brother was added [to them] in Mount Hor:
14
כַּאֲשֶׁר מְרִיתֶם פִּי בְּמִדְבַּר־צִן בִּמְרִיבַת ה͏ָעֵדָה לְהַקְדִּישֵׁנִי בַמַּיִם לְעֵינֵיהֶם הֵם מֵי־מְרִיבַת קָדֵשׁ מִדְבַּר־צִן
because ye rebelled against My commandment in the wilderness of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify Me at the waters before their eyes.' --These are the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.--
Διότι παρέβητε τὸ ῥῆμά μου ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ Σὶν, ἐν τῷ ἀντιπίπτειν τὴν συναγωγὴν ἁγιάσαι με, οὐχ ἡγιάσατέ με ἐπὶ τῷ ὕδατι ἔναντι αὐτῶν· τοῦτʼ ἔστι τὸ ὕδωρ ἀντιλογίας ἐν Κάδης ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ Σίν.
because ye transgressed my commandment in the wilderness of Zin, when the congregation resisted [and refused] to sanctify me; ye sanctified me not at the water before them. This is the water of Strife in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.
15
וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־יְהוָה לֵאמֹר
And Moses spoke unto HaShem, saying:
Καὶ εἶπε Μωυσῆς πρὸς Κύριον,
And Moses said to the Lord,
16
יִפְקֹד יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי הָרוּחֹת לְכָל־בָּשָׂר אִישׁ עַל־הָעֵדָה
'Let HaShem, the G-d of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,
ἐπισκεψάσθω Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς τῶν πνευμάτων καὶ πάσης σαρκὸς ἄνθρωπον ἐπὶ τῆς συναγωγῆς ταύτης,
Let the Lord God of spirits and of all flesh look out for a man over this congregation,
17
אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא לִפְנֵיהֶם וַאֲשֶׁר יָבֹא לִפְנֵיהֶם וַאֲשֶׁר יוֹצִיאֵם וַאֲשֶׁר יְבִיאֵם וְלֹא תִהְיֶה עֲדַת יְהוָה כַּצֹּאן אֲשֶׁר אֵין־לָהֶם רֹעֶה
who may go out before them, and who may come in before them, and who may lead them out, and who may bring them in; that the congregation of HaShem be not as sheep which have no shepherd.'
ὅστις ἐξελεύσεται πρὸ προσώπου αὐτῶν, καὶ ὅστις εἰσελεύσεται πρὸ προσώπου αὐτῶν, καὶ ὅστις ἐξάξει αὐτοὺς, καὶ ὃστις εἰσάξει αὐτοὺς, καὶ οὐκ ἔσται ἡ συναγωγὴ Κυρίου ὡσεὶ πρόβατα οἷς οὐκ ἔστι ποιμήν.
who shall go out before them, and who shall come in before them, and who shall lead them out, and who shall bring them in; so the congregation of the Lord shall not be as sheep without a shepherd.
18
וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה קַח־לְךָ אֶת־יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן־נוּן אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר־רוּחַ בּוֹ וְסָמַכְתָּ אֶת־יָדְךָ עָלָיו
And HaShem said unto Moses: 'Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is spirit, and lay thy hand upon him;
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγων, λάβε πρὸς σεαυτὸν Ἰησοῦν υἱὸν Ναυὴ, ἄνθρωπον ὃς ἔχει πνεῦμα ἐν ἑαυτῷ, καὶ ἐπιθήσεις τὰς χεῖράς σου ἐπʼ αὐτόν·
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take to thyself Joshua the son of Nun, a man who has the Spirit in him, and thou shalt lay thy hands upon him.
19
וְה͏ַעֲמַדְתָּ אֹתוֹ לִפְנֵי אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן וְלִפְנֵי כָּל־הָעֵדָה וְצִוִּיתָה אֹתוֹ לְעֵינֵיהֶם
and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight.
Καὶ στήσεις αὐτὸν ἔναντι Ἐλεάζαρ τοῦ ἱερέως, καὶ ἐντελῇ αὐτῷ ἔναντι πάσης συναγωγῆς, καὶ ἐντελῇ περὶ αὐτοῦ ἐναντίον αὐτῶν.
And thou shalt set him before Eleazar the priest, and thou shalt give him a charge before all the congregation, and thou shalt give a charge concerning him before them.
20
וְנָתַתָּה מֵהוֹדְךָ עָלָיו לְמַעַן יִשְׁמְעוּ כָּל־עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל
And thou shalt put of thy honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may hearken.
Καὶ δώσεις τῆς δόξης σου ἐπʼ αὐτὸν, ὅπως ἂν εἰσακούσωσιν αὐτοῦ οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ.
And thou shalt put of thy glory upon him, that the children of Israel may hearken to him.
21
וְלִפְנֵי אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן יַעֲמֹד וְשָׁאַל לוֹ בְּמִשְׁפַּט הָאוּרִים לִפְנֵי יְהוָה עַל־פִּיו יֵצְאוּ וְעַל־פִּיו יָבֹאוּ הוּא וְכָל־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אִתּוֹ וְכָל־הָעֵדָה
And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before HaShem; at his word shall they go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.'
Καὶ ἔναντι Ἐλεάζαρ τοῦ ἱερέως στήσεται, καὶ ἐπερωτήσουσιν αὐτὸν τὴν κρίσιν τῶν δήλων ἔναντι Κυρίου· ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ ἐξελεύσονται, καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ εἰσελεύσονται αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ὁμοθυμαδὸν, καὶ πᾶσα ἡ συναγωγή.
And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, and they shall ask of him before the Lord the judgment of the Urim: they shall go forth at his word, and at his word they shall come in, he and the children of Israel with one accord, and all the congregation.
22
וַיַּעַשׂ מֹשֶׁה כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אֹתוֹ וַיִּקַּח אֶת־יְהוֹשֻׁעַ וַיַּעֲמִדֵהוּ לִפְנֵי אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן וְלִפְנֵי כָּל־הָעֵדָה
And Moses did as HaShem commanded him; and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation.
Καὶ ἐποίησε Μωυσῆς καθὰ ἐνετείλατο αὐτῷ Κύριος· καὶ λαβὼν τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ἔστησεν αὐτὸν ἐναντίον Ἐλεάζαρ τοῦ ἱερέως, καὶ ἐναντίον πάσης συναγωγῆς,
And Moses did as the Lord commanded him; and he took Joshua, and set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation.
23
וַיִּסְמֹךְ אֶת־יָדָיו עָלָיו וַיְצַוֵּהוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁה
And he laid his hands upon him, and gave him a charge, as HaShem spoke by the hand of Moses.
καὶ ἐπέθηκε τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ ἐπʼ αὐτὸν, καὶ συνέστησεν αὐτὸν καθάπερ συνέταξε Κύριος τῷ Μωυσῇ.
And he laid his hands on him, and appointed him as the Lord ordered Moses.

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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.

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