Textorah

Numbers 34

1
וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר
And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying:
Καὶ ἐλάλησε Κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν, λέγων,
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2
צַו אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם כִּי־אַתֶּם בָּאִים אֶל־הָאָרֶץ כְּנָעַן זֹאת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר תִּפֹּל לָכֶם בְּנַחֲלָה אֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לִגְבֻלֹתֶיהָ
'Command the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye come into the land of Canaan, this shall be the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to the borders thereof.
ἔντειλαι τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ ἐρεῖς πρὸς αὐτοὺς, ὑμεῖς εἰσπορεύεσθε εἰς τὴν γῆν Χαναὰν· αὕτη ἔσται ὑμῖν εἰς κληρονομίαν, γῆ Χαναὰν σὺν τοῖς ὁρίοις αὐτῆς.
Charge the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them, Ye are entering into the land of Canaan: it shall be to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan with its boundaries.
3
וְהָיָה לָכֶם פְּאַת־נֶגֶב מִמִּדְבַּר־צִן עַל־יְדֵי אֱדוֹם וְהָיָה לָכֶם גְּבוּל נֶגֶב מִקְצֵה יָם־הַמֶּלַח קֵדְמָה
Thus your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin close by the side of Edom, and your south border shall begin at the end of the Salt Sea eastward;
Καὶ ἔσται ὑμῖν τὸ κλίτος τὸ πρὸς Λίβα ἀπὸ ἐρήμου Σὶν ἕως ἐχόμενον Ἐδὼμ, καὶ ἔσται ὑμῖν τὰ ὅρια πρὸς λίβα ἀπὸ μέρους τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς ἁλυκῆς ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν.
And your southern side shall be from the wilderness of Zin to the border of Edom, and your border southward shall extend on the side of the salt sea eastward.
4
וְנָסַב לָכֶם הַגְּבוּל מִנֶּגֶב לְמַעֲלֵה עַקְרַבִּים וְעָבַר צִנָה והיה וְהָיוּ תּוֹצְאֹתָיו מִנֶּגֶב לְקָדֵשׁ בַּרְנֵעַ וְיָצָא חֲצַר־אַדָּר וְעָבַר עַצְמֹנָה
and your border shall turn about southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass along to Zin; and the goings out thereof shall be southward of Kadesh-barnea; and it shall go forth to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon;
Καὶ κυκλώσει ὑμᾶς τὰ ὅρια ἀπὸ Λιβὸς πρὸς ἀνάβασιν Ἀκραβὶν, καὶ παρελεύσεται Ἐννὰκ, καὶ ἔσται ἡ διέξοδος αὐτοῦ πρὸς Λίβα Κάδης τοῦ Βαρνὴ, καὶ ἐξελεύσεται εἰς ἔπαυλιν Ἀρὰδ, καὶ παρελεύσεται Ἀσεμωνᾶ.
And your border shall go round you from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and shall proceed by Ennac, and the going forth of it shall be southward to Kadesh-barnea, and it shall go forth to the village of Addar, and shall proceed by Azmon.
5
וְנָסַב הַגְּבוּל מֵעַצְמוֹן נַחְלָה מִצְרָיִם וְהָיוּ תוֹצְאֹתָיו הַיָּמָּה
and the border shall turn about from Azmon unto the Brook of Egypt, and the goings out thereof shall be at the Sea.
Καὶ κυκλώσει τὰ ὅρια ἀπὸ Ἀσεμωνᾶ χειμάῤῥουν Αἰγύπτου, καὶ ἔσται ἡ διέξοδος ἡ θάλασσα.
And the border shall compass from Azmon to the river of Egypt, and the sea shall be the termination.
6
וּגְבוּל יָם וְהָיָה לָכֶם הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל וּגְבוּל זֶה־יִהְיֶה לָכֶם גְּבוּל יָם
And for the western border, ye shall have the Great Sea for a border; this shall be your west border.
Καὶ τὰ ὅρια τῆς θαλάσσης ἔσται ὑμῖν, ἡ θάλασσα ἡ μεγάλη ὁριεῖ, τοῦτο ἔσται ὑμῖν τὰ ὅρια τῆς θαλάσσης.
And ye shall have your border on the west, the great sea shall be the boundary: this shall be to you the border on the west.
7
וְזֶה־יִהְיֶה לָכֶם גְּבוּל צָפוֹן מִן־הַיָּם הַגָּדֹל תְּתָאוּ לָכֶם הֹר הָהָר
And this shall be your north border: from the Great Sea ye shall mark out your line unto mount Hor;
Καὶ τοῦτο ἔσται ὑμῖν τὰ ὅρια πρὸς βοῤῥᾶν· ἀπὸ τῆς θαλάσσης τῆς μεγάλης καταμετρήσετε ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς παρὰ τὸ ὄρος τὸ ὄρος.
And this shall be your northern border; from the great sea ye shall measure to yourselves, by the side of the mountain.
8
מֵהֹר הָהָר תְּתָאוּ לְבֹא חֲמָת וְהָיוּ תּוֹצְאֹת הַגְּבֻל צְדָדָה
from mount Hor ye shall mark out a line unto the entrance to Hamath; and the goings out of the border shall be at Zedad;
Καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους τὸ ὄρος καταμετρήσετε αὐτοῖς, εἰσπορευομένων εἰς Ἐμὰθ, καὶ ἔσται ἡ διέξοδος αὐτοῦ τὰ ὅρια Σαραδάκ.
And ye shall measure to yourselves the mountain from Mount [Hor] at the entering in to Hamath, and the termination of it shall be the coasts of Saradac.
9
וְיָצָא הַגְּבֻל זִפְרֹנָה וְהָיוּ תוֹצְאֹתָיו חֲצַר עֵינָן זֶה־יִהְיֶה לָכֶם גְּבוּל צָפוֹן
and the border shall go forth to Ziphron, and the goings out thereof shall be at Hazar-enan; this shall be your north border.
Καὶ ἐξελεύσεται τὰ ὅρια Δεφρωνὰ, καὶ ἔσται ἡ διέξοδος αὐτοῦ Ἀρσεναΐν· τοῦτο ἔσται ὑμῖν ὅρια ἀπὸ Βοῤῥᾶ.
And the border shall go out to Ziphron, and its termination shall be at Hazar-enan; this shall be your border from the north.
10
וְהִתְאַוִּיתֶם לָכֶם לִגְבוּל קֵדְמָה מֵחֲצַר עֵינָן שְׁפָמָה
And ye shall mark out your line for the east border from Hazar-enan to Shepham;
Καὶ καταβήσεται τὰ ὅρια ἀπὸ Σεπεφαμὰρ Βηλὰ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἐπὶ πηγὰς, και καταβήσεται τὰ ὅρια Βηλὰ ἐπὶ νώτου θαλάσσης Χενερὲθ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν.
And ye shall measure to yourselves the eastern border from Hazar-enan to Shepham.
11
וְיָרַד הַגְּבֻל מִשְּׁפָם הָרִבְלָה מִקֶּדֶם לָעָיִן וְיָרַד הַגְּבוּל וּמָחָה עַל־כֶּתֶף יָם־כִּנֶּרֶת קֵדְמָה
and the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain; and the border shall go down, and shall strike upon the slope of the sea of Chinnereth eastward;
Καὶ καταβήσεται τὰ ὅρια ἀπὸ Σεπφαμὰρ Βηλὰ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν ἐπὶ πηγάς, καὶ καταβήσεται τὰ ὅρια Βηλὰ ἐπὶ νώτου θαλάσσης Χενερὲθ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν.
And the border shall go down from Shepham to Riblah eastward to the fountains, and the border shall go down from Riblah behind the sea Chinnereth eastward.
12
וְיָרַד הַגְּבוּל הַיַּרְדֵּנָה וְהָיוּ תוֹצְאֹתָיו יָם הַמֶּלַח זֹאת תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם הָאָרֶץ לִגְבֻלֹתֶיהָ סָבִיב
and the border shall go down to the Jordan, and the goings out thereof shall be at the Salt Sea; this shall be your land according to the borders thereof round about.'
Καὶ καταβήσεται τὰ ὅρια ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰορδάνην, καὶ ἔσται ἡ διέξοδος θάλασσα ἡ ἁλυκή· αὕτη ἔσται ὑμῖν ἡ γῆ καὶ τὰ ὅρια αὐτῆς κύκλῳ.
And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the termination shall be the salt sea; this shall be your land and its borders round about.
13
וַיְצַו מֹשֶׁה אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לֵאמֹר זֹאת הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר תִּתְנַחֲלוּ אֹתָהּ בְּגוֹרָל אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה לָתֵת לְתִשְׁעַת הַמַּטּוֹת וַחֲצִי הַמַּטֶּה
And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying: 'This is the land wherein ye shall receive inheritance by lot, which HaShem hath commanded to give unto the nine tribes, and to the half-tribe;
Καὶ ἐνετείλατο Μωυσῆς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ, λέγων, αὕτη ἡ γῆ ἣν κατακληρονομήσετε αὐτὴν μετὰ κλήρου, ὃν τρόπον συνέταξε Κύριος δοῦναι αὐτὴν ταῖς ἐννέα φυλαῖς καὶ τῷ ἡμίσει φυλῆς Μανασσῆ.
And Moses charged the children of Israel, saying, This [is] the land which ye shall inherit by lot, even as the Lord commanded us to give it to the nine tribes and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
14
כִּי לָקְחוּ מַטֵּה בְנֵי הָראוּבֵנִי לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם וּמַטֵּה בְנֵי־הַגָּדִי לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם וַחֲצִי מַטֵּה מְנַשֶּׁה לָקְחוּ נַחֲלָתָם
for the tribe of the children of Reuben according to their fathers' houses, and the tribe of the children of Gad according to their fathers' houses, have received, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received, their inheritance;
Ὅτι ἔλαβε φυλὴ υἱῶν Ῥουβὴν, καὶ φυλὴ υἱῶν Γὰδ κατʼ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν· καὶ τὸ ἥμισυ φυλῆς Μανασσῆ ἀπέλαβον τοὺς κλήρους αὐτῶν.
For the tribe of the children of Reuben, and the tribe of the children of Gad have received [their inheritance] according to their families; and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritances.
15
שְׁנֵי הַמַּטּוֹת וַחֲצִי הַמַּטֶּה לָקְחוּ נַחֲלָתָם מֵעֵבֶר לְיַרְדֵּן יְרֵחוֹ קֵדְמָה מִזְרָחָה
the two tribes and the half-tribe have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, toward the sun-rising.'
Δύο φυλαὶ καὶ ἥμισυ φυλῆς ἔλαβον τοὺς κλήρους αὐτῶν πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου κατὰ Ἱεριχὼ ἀπὸ Νότου κατʼ ἀνατολάς.
Two tribes and half a tribe have received their inheritance beyond Jordan by Jericho from the south eastward.
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
אֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת הָאֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר־יִנְחֲלוּ לָכֶם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ בִּן־נוּן
'These are the names of the men that shall take possession of the land for you: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun.
ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα τῶν ἀνδρῶν, οἳ κληρονομήσουσιν ὑμῖν τὴν γῆν· Ἐλεάζαρ ὁ ἱερεὺς καὶ Ἰησοῦς ὁ τοῦ Ναυή.
These [are] the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for an inheritance; Eleazar the priest and Joshua the [son] of Nun.
18
וְנָשִׂיא אֶחָד נָשִׂיא אֶחָד מִמַּטֶּה תִּקְחוּ לִנְחֹל אֶת־הָאָרֶץ
And ye shall take one prince of every tribe, to take possession of the land.
Καὶ ἄρχοντα ἕνα ἐκ φυλῆς λήψεσθε κατακληρονομῆσαι ὑμῖν τὴν γῆν.
And ye shall take one ruler from [each] tribe to divide the land to you by lot.
19
וְאֵלֶּה שְׁמוֹת הָאֲנָשִׁים לְמַטֵּה יְהוּדָה כָּלֵב בֶּן־יְפֻנֶּה
And these are the names of the men: of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
Καὶ ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα τῶν ἀνδρῶν· τῆς φυλῆς Ἰούδα, Χάλεβ υἱὸς Ἰεφοννή.
And these [are] the names of the men; of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
20
וּלְמַטֵּה בְּנֵי שִׁמְעוֹן שְׁמוּאֵל בֶּן־עַמִּיהוּד
And of the tribe of the children of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud.
Τῆς φυλῆς Συμεὼν, Σαλαμιὴλ υἱὸς Σεμιούδ.
Of the tribe of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud.
21
לְמַטֵּה בִנְיָמִן אֱלִידָד בֶּן־כִּסְלוֹן
Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon.
Τῆς φυλῆς Βενιαμὶν, Ἐλδὰδ υἱὸς Χασλών·
Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon.
22
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־דָן נָשִׂיא בֻּקִּי בֶּן־יָגְלִי
And of the tribe of the children of Dan a prince, Bukki the son of Jogli.
Τῆς φυλῆς Δὰν, ἄρχων Βακχὶρ υἱὸς Ἐγλί.
Of the tribe of Dan the prince [was] Bukki the son of Jogli.
23
לִבְנֵי יוֹסֵף לְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־מְנַשֶּׁה נָשִׂיא חַנִּיאֵל בֶּן־אֵפֹד
Of the children of Joseph: of the tribe of the children of Manasseh a prince, Hanniel the son of Ephod;
Τῶν υἱῶν Ἰωσὴφ φυλῆς υἱῶν Μανασσῆ, ἄρχων Ἀνιὴλ υἱὸς Σουφί.
Of the sons of Joseph of the tribe of the sons of Manasseh, the prince was Hanniel the son of Ephod.
24
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־אֶפְרַיִם נָשִׂיא קְמוּאֵל בֶּן־שִׁפְטָן
and of the tribe of the children of Ephraim a prince, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan.
Τῆς φυλῆς υἱῶν Ἐφραὶμ, ἄρχων Καμουὴλ υἱὸς Σαβαθᾶν.
Of the tribe of the sons of Ephraim, the prince was Kemuel the son of Shiphtan.
25
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־זְבוּלֻן נָשִׂיא אֱלִיצָפָן בֶּן־פַּרְנָךְ
And of the tribe of the children of Zebulun a prince, Eli-zaphan the son of Parnach.
Τῆς φυλῆς Ζαβουλὼν, ἄρχων Ἐλισαφὰν υἱὸς Φαρνάχ.
Of the tribe of Zebulun, the prince was Elizaphan the son of Parnach.
26
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־יִשָׂשכָר נָשִׂיא פַּלְטִיאֵל בֶּן־עַזָּן
And of the tribe of the children of Issachar a prince, Paltiel the son of Azzan.
Τῆς φυλῆς υἱῶν Ἰσσάχαρ, ἄρχων Φαλτιὴλ υἱὸς Ὀζᾶ.
Of the tribe of the sons of Issachar, the prince was Paltiel the son of Azzan.
27
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־אָשֵׁר נָשִׂיא אֲחִיהוּד בֶּן־שְׁלֹמִי
And of the tribe of the children of Asher a prince, Ahihud the son of Shelomi.
Τῆς φυλῆς υἱῶν Ἀσὴρ, ἄρχων Ἀχιὼρ υἱὸς Σελεμί.
Of the tribe of the children of Asher, the prince was Ahihud the son of Shelomi.
28
וּלְמַטֵּה בְנֵי־נַפְתָּלִי נָשִׂיא פְּדַהְאֵל בֶּן־עַמִּיהוּד
And of the tribe of the children of Naphtali a prince, Pedahel the son of Ammihud.
Τῆς φυλῆς Νεφθαλὶ, ἄρχων Φαδαὴλ υἱὸς Ἰαμιούδ.
Of the tribe of Naphtali, the prince was Pedahel the son of Ammihud.
29
אֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה לְנַחֵל אֶת־בְּנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן
These are they whom HaShem commanded to divide the inheritance unto the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.'
Τούτοις ἐνετείλατο Κύριος καταμερίσαι τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ ἐν γῇ Χαναάν.
These did the Lord command to distribute [the inheritances] to the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.

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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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