Textorah

Proverbs 30

1
דִּבְרֵי אָגוּר בִּן־יָקֶה הַמַּשָּׂא נְאֻם הַגֶּבֶר לְאִיתִיאֵל לְאִיתִיאֵל וְאֻכָל
The words of Agur the son of Jakeh; the burden. The man saith unto Ithiel, unto Ithiel and Ucal:
These things says the man to them that trust in God; and I cease.
2
כִּי בַעַר אָנֹכִי מֵאִישׁ וְלֹא־בִינַת אָדָם לִי
Surely I am brutish, unlike a man, and have not the understanding of a man;
3
וְלֹא־לָמַדְתִּי חָכְמָה וְדַעַת קְדֹשִׁים אֵדָע
And I have not learned wisdom, that I should have the knowledge of the Holy One.
For I am the most simple of all men, and there is not in me the wisdom of men.
God has taught me wisdom, and I know the knowledge of the holy.
4
מִי עָלָה־שָׁמַיִם וַיֵּרַד מִי אָסַף־רוּחַ בְּחָפְנָיו מִי צָרַר־מַיִם בַּשִּׂמְלָה מִי הֵקִים כָּל־אַפְסֵי־אָרֶץ מַה־שְּׁמוֹ וּמַה־שֶּׁם־בְּנוֹ כִּי תֵדָע
Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath gathered the wind in his fists? Who hath bound the waters in his garment? Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou knowest?
Who has gone up to heaven, and come down? who has gathered the winds in his * bosom? who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? who has dominion of all the ends of the earth? what is his name? or what is the name of his children?
5
כָּל־אִמְרַת אֱלוֹהַּ צְרוּפָה מָגֵן הוּא לַחֹסִים בּוֹ
Every word of G-d is tried; He is a shield unto them that take refuge in Him.
For all the words of God are tried in the fire, and he defends those that reverence him.
6
אַל־תּוֹסְףְּ עַל־דְּבָרָיו פֶּן־יוֹכִיחַ בְּךָ וְנִכְזָבְתָּ
Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.
Add not to his words, lest he reprove you, and you be made a liar.
7
שְׁתַּיִם שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאִתָּךְ אַל־תִּמְנַע מִמֶּנִּי בְּטֶרֶם אָמוּת
Two things have I asked of Thee; deny me them not before I die:
Two things I ask of you; take not favor from me before I die.
8
שָׁוְא וּדְבַר־כָּזָב הַרְחֵק מִמֶּנִּי רֵאשׁ וָעֹשֶׁר אַל־תִּתֶּן־לִי הַטְרִיפֵנִי לֶחֶם חֻקִּי
Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with mine allotted bread;
Remove far from me vanity and falsehood: and give me not wealth [or] poverty; but appoint me what is needful and sufficient:
9
פֶּן אֶשְׂבַּע וְכִחַשְׁתִּי וְאָמַרְתִּי מִי יְהוָה וּפֶן־אִוָּרֵשׁ וְגָנַבְתִּי וְתָפַשְׂתִּי שֵׁם אֱלֹהָי
Lest I be full, and deny, and say: 'Who is HaShem?' Or lest I be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my G-d.
lest I be filled and become false, and say, Who sees me? or be poor and steal, and swear [vainly] by the name of God.
10
אַל־תַּלְשֵׁן עֶבֶד אֶל־אדנו אֲדֹנָיו פֶּן־יְקַלֶּלְךָ וְאָשָׁמְתָּ
Slander not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
Deliver not a servant into the hands of his master, lest he curse you, and you be utterly destroyed.
11
דּוֹר אָבִיו יְקַלֵּל וְאֶת־אִמּוֹ לֹא יְבָרֵךְ
There is a generation that curse their father, and do not bless their mother.
A wicked generation curse their father, and do not bless their mother.
12
דּוֹר טָהוֹר בְּעֵינָיו וּמִצֹּאָתוֹ לֹא רֻחָץ
There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness.
A wicked generation judge themselves to be just, but do not cleanse their way.
13
דּוֹר מָה־רָמוּ עֵינָיו וְעַפְעַפָּיו יִנָּשֵׂאוּ
There is a generation, Oh how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
A wicked generation have lofty eyes, and exalt themselves with their eyelids.
14
דּוֹר חֲרָבוֹת שִׁנָּיו וּמַאֲכָלוֹת מְתַלְּעֹתָיו לֶאֱכֹל עֲנִיִּים מֵאֶרֶץ וְאֶבְיוֹנִים מֵאָדָם
There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their great teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.
A wicked generation have swords [for] teeth and jaw teeth [as] knives, so as to destroy and devour the lowly from the earth, and the poor of them from among men.
15
ל͏ַעֲלוּקָה שְׁתֵּי בָנוֹת הַב הַב שָׁלוֹשׁ הֵנָּה לֹא תִשְׂבַּעְנָה אַרְבַּע לֹא־אָמְרוּ הוֹן
The horseleech hath two daughters: 'Give, give.' There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four that say not: 'Enough':
Τῇ βδέλλῃ τρεῖς θυγατέρες ἦσαν ἀγαπήσει ἀγαπώμεναι, καὶ αἱ τρεῖς αὗται οὐκ ἐνεπίμπλασαν αὐτὴν, καὶ ἡ τετάρτη οὐκ ἠρκέσθη εἰπεῖν, ἱκανόν.
The horseleech had three dearly beloved daughters: And these three did not satisfy her; And the fourth was not contented so as to say, Enough.
The horse-leech had three dearly beloved daughters: and these three did not satisfy her; and the fourth was not contented so as to say, Enough.
16
שְׁאוֹל וְעֹצֶר רָחַם אֶרֶץ לֹא־שָׂבְעָה מַּיִם וְאֵשׁ לֹא־אָמְרָה הוֹן
The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not satisfied with water; and the fire that saith not: 'Enough.'
Ἄδης καὶ ἔρως γυναικὸς, καὶ γῆ οὐκ ἐμπιπλαμένη ὕδατος, καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ πῦρ οὐ μὴ εἴπωσιν, ἀρκεῖ.
The grave, and the love of a woman, And the earth not filled with water; Water also and fire will not say, It is enough.
The grave, and the love of a woman, and the earth not filled with water; water also and fire will not say, It is enough.
17
עַיִן תִּלְעַג לְאָב וְתָבוּז לִיקֲּהַת־אֵם יִקְּרוּהָ עֹרְבֵי־נַחַל וְיֹאכְלוּהָ בְנֵי־נָשֶׁר
The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young vultures shall eat it.
Ὀφθαλμὸν καταγελῶντα πατρὸς, καὶ ἀτιμάζοντα γῆρας μητρὸς, ἐκκόψαισαν αὐτὸν κόρακες ἐκ τῶν φαράγγων, καὶ καταφάγοισαν αὐτὸν νεοσσοὶ ἀετῶν.
The eye that laughs to scorn a father, and dishonors the old age of a mother, Let the ravens of the valleys pick it out, And let the young eagles devour it.
The eye that laughs to scorn a father, and dishonors the old age of a mother, let the ravens of the valleys pick it out, and let the young eagles devour it.
38
Τρία δέ ἐστιν ἀδύνατά μοι νοῆσαι, καὶ τὸ τέταρτον οὐκ ἐπιγινώσκω·
Moreover there are three things impossible for me to comprehend, And the fourth I know not:
18
שְׁלֹשָׁה הֵמָּה נִפְלְאוּ מִמֶּנִּי וארבע וְאַרְבָּעָה לֹא יְדַעְתִּים
There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:
Moreover there are three things impossible for me to comprehend, and the fourth I know not:
19
דֶּרֶךְ הַנֶּשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם דֶּרֶךְ נָחָשׁ עֲלֵי צוּר דֶּרֶךְ־אֳנִיָּה בְלֶב־יָם וְדֶרֶךְ גֶּבֶר בְּעַלְמָה
The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a young woman.
Ἴχνη ἀετοῦ πετομένου, καὶ ὁδοὺς ὄφεως ἐπὶ πέτρας, καὶ τρίβους νηὸς ποντοπορούσης, καὶ ὁδοὺς ἀνδρὸς ἐν νεότητι.
The track of a flying eagle; And the ways of a serpent on a rock; And the paths of a ship passing through the sea; And the ways of a man in youth.
the track of a flying eagle; and the ways of a serpent on a rock; and the paths of a ship passing through the sea; and the ways of a man in youth.
40
Τοιαύτη ὁδὸς γυναικὸς μοιχαλίδος, ἣ ὅτʼ ἂν πράξῃ ἀπονιψαμένη, οὐδέν φησι πεπραχέναι ἄτοπον.
Such is the way of an adulterous woman, Who having washed herself from what she has done, says she has done nothing amiss.
20
כֵּן דֶּרֶךְ אִשָּׁה מְנָאָפֶת אָכְלָה וּמָחֲתָה פִיהָ וְאָמְרָה לֹא־פָעַלְתִּי אָוֶן
So is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith: 'I have done no wickedness.'
Such is the way of an adulterous woman, who having washed herself from what she has done, says she has done nothing * amiss.
21
תַּחַת שָׁלוֹשׁ רָגְזָה אֶרֶץ וְתַחַת אַרְבַּע לֹא־תוּכַל שְׂאֵת
For three things the earth doth quake, and for four it cannot endure:
Διὰ τριῶν σείεται ἡ γῆ, τὸ δὲ τέταρτον οὐ δύναται φέρειν·
By three things the earth is troubled, And the fourth it cannot bear:
By three things the earth is troubled, and the fourth it can’t bear:
22
תַּחַת־עֶבֶד כִּי יִמְלוֹךְ וְנָבָל כִּי יִשְׂבַּע־לָחֶם
For a servant when he reigneth; and a churl when he is filled with food;
Ἐὰν οἰκέτης βασιλεύσῃ, καὶ ἄφρων πλησθῇ σιτίων,
If a servant reign; Or a fool be filled with food;
if a servant reign; or a fool be filled with food;
43
καὶ οἰκέτις ἐὰν ἐκβάλῃ τὴν ἑαυτῆς κυρίαν, καὶ μισητὴ γυνὴ ἐὰν τύχῃ ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ.
Or if a maidservant should cast out her own mistress; And if a hateful woman should marry a good man.
23
תַּחַת שְׂנוּאָה כִּי תִבָּעֵל וְשִׁפְחָה כִּי־תִירַשׁ גְּבִרְתָּהּ
For an odious woman when she is married; and a handmaid that is heir to her mistress.
or if a maidservant should cast out her own mistress; and if a hateful woman should marry a good man.
24
אַרְבָּעָה הֵם קְטַנֵּי־אָרֶץ וְהֵמָּה חֲכָמִים מְחֻכָּמִים
There are four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:
Τέσσαρα δὲ ἐλάχιστα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ταῦτα δέ ἐστι σοφώτερα τῶν σοφῶν·
And [there are] four very little things upon the earth, But these are wiser than the wise:
And [there are] four very little things upon the earth, but these are wiser than the wise:
25
הַנְּמָלִים עַם לֹא־עָז וַיָּכִינוּ בַקַּיִץ לַחְמָם
The ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer;
Οἱ μύρμηκες οἷς μή ἐστιν ἰσχὺς, καὶ ἑτοιμάζονται θέρους τὴν τροφήν·
The ants which are weak, And [yet] prepare [their] food in summer;
the ants which are weak, and [yet] prepare [their] food in summer;
26
שְׁפַנִּים עַם לֹא־עָצוּם וַיָּשִׂימוּ בַסֶּלַע בֵּיתָם
The rock-badgers are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the crags;
Καὶ οἱ χοιρογρύλλιοι ἔθνος οὐκ ἰσχυρὸν, οἳ ἐποιήσαντο ἐν πέτραις τοὺς ἑαυτῶν οἴκους·
The rabbits also [are] a feeble race, Who make their houses in the rocks.
the rabbits also [are] a feeble race, who make their houses in the rocks.
27
מֶלֶךְ אֵין לָאַרְבֶּה וַיֵּצֵא חֹצֵץ כֻּלּוֹ
The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
Ἀβασίλευτόν ἐστιν ἡ ἀκρὶς, καὶ στρατεύει ἀφʼ ἑνὸς κελεύσματος εὐτάκτως·
The locusts have no king, And [yet] march orderly at one command.
The locusts have no king, and [yet] march orderly at one command.
48
Καὶ καλαβώτης χερσὶν ἐρειδόμενος, καὶ εὐάλωτος ὢν, κατοικεῖ ἐν ὀχυρώμασι βασιλέων.
And the eft, which supports itself by [its] hands, and is easily taken, Dwells in the fortresses of kings.
49
Τρία δέ ἐστιν ἃ εὐόδως πορεύεται, καὶ τέταρτον ὃ καλῶς διαβαίνει·
And there are three things which go well, And a fourth which passes along finely.
28
שְׂמָמִית בְּיָדַיִם תְּתַפֵּשׂ וְהִיא בְּהֵיכְלֵי מֶלֶךְ
The spider thou canst take with the hands, yet is she in kings' palaces.
And the eft, which supports itself by [its] hands, and is easily taken, dwells in the fortresses of kings.
29
שְׁלֹשָׁה הֵמָּה מֵיטִיבֵי צָעַד וְאַרְבָּעָה מֵיטִבֵי לָכֶת
There are three things which are stately in their march, yea, four which are stately in going:
And there are three things which go well, and a fourth which passes along finely.
30
לַיִשׁ גִּבּוֹר בַּבְּהֵמָה וְלֹא־יָשׁוּב מִפְּנֵי־כֹל
The lion, which is mightiest among beasts, and turneth not away for any;
Σκύμνος λέοντος ἰσχυρότερος κτηνῶν, ὃς οὐκ ἀποστρέφεται, οὐδὲ καταπτήσσει κτῆνος·
A lion’s whelp, stronger than [all other] beasts, Which turns not away, nor fears [any] beast;
A lion's whelp, stronger than [all other] beasts, which turns not away, nor fears [any] beast;
51
Καὶ ἀλέκτωρ ἐμπεριπατῶν θηλείαις εὔψυχος, καὶ τράγος ἡγούμενος αἰπολίου, καὶ βασιλεὺς δημηγορῶν ἐν ἔθνει.
And a cock walking in boldly among the hens, And a goat leading the herd; And a king publicly speaking before a nation.
52
Ἐὰν πρόῃ σεαυτὸν ἐν εὐφροσύνῃ, καὶ ἐκτείνῃς τὴν χεῖρά σου μετὰ μάχης, ἀτιμασθήσῃ.
If thou abandon thyself to mirth, And stretch forth thy hand in a quarrel, thou shalt be disgraced.
53
Ἄμελγε γάλα, καὶ ἔσται βούτυρον· ἐὰν δὲ ἐκπιέζῃς μυκτῆρας ἐξελεύσεται αἷμα, ἐὰν δὲ ἐξέλκῃς λόγους, ἐξελεύσονται κρίσεις καὶ μάχαι.
Milk out milk, and there shall be butter, And if thou wring [one’s] nostrils there shall come out blood: So if thou extort words, there will come forth quarrels and strifes.
54
Οἱ ἐμοὶ λόγοι εἴρηνται ὑπὸ Θεοῦ, βασιλέως χρηματισμὸς, ὃν ἐπαίδευσεν ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ.
My words have been spoken by God— The oracular answer of a king, whom his mother instructed.
31
זַרְזִיר מָתְנַיִם אוֹ־תָיִשׁ וּמֶלֶךְ אַלְקוּם עִמּוֹ
The greyhound; the he-goat also; and the king, against whom there is no rising up.
and a cock walking in boldly among the hens, and the goat leading the herd; and a king publicly speaking before a nation.
32
אִם־נָבַלְתָּ בְהִתְנַשֵּׂא וְאִם־זַמּוֹתָ יָד לְפֶה
If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast planned devices, lay thy hand upon thy mouth.
If you abandon yourself to mirth, and stretch forth your hand in a quarrel, you shall be disgraced.
33
כִּי מִיץ חָלָב יוֹצִיא חֶמְאָה וּמִיץ־אַף יוֹצִיא דָם וּמִיץ אַפַּיִם יוֹצִיא רִיב
For the churning of milk bringeth forth curd, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood; so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.
Milk out milk, and there shall be butter, and if you wing [one's] nostrils there shall come out blood: so if you extort words, there will come forth quarrels and strifes

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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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