Textorah

Psalms 35

1
לְדָוִד רִיבָה יְהוָה אֶת־יְרִיבַי לְחַם אֶת־לֹחֲמָי
A Psalm of David. Strive, O HaShem, with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me.
Τῷ Δαυίδ. Δικάσον, Κύριε, τοὺς ἀδικοῦντάς με, πολέμησον τοὺς πολεμοῦντάς με.
[A Psalm] of David. Judge thou, O Lord, them that injure me, Fight against them that fight against me.
2
הַחֲזֵק מָגֵן וְצִנָּה וְקוּמָה בְּעֶזְרָתִי
Take hold of shield and buckler, and rise up to my help.
Ἐπιλαβοῦ ὅπλου καὶ θυρεοῦ, καὶ ἀνάστηθι εἰς βοήθειάν μοι.
Take hold of shield and buckler, and arise for my help.
3
וְהָרֵק חֲנִית וּסְגֹר לִקְרַאת רֹדְפָי אֱמֹר לְנַפְשִׁי יְשֻׁעָתֵךְ אָנִי
Draw out also the spear, and the battle-axe, against them that pursue me; say unto my soul: 'I am Thy salvation.'
Ἔκχεον ῥομφαίαν, καὶ σύγκλεισον ἐξεναντίας τῶν καταδιωκόντων με· εἰπὸν τῇ ψυχῇ μου, σωτηρία σου ἐγώ εἰμι.
Bring forth a sword, and stop [the way] against them that persecute me: Say to my soul, I am thy salvation.
4
יֵבֹשׁוּ וְיִכָּלְמוּ מְבַקְשֵׁי נַפְשִׁי יִסֹּגוּ אָחוֹר וְיַחְפְּרוּ חֹשְׁבֵי רָעָתִי
Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion that seek after my soul; let them be turned back and be abashed that devise my hurt.
Αἰσχυνθείησαν καὶ ἐντραπείησαν οἱ ζητοῦντες τὴν ψυχήν μου, ἀποστραφείησαν εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, καὶ καταισχυνθείησαν οἱ λογιζόμενοί μοι κακά.
Let them that seek my soul be ashamed and confounded: Let them that devise evils against me be turned back and put to shame.
5
יִהְיוּ כְּמֹץ לִפְנֵי־רוּחַ וּמַלְאַךְ יְהוָה דּוֹחֶה
Let them be as chaff before the wind, the angel of HaShem thrusting them.
Γενηθήτωσαν ὡσεὶ χοῦς κατὰ πρόσωπον ἀνέμου, καὶ ἄγγελος Κυρίου ἐκθλίβων αὐτούς.
Let them be as dust before the wind, And an angel of the Lord afflicting them.
6
יְהִי־דַרְכָּם חֹשֶׁךְ וַחֲלַקְלַקּוֹת וּמַלְאַךְ יְהוָה רֹדְפָם
Let their way be dark and slippery, the angel of HaShem pursuing them.
Γενηθήτω ἡ ὁδὸς αὐτῶν σκότος καὶ ὀλίσθημα, καὶ ἄγγελος Κυρίου καταδιώκων αὐτούς.
Let their way be dark and slippery, And an angel of the Lord persecuting them.
7
כִּי־חִנָּם טָמְנוּ־לִי שַׁחַת רִשְׁתָּם חִנָּם חָפְרוּ לְנַפְשִׁי
For without cause have they hid for me the pit, even their net, without cause have they digged for my soul.
Ὅτι δωρεὰν ἔκρυψάν μοι διαφθορὰν παγίδος αὐτῶν, μάτην ὠνείδισαν τὴν ψυχήν μου.
For without cause they have hidden for me their destructive snare: Without a cause they have reproached my soul.
8
תְּבוֹאֵהוּ שׁוֹאָה לֹא־יֵדָע וְרִשְׁתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר־טָמַן תִּלְכְּדוֹ בְּשׁוֹאָה יִפָּל־בָּהּ
Let destruction come upon him unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself; with destruction let him fall therein.
Ἐλθέτω αὐτοῖς παγὶς ἣν οὐ γινώσκουσι, καὶ ἡ θήρα ἣν ἔκρυψαν, συλλαβέτω αὐτοὺς, καὶ ἐν τῇ παγίδι πεσοῦνται ἐν αὐτῇ.
Let a snare which they know not come upon them; And the gin which they hid take them: And let them fall into the very same snare.
9
וְנַפְשִׁי תָּגִיל בַּיהוָה תָּשִׂישׂ בִּישׁוּעָתוֹ
And my soul shall be joyful in HaShem; it shall rejoice in His salvation.
Ἡ δὲ ψυχή μου ἀγαλλιάσεται ἐπὶ τῷ Κυρίῳ, τερφθήσεται ἐπὶ τῷ σωτηρίῳ αὐτοῦ.
But my soul shall exult in the Lord: It shall delight in his salvation.
10
כָּל עַצְמוֹתַי תֹּאמַרְנָה יְהוָה מִי כָמוֹךָ מַצִּיל עָנִי מֵחָזָק מִמֶּנּוּ וְעָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן מִגֹּזְלוֹ
All my bones shall say: 'HaShem, who is like unto Thee, who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?'
Πάντα τὰ ὀστᾶ μου ἐροῦσι, Κύριε τίς ὅμοιός σοι; ῥυόμενος πτωχὸν ἐκ χειρὸς στερεωτέρων αὐτοῦ, καὶ πτωχὸν καὶ πένητα ἀπὸ τῶν διαρπαζόντων αὐτόν.
All my bones shall say, O Lord, who is like to thee? Delivering the poor out of the hand of them that are stronger than he, Yea, the poor and needy one from them that spoil him.
11
יְקוּמוּן עֵדֵי חָמָס אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדַעְתִּי יִשְׁאָלוּנִי
Unrighteous witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I know not.
Ἀναστάντες μάρτυρες ἄδικοι, ἃ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκον, ἐπηρώτων με.
Unjust witnesses arose, and asked me of things I knew not.
12
יְשַׁלְּמוּנִי רָעָה תַּחַת טוֹבָה שְׁכוֹל לְנַפְשִׁי
They repay me evil for good; bereavement is come to my soul.
Ἀνταπεδίδοσάν μοι πονηρὰ ἀντὶ καλῶν, καὶ ἀτεκνίαν τῇ ψυχῇ μου.
They rewarded me evil for good, And bereavement to my soul.
13
וַאֲנִי בַּחֲלוֹתָם לְבוּשִׁי שָׂק עִנֵּיתִי בַצּוֹם נַפְשִׁי וּתְפִלָּתִי עַל־חֵיקִי תָשׁוּב
But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth, I afflicted my soul with fasting; and my prayer, may it return into mine own bosom.
Ἐγὼ δὲ ἐν τῷ αὐτοὺς παρενοχλεῖν μοι, ἐνεδυόμην σάκκον· καὶ ἐταπείνουν ἐν νηστείᾳ τὴν ψυχήν μου, καὶ ἡ προσευχή μου εἰς κόλπον μου ἀποστραφήσεται.
But I, when they troubled me, put on sackcloth, And humbled my soul with fasting: And my prayer shall return to my [own] bosom.
14
כְּרֵעַ־כְּאָח לִי הִתְהַלָּכְתִּי כַּאֲבֶל־אֵם קֹדֵר שַׁחוֹתִי
I went about as though it had been my friend or my brother; I bowed down mournful, as one that mourneth for his mother.
Ὡς πλησίον ὡς ἀδελφὸν ἡμέτερον οὕτως εὐηρέστουν, ὡς πενθῶν καὶ σκυθρωπάξων οὕτως ἐταπεινούμην.
I behaved agreeably toward them as [if it had been] our neighbor [or] brother: I humbled myself as one mourning and sad of countenance.
15
וּבְצַלְעִי שָׂמְחוּ וְנֶאֱסָפוּ נֶאֶסְפוּ עָלַי נֵכִים וְלֹא יָדַעְתִּי קָרְעוּ וְלֹא־דָמּוּ
But when I halt they rejoice, and gather themselves together; the abjects gather themselves together against me, and those whom I know not; they tear me, and cease not;
Καὶ κατʼ ἐμοῦ εὐφράνθησαν, καὶ συνήχθησαν, συνήχθησαν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ μάστιγες καὶ οὐκ ἔγνων· διεσχίσθησαν καὶ οὐ κατενύγησαν.
Yet they rejoiced against me, And plagues were plentifully brought against me, and I knew [it] not: They were scattered, but repented not.
16
בְּחַנְפֵי לַעֲגֵי מָעוֹג חָרֹק עָלַי שִׁנֵּימוֹ
With the profanest mockeries of backbiting they gnash at me with their teeth.
Ἐπείρασάν με, ἐξεμυκτήρισάν με μυκτηρισμὸν, ἔβρυξαν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτῶν.
They tempted me, they sneered at me most contemptuously, They gnashed their teeth upon me.
17
אֲדֹנָי כַּמָּה תִרְאֶה הָשִׁיבָה נַפְשִׁי מִשֹּׁאֵיהֶם מִכְּפִירִים יְחִידָתִי
L-rd, how long wilt Thou look on? Rescue my soul from their destructions, mine only one from the lions.
Κύριε πότε ἐπόψῃ; ἀποκατάστησον τὴν ψυχήν μου ἀπὸ τῆς κακουργίας αὐτῶν, ἀπὸ λεόντων τὴν μονογενῆ μου.
O Lord, when wilt thou look upon me? Deliver my soul from their mischief, Mine only begotten one from the lions.
18
אוֹדְךָ בְּקָהָל רָב בְּעַם עָצוּם אֲהַלְלֶךָּ
I will give Thee thanks in the great congregation; I will praise Thee among a numerous people.
Ἐξομολογήσομαί σοι καὶ ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ πολλῇ, ἐν λαῷ βαρεῖ αἰνέσω σε.
I will give thanks to thee even in a great congregation: In an abundant people I will praise thee.
19
אַל־יִשְׂמְחוּ־לִי אֹיְבַי שֶׁקֶר שֹׂנְאַי חִנָּם יִקְרְצוּ־עָיִן
Let not them that are wrongfully mine enemies rejoice over me; neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.
Μὴ ἐπιχαρείησάν μοι οἱ ἐχθραίνοντές μοι ματαίως, οἱ μισοῦντές με δωρεὰν, καὶ διανεύοντες ὀφθαλμοῖς.
Let not them that are mine enemies without a cause rejoice against me; Who hate me for nothing, and wink with their eyes.
20
כִּי לֹא שָׁלוֹם יְדַבֵּרוּ וְעַל רִגְעֵי־אֶרֶץ דִּבְרֵי מִרְמוֹת יַחֲשֹׁבוּן
For they speak not peace; but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land.
Ὅτι ἐμοὶ μὲν εἰρηνικὰ ἐλάλουν, καὶ ἐπʼ ὀργῇ δόλους διελογίζοντο.
For to me they spoke peaceably, But imagined deceits in [their] anger.
21
וַיַּרְחִיבוּ עָלַי פִּיהֶם אָמְרוּ הֶאָח הֶאָח רָאֲתָה עֵינֵינוּ
Yea, they open their mouth wide against me; they say: 'Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it.'
Καὶ ἐπλάτυναν ἐπʼ ἐμὲ τὸ στόμα αὐτῶν, εἶπαν, εὖγε, εὖγε, εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἡμῶν.
And they opened wide their mouth upon me; They said, Aha, aha, our eyes have seen [it].
22
רָאִיתָה יְהוָה אַל־תֶּחֱרַשׁ אֲדֹנָי אֲל־תִּרְחַק מִמֶּנִּי
Thou hast seen, O HaShem; keep not silence; O L-rd, be not far from me.
Εἶδες Κύριε, μὴ παρασιωπήσῃς, Κύριε μὴ ἀποστῇς ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ.
Thou hast seen [it], O Lord: keep not silence: O Lord, withdraw not [thyself] from me.
23
הָעִירָה וְהָקִיצָה לְמִשְׁפָּטִי אֱלֹהַי וַאדֹנָי לְרִיבִי
Rouse Thee, and awake to my judgment, even unto my cause, my G-d and my L-rd.
Ἐξεγέρθητι Κύριε, καὶ πρόσχες τῇ κρίσει μου, ὁ Θεός μου καὶ ὁ Κύριός μου εἰς τὴν δίκην μου.
Awake, O Lord, and attend to my judgment, [Even] to my cause, my God and my Lord.
24
שָׁפְטֵנִי כְצִדְקְךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהָי וְאַל־יִשְׂמְחוּ־לִי
Judge me, O HaShem my G-d, according to Thy righteousness; and let them not rejoice over me.
Κρῖνόν με Κύριε κατὰ τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου Κύριε ὁ Θεός μου, καὶ μὴ ἐπιχαρείησάν μοι.
Judge me, O Lord, according to thy righteousness, O Lord my God; And let them not rejoice against me.
25
אַל־יֹאמְרוּ בְלִבָּם הֶאָח נַפְשֵׁנוּ אַל־יֹאמְרוּ בִּלַּעֲנוּהוּ
Let them not say in their heart: 'Aha, we have our desire'; let them not say: 'We have swallowed him up.'
Μὴ εἴποισαν ἐν καρδίαις αὐτῶν, εὖγε, εὖγε τῇ ψυχῇ ἡμῶν· μηδὲ εἴποιεν, κατεπίομεν αὐτόν.
Let them not say in their hearts, Aha, aha, [it is pleasing] to our soul: Neither let them say, We have devoured him.
26
יֵבֹשׁוּ וְיַחְפְּרוּ יַחְדָּו שְׂמֵחֵי רָעָתִי יִלְבְּשׁוּ־בֹשֶׁת וּכְלִמָּה הַמַּגְדִּילִים עָלָי
Let them be ashamed and abashed together that rejoice at my hurt; let them be clothed with shame and confusion that magnify themselves against me.
Αἰσχυνθείησαν καὶ ἐντραπείησαν ἅμα οἱ ἐπιχαίροντες τοῖς κακοῖς μου· ἐνδυσάσθωσαν αἰσχύνην καὶ ἐντροπὴν οἱ μεγαλοῤῥημονοῦντες ἐπʼ ἐμέ.
Let them be confounded and ashamed together that rejoice at my afflictions: Let them be clothed with shame and confusion that speak great swelling words against me.
27
יָרֹנּוּ וְיִשְׂמְחוּ חֲפֵצֵי צִדְקִי וְיֹאמְרוּ תָמִיד יִגְדַּל יְהוָה הֶחָפֵץ שְׁלוֹם עַבְדּוֹ
Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that delight in my righteousness; yea, let them say continually: 'Magnified be HaShem, who delighteth in the peace of His servant.'
Ἀγαλλιάσαιντο καὶ εὐφρανθείησαν οἱ θέλοντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην μου, καὶ εἰπάτωσαν διαπαντὸς, μεγαλυνθείη ὁ Κύριος, οἱ θέλοντες τὴν εἰρήνην τοῦ δούλου αὐτοῦ.
Let them that rejoice in my righteousness exult and be glad: And let them say continually, The Lord be magnified, Who desire the peace of his servant.
28
וּלְשׁוֹנִי תֶּהְגֶּה צִדְקֶךָ כָּל־הַיּוֹם תְּהִלָּתֶךָ
And my tongue shall speak of Thy righteousness, and of Thy praise all the day.
Καὶ ἡ γλῶσσά μου μελετήσει τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου, ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν τὸν ἔπαινόν σου.
And my tongue shall meditate on thy righteousness, [And] on thy praise all the day.

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.

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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.

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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.

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