Textorah

Psalms 37

1
לְדָוִד אַל־תִּתְחַר בַּמְּרֵעִים אַל־תְּקַנֵּא בְּעֹשֵׂי עַוְלָה
A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, neither be thou envious against them that work unrighteousness.
Τῷ Δαυίδ. Μὴ παραζήλου ἐν πονηρευομένοις, μηδὲ ζήλου τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν.
[A Psalm] of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, Neither be envious of them that do iniquity.
2
כִּי כֶחָצִיר מְהֵרָה יִמָּלוּ וּכְיֶרֶק דֶּשֶׁא יִבּוֹלוּן
For they shall soon wither like the grass, and fade as the green herb.
Ὅτι ὡσεὶ χόρτος ταχὺ ἀποξηρανθήσονται, καὶ ὡσεὶ λάχανα χλόης ταχὺ ἀποπεσοῦνται.
For they shall soon be withered as the grass, And shall soon fall away as the green herbs.
3
בְּטַח בַּיהוָה וַעֲשֵׂה־טוֹב שְׁכָן־אֶרֶץ וּרְעֵה אֱמוּנָה
Trust in HaShem, and do good; dwell in the land, and cherish faithfulness.
Ἔλπισον ἐπὶ Κύριον, καὶ ποίει χρηστότητα, καὶ κατασκήνου τὴν γῆν, καὶ ποιμανθήσῃ ἐπὶ τῷ πλούτῳ αὐτῆς.
Hope in the Lord, and do good; And dwell on the land, and thou shalt be fed with the wealth of it.
4
וְהִתְעַנַּג עַל־יְהוָה וְיִתֶּן־לְךָ מִשְׁאֲלֹת לִבֶּךָ
So shalt thou delight thyself in HaShem; and He shall give thee the petitions of thy heart.
Κατατρύφησον τοῦ Κυρίου, καὶ δώσει σοι τὰ αἰτήματα τῆς καρδίας σου.
Delight [thyself] in the Lord; And he shall grant thee the requests of thy heart.
5
גּוֹל עַל־יְהוָה דַּרְכֶּךָ וּבְטַח עָלָיו וְהוּא יַעֲשֶׂה
Commit thy way unto HaShem; trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass.
Ἀποκάλυψον πρὸς Κύριον τὴν ὁδόν σου, καὶ ἔλπισον ἐπʼ αὐτὸν, καὶ αὐτὸς ποιήσει.
Disclose thy way to the Lord, And hope in him; and he shall bring [it] to pass.
6
וְהוֹצִיא כָאוֹר צִדְקֶךָ וּמִשְׁפָּטֶךָ כַּצָּהֳרָיִם
And He will make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, and thy right as the noonday.
Καὶ ἐξοίσει ὡς φῶς τὴν δικαιοσύνην σου, καὶ τὸ κρίμα σου ὡς μεσημβρίαν.
And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, And thy judgment as the noonday.
7
דּוֹם לַיהוָה וְהִתְחוֹלֵל לוֹ אַל־תִּתְחַר בְּמַצְלִיחַ דַּרְכּוֹ בְּאִישׁ עֹשֶׂה מְזִמּוֹת
Resign thyself unto HaShem, and wait patiently for Him; fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.
Ὑποτάγηθι τῷ Κυρίῳ, καὶ ἱκέτευσον αὐτόν· μὴ παραζήλου ἐν τῷ κατευοδουμένῳ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ αὐτοῦ, ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ ποιοῦντι παρανομίας.
Submit thyself to the Lord, and supplicate him: Fret not thyself because of him that prospers in his way, At the man that does unlawful deeds.
8
הֶרֶף מֵאַף וַעֲזֹב חֵמָה אַל־תִּתְחַר אַךְ־לְהָרֵעַ
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing.
Παῦσαι ἀπὸ ὀργῆς καὶ ἐνκατάλιπε θυμὸν, μὴ παραζήλου ὥστε πονηρεύεσθαι.
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself so as to do evil.
9
כִּי־מְרֵעִים יִכָּרֵתוּן וְקֹוֵי יְהוָה הֵמָּה יִירְשׁוּ־אָרֶץ
For evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait for HaShem, they shall inherit the land.
Ὅτι οἱ πονηρευόμενοι ἐξολοθρευθήσονται, οἱ δὲ ὑπομένοντες τὸν Κύριον, αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσι τὴν γῆν.
For evildoers shall be destroyed: But they that wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the land.
10
וְעוֹד מְעַט וְאֵין רָשָׁע וְהִתְבּוֹנַנְתָּ עַל־מְקוֹמוֹ וְאֵינֶנּוּ
And yet a little while, and the wicked is no more; yea, thou shalt look well at his place, and he is not.
Καὶ ἔτι ὀλίγον καὶ οὐ μὴ ὑπάρξῃ ἁμαρτωλὸς, καὶ ζητήσεις τὸν τόπον αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐ μὴ εὕρῃς.
And yet a little while, and the sinner shall not be, And thou shalt seek for his place, and shalt not find [it].
11
וַעֲנָוִים יִירְשׁוּ־אָרֶץ וְהִתְעַנְּגוּ עַל־רֹב שָׁלוֹם
But the humble shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
Οἱ δὲ πρᾳεῖς κληρονομήσουσι γῆν, καὶ κατατρυφήσουσιν ἐπὶ πλήθει εἰρήνης.
But the meek shall inherit the earth; And shall delight [themselves] in the abundance of peace.
12
זֹמֵם רָשָׁע לַצַּדִּיק וְחֹרֵק עָלָיו שִׁנָּיו
The wicked plotteth against the righteous, and gnasheth at him with his teeth.
Παρατηρήσεται ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς τὸν δίκαιον, καὶ βρύξει ἐπʼ αὐτὸν τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτοῦ.
The sinner will watch for the righteous, And gnash his teeth upon him.
13
אֲדֹנָי יִשְׂחַק־לוֹ כִּי־רָאָה כִּי־יָבֹא יוֹמוֹ
The L-rd doth laugh at him; for He seeth that his day is coming.
Ὁ δὲ Κύριος ἐκγελάσεται αὐτὸν, ὅτι προβλέτει ὅτι ἥξει ἡ ἡμέρα αὐτοῦ.
But the Lord shall laugh at him: For he foresees that his day will come.
14
חֶרֶב פָּתְחוּ רְשָׁעִים וְדָרְכוּ קַשְׁתָּם לְהַפִּיל עָנִי וְאֶבְיוֹן לִטְבוֹחַ יִשְׁרֵי־דָרֶךְ
The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow; to cast down the poor and needy, to slay such as are upright in the way;
Ῥομφαίαν ἐσπάσαντο οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἐνέτειναν τόξον αὐτῶν, τοῦ καταβαλεῖν πτωχὸν καὶ πένητα, τοῦ σφάξαι τοὺς εὐθεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ.
Sinners have drawn their swords, They have bent their bow, To cast down the poor and needy one, [And] to slay the upright in heart.
15
חַרְבָּם תָּבוֹא בְלִבָּם וְקַשְּׁתוֹתָם תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה
Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
Ἡ ῥομφαία αὐτῶν εἰσέλθοι εἰς τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ τόξα αὐτῶν συντριβείη.
Let their sword enter into their [own] heart, And their bows be broken.
16
טוֹב־מְעַט לַצַּדִּיק מֵהֲמוֹן רְשָׁעִים רַבִּים
Better is a little that the righteous hath than the abundance of many wicked.
Κρεῖσσον ὀλίγον τῷ δικαίῳ ὑπὲρ πλοῦτον ἁμαρτωλῶν πολύν.
A little is better to the righteous Than abundant wealth of sinners.
17
כִּי זְרוֹעוֹת רְשָׁעִים תִּשָּׁבַרְנָה וְסוֹמֵךְ צַדִּיקִים יְהוָה
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken; but HaShem upholdeth the righteous.
Ὅτι βραχίονες ἁμαρτωλῶν συντριβήσονται, ὑποστηρίζει δὲ τοὺς δικαίους ὁ Κύριος.
For the arms of sinners shall be broken; But the Lord supports the righteous.
18
יוֹדֵעַ יְהוָה יְמֵי תְמִימִם וְנַחֲלָתָם לְעוֹלָם תִּהְיֶה
HaShem knoweth the days of them that are wholehearted; and their inheritance shall be for ever.
Γινώσκει Κύριος τὰς ὁδοὺς τῶν ἀμώμων, καὶ ἡ κληρονομία αὐτῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ἔσται.
The Lord knows the ways of the perfect; And their inheritance shall be forever.
19
לֹא־יֵבֹשׁוּ בְּעֵת רָעָה וּבִימֵי רְעָבוֹן יִשְׂבָּעוּ
They shall not be ashamed in the time of evil; and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.
Οὐ καταισχυνθήσονται ἐν καιρῷ πονηρῷ, καὶ ἐν ἡμέραις λιμοῦ χορτασθήσονται·
They shall not be ashamed in an evil time; And in days of famine they shall be satisfied.
20
כִּי רְשָׁעִים יֹאבֵדוּ וְאֹיְבֵי יְהוָה כִּיקַר כָּרִים כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן כָּלוּ
For the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of HaShem shall be as the fat of lambs--they shall pass away in smoke, they shall pass away.
Ὅτι οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἀπολοῦνται, οἱ δὲ ἐχθροὶ τοῦ Κυρίου ἅμα τῷ δοξασθῆναι αὐτοὺς καὶ ὑψωθῆναι, ἐκλείποντες ὡσεὶ καπνὸς ἐξέλιπον.
For the sinners shall perish; And the enemies of the Lord at the moment of their being honored and exalted Have utterly vanished like smoke.
21
לֹוֶה רָשָׁע וְלֹא יְשַׁלֵּם וְצַדִּיק חוֹנֵן וְנוֹתֵן
The wicked borroweth, and payeth not; but the righteous dealeth graciously, and giveth.
Δανείζεται ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς, καὶ οὐκ ἀποτίσει, ὁ δὲ δίκαιος οἰκτείρει καὶ διδοῖ.
The sinner borrows, and will not pay again: But the righteous has compassion, and gives.
22
כִּי מְבֹרָכָיו יִירְשׁוּ אָרֶץ וּמְקֻלָּלָיו יִכָּרֵתוּ
For such as are blessed of Him shall inherit the land; and they that are cursed of Him shall be cut off.
Ὅτι οἱ εὐλογοῦντες αὐτὸν κληρονομήσουσι γῆν, οἱ δὲ καταρώμενοι αὐτὸν ἐξολοθρευθήσονται.
For they that bless him shall inherit the earth; And they that curse him shall be utterly destroyed.
23
מֵיְהוָה מִצְעֲדֵי־גֶבֶר כּוֹנָנוּ וְדַרְכּוֹ יֶחְפָּץ
It is of HaShem that a man's goings are established; and He delighted in his way.
Παρὰ Κυρίου τὰ διαβήματα ἀνθρώπου κατευθύνεται, καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ θελήσει.
The steps of a man are rightly ordered by the Lord: And he will take pleasure in his way.
24
כִּי־יִפֹּל לֹא־יוּטָל כִּי־יְהוָה סוֹמֵךְ יָדוֹ
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for HaShem upholdeth his hand.
Ὅταν πέσῃ οὐ καταῤῥαχθήσεται, ὅτι Κύριος ἀντιστηρίζει χεῖρα αὐτοῦ.
When he falls, he shall not be ruined: For the Lord supports his hand.
25
נַעַר הָיִיתִי גַּם־זָקַנְתִּי וְלֹא־רָאִיתִי צַדִּיק נֶעֱזָב וְזַרְעוֹ מְבַקֶּשׁ־לָחֶם
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
Νεώτερος ἐγενόμην, καὶ γὰρ ἐγήρασα· καὶ οὐκ εἶδον δίκαιον ἐγκαταλελειμμένον, οὐδὲ τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ ζητοῦν ἄρτους.
I was [once] young, indeed I am now old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed seeking bread.
26
כָּל־הַיּוֹם חוֹנֵן וּמַלְוֶה וְזַרְעוֹ לִבְרָכָה
All the day long he dealeth graciously, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.
Ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν ἐλεεῖ καὶ δανείζει, καὶ τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ εἰς εὐλογίαν ἔσται.
He is merciful, and lends continually; And his seed shall be blessed.
27
סוּר מֵרָע וַעֲשֵׂה־טוֹב וּשְׁכֹן לְעוֹלָם
Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.
Ἔκκλινον ἀπὸ κακοῦ, καὶ ποίησον ἀγαθὸν, καὶ κατασκήνου εἰς αἰῶνα αἰῶνος.
Turn aside from evil, and do good; And dwell forever.
28
כִּי יְהוָה אֹהֵב מִשְׁפָּט וְלֹא־יַעֲזֹב אֶת־חֲסִידָיו לְעוֹלָם נִשְׁמָרוּ וְזֶרַע רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָת
For HaShem loveth justice, and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved for ever; but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.
Ὅτι Κύριος ἀγαπᾷ κρίσιν, καὶ οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψει τοὺς ὁσίους αὐτοῦ, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα φυλαχθήσονται· ἄμωμοι ἐκδικηθήσονται, καὶ σπέρμα ἀσεβῶν ἐξολοθρευθήσεται.
For the Lord loves judgment, And will not forsake his saints; They shall be preserved forever: The blameless shall be avenged, But the seed of the ungodly shall be utterly destroyed.
29
צַדִּיקִים יִירְשׁוּ־אָרֶץ וְיִשְׁכְּנוּ לָעַד עָלֶיהָ
The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
Δίκαιοι δὲ κληρονομήσουσι γῆν, καὶ κατασκηνώσουσιν εἰς αἰῶνα αἰῶνος ἐπʼ αὐτῆς.
But the righteous shall inherit the earth, And dwell upon it forever.
30
פִּי־צַדִּיק יֶהְגֶּה חָכְמָה וּלְשׁוֹנוֹ תְּדַבֵּר מִשְׁפָּט
The mouth of the righteous uttereth wisdom, and his tongue speaketh justice.
Στόμα δικαίου μελετήσει σοφίαν, καὶ ἡ γλῶσσα αὐτοῦ λαλήσει κρίσιν.
The mouth of the righteous will meditate wisdom, And his tongue will speak of judgment.
31
תּוֹרַת אֱלֹהָיו בְּלִבּוֹ לֹא תִמְעַד אֲשֻׁרָיו
The law of his G-d is in his heart; none of his steps slide.
Ὁ νόμος τοῦ Θεοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐν καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐχ ὑποσκελισθήσεται τὰ διαβήματα αὐτοῦ.
The law of his God is in his heart; And his steps shall not slide.
32
צוֹפֶה רָשָׁע לַצַּדִּיק וּמְבַקֵּשׁ לַהֲמִיתוֹ
The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.
Κατανοεῖ ὁ ἁμαρτωλὸς τὸν δίκαιον, καὶ ζητεῖ τοῦ θανατῶσαι αὐτόν.
The sinner watches the righteous, And seeks to slay him.
33
יְהוָה לֹא־יַעַזְבֶנּוּ בְיָדוֹ וְלֹא יַרְשִׁיעֶנּוּ בְּהִשָּׁפְטוֹ
HaShem will not leave him in his hand, nor suffer him to be condemned when he is judged.
Ὁ δὲ Κύριος οὐ μὴ ἐγκαταλίπῃ αὐτὸν εἰς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ, οὐδὲ μὴ καταδικάσαι αὐτὸν, ὅταν κρίνηται αὐτῷ.
But the Lord will not leave him in his hands, Nor by any means condemn him when he is judged.
34
קַוֵּה אֶל־יְהוָה וּשְׁמֹר דַּרְכּוֹ וִירוֹמִמְךָ לָרֶשֶׁת אָרֶץ בְּהִכָּרֵת רְשָׁעִים תִּרְאֶה
Wait for HaShem, and keep His way, and He will exalt thee to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.
Ὑπόμεινον τὸν Κύριον, καὶ φύλαξον τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὑψώσει σε τοῦ κατακληρονομῆσαι τὴν γῆν· ἐν τῷ ἐξολοθρεύεσθαι ἁμαρτωλοὺς, ὄψει.
Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, And he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: When the wicked are destroyed, thou shalt see [it].
35
רָאִיתִי רָשָׁע עָרִיץ וּמִתְעָרֶה כְּאֶזְרָח רַעֲנָן
I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a leafy tree in its native soil.
Εἶδον τὸν ἀσεβῆ ὑπερυψούμενον, καὶ ἐπαιρόμενον ὡς τὰς κέδρους τοῦ Λιβάνου·
I saw the ungodly very highly exalting himself, And lifting himself up like the cedars of Lebanon.
36
וַיּ͏ַעֲבֹר וְהִנֵּה אֵינֶנּוּ וָאֲבַקְשֵׁהוּ וְלֹא נִמְצָא
But one passed by, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.
Καὶ παρῆλθον, καὶ ἰδοὺ οὐκ ἦν, καὶ ἐζήτησα αὐτόν, καὶ οὐχ εὑρέθη ὁ τόπος αὐτοῦ.
Yet I passed by, and lo! he was not: And I sought him, but his place was not found.
37
שְׁמָר־תָּם וּרְאֵה יָשָׁר כִּי־אַחֲרִית לְאִישׁ שָׁלוֹם
Mark the man of integrity, and behold the upright; for there is a future for the man of peace.
Φύλασσε ἀκακίαν καὶ ἴδε εὐθύτητα, ὅτι ἐστὶν ἐγκατάλειμμα ἀνθρώπῳ εἰρηνικῷ.
Maintain innocence, and behold uprightness: For there is a remnant to the peaceable man.
38
וּפֹשְׁעִים נִשְׁמְדוּ יַחְדָּו אַחֲרִית רְשָׁעִים נִכְרָתָה
But transgressors shall be destroyed together; the future of the wicked shall be cut off.
Οἱ δὲ παράνομοι ἐξολοθρευθήσονται ἐπιτοαυτὸ, τὰ ἐγκαταλείμματα τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἐξολοθρευθήσονται·
But the transgressors shall be utterly destroyed together: The remnants of the ungodly shall be utterly destroyed.
39
וּתְשׁוּעַת צַדִּיקִים מֵיְהוָה מָעוּזָּם בְּעֵת צָרָה
But the salvation of the righteous is of HaShem; He is their stronghold in the time of trouble.
Σωτηρία δὲ τῶν δικαίων παρὰ Κυρίου, καὶ ὑπερασπιστὴς αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἐν καιρῷ θλίψεως.
But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; And he is their defender in the time of affliction.
40
וַיַּעְזְרֵם יְהוָה וַיְפַלְּטֵם יְפַלְּטֵם מֵרְשָׁעִים וְיוֹשִׁיעֵם כִּי־חָסוּ בוֹ
And HaShem helpeth them, and delivereth them; He delivereth them from the wicked, and saveth them, because they have taken refuge in Him.
Καὶ βοηθήσει αὐτοῖς Κύριος, καὶ ῥύσεται αὐτοὺς, καὶ ἐξελεῖται αὐτοὺς ἐξ ἁμαρτωλῶν, καὶ σώσει αὐτοὺς; ὅτι ἤλπισαν ἐπʼ αὐτόν.
And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: And he shall rescue them from sinners, And save them, because they have hoped in him.

How it works

A parallel reader for the Hebrew Bible and its oldest witnesses: the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, each with an English translation where one is available.

Reading a chapter

Choose a book and chapter at the top, or type a reference into Go to (Isa 53:11, 1 Sam 3, sam 3:4, ii kgs 2, ben sira 51). Book names can be abbreviated; a name shared by numbered books (sam, kings, chr, macc) opens the first of them unless you add the number. The arrow keys move between chapters, and the address bar keeps a link to the verse you clicked, so you can bookmark or share a place.

Each row is one verse. Rows follow the Masoretic verse numbering, so the Hebrew, JPS and Samaritan columns line up exactly. The Septuagint is numbered differently in many places (Psalms, Jeremiah, Exodus 35–40, parts of Kings, Proverbs, Daniel, and dozens of chapter boundaries). Its verses are placed against their Masoretic counterparts, and a small tag such as 50:3 shows the Septuagint's own number when it differs. Greek verses that have no Masoretic counterpart (for example the Prayer of Azariah in Daniel 3) appear in reading order as separate rows marked LXX.

Columns

The chips at the top switch columns on and off. Drag a chip (or a column heading) to reorder; with a chip focused, the ← → keys move it. Your choice is remembered. The Samaritan columns appear only in Genesis–Deuteronomy; the scrolls column appears wherever a manuscript survives, including Ben Sira. Columns marked † are licensed for non-commercial use only.

Words: lexicon and concordance

Hover over any Hebrew word (Masoretic, Samaritan or scroll) or any Greek word to see its dictionary form, Strong's number, a short gloss and its grammar. Click the word to open the concordance on the right: the full lexicon entry, then every occurrence, grouped by book — for Hebrew, separately for the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the scrolls (with the manuscript named). Click a reference to go there; every form of the word in the chapter is highlighted. You can also type a word or a Strong's number into Lexicon at the top.

In the Masoretic text, a Ketiv (the written form, unpointed) is shown in grey immediately before its Qere (the form read aloud); both carry the Qere's dictionary entry.

Variants

The Samaritan Pentateuch and every scroll are compared word by word with the Masoretic text of the same verse:

In the scrolls, letters in brackets are a modern editor's reconstruction and are never counted as variants; letters with a dotted overline are uncertain; ◦ is a trace of an unreadable letter. Manuscripts written in paleo-Hebrew script, and divine names that square-script scrolls write in paleo-Hebrew, are shown in paleo-Hebrew letters (switchable under Display). Hover a manuscript to see its edition. Display → Dead Sea Scrolls can hide the manuscripts that agree with the Masoretic text, or strip the reconstructions to show only what survives.

The comparison is automatic. It aligns words by spelling, so a transposition or a long rewritten passage can be marked imperfectly, and the spelling rule cannot tell a suffix from a vowel letter. Treat the colours as a finding aid and check a critical edition before building an argument on a reading.

Books outside the Hebrew Bible

Besides the Septuagint-only books, the book list has 1 Enoch and Jubilees (“Other ancient books”), shown in R. H. Charles's English with the Qumran copies beside them, and Psalms has a chapter 151. Their scroll copies — like those of Tobit and Ben Sira — have no verse numbers in the data: each fragment is placed by its published identification, and its lines are spread over those verses, so treat the exact verse boundaries as approximate. Aramaic copies (Tobit 4Q196–199 and all of Enoch) are marked “Aramaic” and have no word lookups.

Rabbinic citations

The small ❝ under a verse number opens the passages of rabbinic literature that cite that verse — Mishnah, Tosefta, both Talmuds, Midrash, Targum and Kabbalah (and, if you tick the box, later halakhah, liturgy and thought) — fetched live from Sefaria, so it needs an internet connection. Each passage is listed with Sefaria's date for the work it comes from and a link to read it there. Sefaria's links include allusions and discussions as well as quotations; those it classes as quotations are marked. It works for the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira (by Kahana's numbering, e.g. the Talmud's quotations of Ben Sira), Tobit and Jubilees. For 1 Enoch, which the rabbis do not quote, it lists instead the Zohar's passages about a “Book of Enoch”.

How the Septuagint is aligned

Each Greek verse is placed by combining three things: the standard table of Septuagint–Masoretic verse correspondences (SIL's lxx.vrs), the table of Masoretic–English numbering differences, and a comparison of the English of Brenton's Septuagint with the JPS English, which confirms each pairing and catches displaced verses. Where no Masoretic verse is similar enough, the Greek verse stands on its own row.

The Greek word data

No openly licensed word-by-word analysis of Brenton's Greek exists, so each Greek word is matched to the most frequent analysis of the same form in the openly licensed Swete Septuagint (Morpheus parser), then to a lexicon entry. About 95% of words are identified. Parses of ambiguous forms (e.g. αὐτοῦ, τοῦ) can be wrong; the card says "automatic parse" as a reminder.

About the texts

What each column is, where it comes from, and what to keep in mind when reading it.

Masoretic Text — Westminster Leningrad Codex

The Masoretic text is the Hebrew Bible as transmitted by the Masoretes, scribal scholars active in Tiberias and elsewhere roughly from the 7th to the 10th century, who fixed its vowel points, accents and marginal notes (the Masorah) around a consonantal text that was already essentially stable by the 1st–2nd century CE. The Leningrad Codex (St Petersburg, Firkovich I B 19 A), copied in 1008/1009 CE in the Ben Asher tradition, is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible; the slightly older Aleppo Codex lost most of the Torah in 1947. It is the base of the standard critical editions (BHK, BHS, BHQ).

The Westminster Leningrad Codex is the public-domain digital transcription of it maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center at Westminster Theological Seminary. In this edition a Ketiv appears as its own unpointed word before the pointed Qere.

JPS 1917 — The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text

The first English Bible translation produced by a committee of Jewish scholars for the Jewish Publication Society of America, under Max L. Margolis as editor-in-chief, published in 1917. Its language deliberately follows the cadence of the King James and Revised Versions, but its renderings follow the Masoretic text and Jewish exegetical tradition, and it keeps the Hebrew chapter and verse numbering. It is in the public domain; its successor, the New JPS (Tanakh, 1985), is not. The electronic edition used here writes the divine names as “HaShem” and “G-d”.

Septuagint — Brenton's Greek text and the Updated Brenton English

The Septuagint is the Jewish translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The Torah was translated in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE (the Letter of Aristeas tells the legend of 72 translators under Ptolemy II); the other books followed over the next two centuries. Because it was made from Hebrew manuscripts older than the Masoretic text, it often preserves a different Hebrew text: Jeremiah is about one-seventh shorter and differently ordered (a shorter Hebrew text of this type survives at Qumran in 4QJerb,d), Job is about one-sixth shorter, and Esther and Daniel have long additions. It was the Bible of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament writers, and became the Old Testament of the Greek church, which in turn led Jewish translators (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) to produce closer revisions.

Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton published an English translation in 1844 and a Greek–English edition in 1851. His Greek is essentially the Sixtine (Roman) edition of 1587, which follows the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus. It is older and less critical than the modern editions of Rahlfs (1935) and Göttingen, which are under copyright. The English column is the Updated Brenton (Adam Boyd, 2020), Brenton's translation with modernised spelling and wording, dedicated to the public domain.

Samaritan Pentateuch †

The Torah as preserved by the Samaritan community of Mount Gerizim (Nablus), written in the Samaritan script, a descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. It differs from the Masoretic text in about 6,000 places, most of them spelling or grammar; in about 1,900 of them it agrees with the Septuagint. Some readings are distinctively Samaritan, above all the commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim added after the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21) and “Gerizim” for “Ebal” in Deut 27:4. Many others — harmonising expansions that copy one passage into its parallel — are shared with “pre-Samaritan” Qumran manuscripts such as 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb, showing that the text type is older than the Samaritan schism.

European scholars learned of it in 1616, when Pietro della Valle brought a manuscript from Damascus; it was printed in the Paris (1645) and London (1657) Polyglots, collated by Benjamin Kennicott (1776–80) and edited critically by August von Gall (1914–18). The Hebrew here is Aleksandr Sigalov's digital text, based on Kennicott and checked against von Gall; the English is Sigalov's adaptation of the King James Version to the Samaritan readings. For modern scholarship see Abraham Tal's edition of MS Shechem 6 and Stefan Schorch's critical editio maior.

Dead Sea Scrolls and other Judean Desert manuscripts †

Between 1947 and 1956 the remains of about 950 manuscripts were found in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran. Some 230 are biblical — every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther is represented, from tiny fragments to the complete Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) — dating from about 250 BCE to 68 CE. They are a thousand years older than the Leningrad Codex. Most are close to the ancestor of the Masoretic text (“proto-Masoretic”), but others agree with the Septuagint (4QJerb, 4QSama in places), with the Samaritan text type, or with neither — evidence that several forms of the text circulated side by side before the Masoretic text prevailed.

Manuscripts from other sites fill out the picture: Masada (before its fall in 73/74 CE; excavated by Yigael Yadin, 1963–65) and the Bar Kokhba refuges of Wadi Murabba'at and Naḥal Ḥever (132–135 CE), whose biblical texts are already virtually identical with the Masoretic text, as well as Naḥal Ṣe'elim, Wadi Sdeir and Naḥal Arugot. The official publication is the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (Oxford, 1955–2010).

The transcriptions here are those of Martin G. Abegg Jr., James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook, as converted by the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC). Each manuscript is labelled with its siglum (e.g. 4QIsad), its DJD number, its find-site and the column or fragment and line. Besides the biblical manuscripts, the copies of Ben Sira, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Jubilees and Psalm 151 are shown under those books. Not every manuscript is in the dataset — notably the Greek scrolls (such as the Greek Minor Prophets from Naḥal Ḥever) are absent, and the Masada Ben Sira scroll is added separately (see Ben Sira).

Ben Sira

The Wisdom of Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, composed in Hebrew in Jerusalem around 190–180 BCE and translated into Greek by his grandson in Egypt after 132 BCE (his prologue explains the difficulty of rendering Hebrew into Greek). It belongs to the Septuagint and to the Catholic and Orthodox canons (Latin Ecclesiasticus) but not to the Jewish one, although the Talmud and midrash quote it. Its Hebrew text was lost to the West until 1896, when Solomon Schechter, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson identified medieval copies in the Cairo Genizah; ancient Hebrew copies then emerged at Qumran and Masada.

About two-thirds of the Hebrew is now known, from six medieval Genizah manuscripts (A–F, 10th–12th century) and three ancient ones: 2QSir (2Q18; Sir 6:14–15, 20–32), the acrostic of Sir 51:13–20, 30 in the Psalms Scroll 11QPsa (columns 21–22), and the Masada scroll (Mas1h), found by Yigael Yadin in 1964 in a casemate room of the fortress and published in 1965: seven columns with Sir 39:27–44:17, copied in the early 1st century BCE, little more than a century after the author. Its agreement with Genizah manuscript B showed that the medieval copies descend from the ancient Hebrew rather than from a translation back from Greek or Syriac.

Here the book is shown in Brenton's Greek and English. The Hebrew column is the Kahana edition, as transcribed on Hebrew Wikisource and distributed by Sefaria (CC BY-SA): a running text built on the Genizah manuscripts, in which words in [brackets] are Kahana's restorations; chapters with no surviving Hebrew are empty. Kahana numbers the verses in the Hebrew order — in the Greek, two blocks of chapters 30–36 are transposed — so his verses have been matched to Brenton's by content for this site, with his own number shown as “Heb.” where it differs. The scrolls column has the three ancient witnesses; the Masada text is Eric Reymond's transcription from bensira.org. Their placement was made for this site by matching the text; there is no Masoretic text to compare them with, so no variants are marked.

Psalm 151

The Septuagint Psalter ends with a short psalm “outside the number”, in which David recalls tending his father's sheep, his anointing and his victory over Goliath. It belongs to the Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic Bibles but not to the Hebrew one, and was long thought to have been composed in Greek — until the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa, published by James Sanders in 1965) turned out to contain a longer Hebrew original in its 28th column, as two poems (151A on David's music and anointing, 151B, broken off, on Goliath). The Greek is a condensed translation of them. The psalm is shown as chapter 151 of Psalms, with the scroll's lines under the Greek verses they correspond to.

Tobit

A Jewish novella of the Eastern diaspora (probably 3rd–2nd century BCE): the pious exile Tobit, blinded in Nineveh, sends his son Tobias to recover money in Media, guided by the angel Raphael in disguise; on the way Tobias marries Sarah and drives off the demon Asmodeus. It is in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Orthodox canons. It survives in two Greek forms — a shorter one (Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, printed by Brenton) and a longer one (Codex Sinaiticus) — and the Qumran copies, four in Aramaic (4Q196–199) and one in Hebrew (4Q200), published by Joseph Fitzmyer in 1995, side with the longer form, which is now generally taken as nearer the original. Their verse placement here follows Fitzmyer's identifications.

1 Enoch

A collection of five works ascribed to Enoch, the seventh from Adam who “walked with God” (Gen 5:24): the Book of the Watchers (ch. 1–36, 3rd century BCE), on the angels who descended to the daughters of men; the Parables (37–71); the Astronomical Book (72–82); the Dream Visions (83–90), with the “Animal Apocalypse” of Israel's history; and the Epistle of Enoch (91–108). It is quoted in the Letter of Jude (1:14–15) and is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; Greek survives for about a third. Józef Milik published the Aramaic fragments from Qumran Cave 4 in 1976: eleven copies, covering every part except the Parables, the oldest from around 200 BCE. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation from the Ethiopic (public domain). The Astronomical scrolls (4Q208–211) contain a much longer calendar than the Ethiopic; only their few passages that match chapters 76–82 are placed.

Jubilees

A retelling of Genesis and Exodus 1–14 as revealed to Moses on Sinai by an “angel of the presence”, dated by a calendar of 49-year jubilees and a 364-day solar year (mid-2nd century BCE). Like 1 Enoch it is canonical only in the Ethiopian church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; parts survive in Latin, Syriac and Greek quotations. Fragments of about fifteen Hebrew copies were found at Qumran, more than of most biblical books, and are published in DJD 13 (VanderKam and Milik, 1994) and DJD 23. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation (public domain).

Lexicon and concordance data

Hebrew words carry the analysis of STEPBible's Translators Amalgamated Hebrew OT (Tyndale House, Cambridge): extended Strong's numbers — James Strong's 1890 numbering, subdivided to follow the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon (1906) — with morphology from the ETCBC and an abridged BDB for definitions. Samaritan and scroll words take the analysis of the Masoretic word they correspond to, or, where they differ, of the same written form elsewhere in the Masoretic text. Greek words are matched through the Swete Septuagint and the Morpheus parser to STEPBible's Greek lexicon, which draws on Abbott-Smith (1922) and Liddell–Scott–Jones.

† Licensed for non-commercial use only. Full credits and licences: Credits and licences.