Textorah

I Samuel 1

1
וַיְהִי אִישׁ אֶחָד מִן־הָרָמָתַיִם צוֹפִים מֵהַר אֶפְרָיִם וּשְׁמוֹ אֶלְקָנָה בֶּן־יְרֹחָם בֶּן־אֱלִיהוּא בֶּן־תֹּחוּ בֶן־צוּף אֶפְרָתִי
NOW THERE was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.
ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ ἦν ἐξ Ἀρμαθαὶμ Σιφὰ, ἐξ ὄρους Ἐφραὶμ, καὶ ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἑλκανὰ υἱὸς Ἰερεμεὴλ υἱοῦ Ἡλιοὺ υἱοῦ Θοκὲ ἐν
There was a man of Ramathaim-zophim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name [was] Elkanah, a son of Jeroham the son of Elihu the son of Tohu, in Nasib Ephraim.
2
וְלוֹ שְׁתֵּי נָשִׁים שֵׁם אַחַת חַנָּה וְשֵׁם הַשֵּׁנִית פְּנִנָּה וַיְהִי לִפְנִנָּה יְלָדִים וּלְחַנָּה אֵין יְלָדִים
And he had two wives: the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah; and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
Νασὶβ Ἐφραίμ. Καὶ τοῦτῳ δύο γυναῖκες· ὄνομα τῇ μιᾷ, Ἄννα· καὶ ὄνομα τῇ δευτέρᾳ, Φεννάνα. Καὶ ἦν τῇ Φεννάνᾳ παιδία· καὶ τῇ Ἄννᾳ οὐκ ἦν παιδίον.
And he [had] two wives; the name of the one [was] Hannah, and the name of the second Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no child.
3
וְעָלָה הָאִישׁ הַהוּא מֵעִירוֹ מִיָּמִים יָמִימָה לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת וְלִזְבֹּחַ לַיהוָה צְבָאוֹת בְּשִׁלֹה וְשָׁם שְׁנֵי בְנֵי־עֵלִי חָפְנִי וּפִנְחָס כֹּהֲנִים לַיהוָה
And this man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice unto HaShem of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there priests unto HaShem.
Καὶ ἀνέβαινεν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμέρας ἐκ πόλεως αὐτοῦ ἐξ Ἀρμαθαὶμ προσκυνεῖν καὶ θύειν Κυρίῳ τῷ Θεῷ σαβαὼθ εἰς Σηλώμ· καὶ ἐκεῖ Ἡλὶ καὶ οἱ δύο υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ Ὀφνὶ καὶ Φινεὲς ἱερεῖς τοῦ Κυρίου.
And the man went up from year to year from his city, from Ramah, to worship and sacrifice to the Lord God of Sabaoth at Shiloh: and [there were] Eli and his two sons Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord.
4
וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם וַיִּזְבַּח אֶלְקָנָה וְנָתַן לִפְנִנָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ וּלְכָל־בָּנֶיהָ וּבְנוֹתֶיהָ מָנוֹת
And it came to pass upon a day, when Elkanah sacrificed, that he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions;
Καὶ ἐγενήθη ἡμέρα, καὶ ἔθυσεν Ἑλκανὰ, καὶ ἔδωκε τῇ Φεννάνᾳ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς αὐτῆς μερίδας.
And the day came, and Elkanah sacrificed, and gave portions to his wife Peninnah and her children.
5
וּלְחַנָּה יִתֵּן מָנָה אַחַת אַפָּיִם כִּי אֶת־חַנָּה אָהֵב וַיהוָה סָגַר רַחְמָהּ
but unto Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, but HaShem had shut up her womb.
Καὶ τῇ Ἄννᾳ ἔδωκε μερίδα μίαν, ὅτι οὐκ ἦν αὐτῇ παιδίον, πλὴν ὅτι τὴν Ἄνναν ἠγάπα Ἑλκανὰ ὑπὲρ ταύτην· καὶ Κύριος ἀπέκλεισε τὰ περὶ τὴν μήτραν αὐτῆς,
And to Hannah he gave a prime portion, because she had no child, only Elkanah loved Hannah more than the other; but the Lord [had] closed her womb.
6
וְכִעֲסַתָּה צָרָתָהּ גַּם־כַּעַס בַּעֲבוּר הַרְּעִמָהּ כִּי־סָגַר יְהוָה בְּעַד רַחְמָהּ
And her rival vexed her sore, to make her fret, because HaShem had shut up her womb.
ὅτι οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτῇ Κύριος παιδίον κατὰ τὴν θλίψιν αὐτῆς, καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἀθυμίαν τῆς θλίψεως αὐτῆς· καὶ ἠθύμει διὰ τοῦτο, ὅτι συνέκλεισε Κύριος τὰ περὶ τὴν μήτραν αὐτῆς τοῦ μὴ δοῦναι αὐτῇ παιδίον.
For the Lord gave her no child in her affliction, and according to the despondency of her affliction; and she was dispirited on this account, that the Lord shut up her womb so as not to give her a child.
7
וְכֵן יַעֲשֶׂה שָׁנָה בְשָׁנָה מִדֵּי עֲלֹתָהּ בְּבֵית יְהוָה כֵּן תַּכְעִסֶנָּה וַתִּבְכֶּה וְלֹא תֹאכַל
And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of HaShem, so she vexed her; therefore she wept, and would not eat.
Οὕτως ἐποίει ἐνιαυτὸν κατʼ ἐνιαυτὸν, ἐν τῷ ἀναβαίνειν αὐτὴν εἰς οἶκον Κυρίου· καὶ ἠθύμει, καὶ ἔκλαιε, καὶ οὐκ ἤσθιε.
So she did year by year, in going up to the house of the Lord; and she was dispirited, and wept, and did not eat.
8
וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ אֶלְקָנָה אִישָׁהּ חַנָּה לָמֶה תִבְכִּי וְלָמֶה לֹא תֹאכְלִי וְלָמֶה יֵרַע לְבָבֵךְ הֲלוֹא אָנֹכִי טוֹב לָךְ מֵעֲשָׂרָה בָּנִים
And Elkanah her husband said unto her: 'Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?'
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ Ἑλκανὰ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, Ἄννα· καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, ἰδοὺ ἐγώ, κύριε· καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ, τί ἐστί σοι ὅτι κλαίεις; καὶ ἱνατί οὐκ ἐσθίεις; καὶ ἱνατί τύπτει σε ἡ καρδία σου; οὐκ ἀγαθὸς ἐγώ σοι ὑπὲρ δέκα τέκνα;
And Elkanah her husband said to her, Hannah: and she said to him, Here [am] I, my lord: and he said to her, What ails thee that thou weepest? and why dost thou not eat? and why does thy heart smite thee? [am] I not better to thee than ten children?
9
וַתָּקָם חַנָּה אַחֲרֵי אָכְלָה בְשִׁלֹה וְאַחֲרֵי שָׁתֹה וְעֵלִי הַכֹּהֵן יֹשֵׁב עַל־הַכִּסֵּא עַל־מְזוּזַת הֵיכַל יְהוָה
So Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and after they had drunk--now Eli the priest sat upon his seat by the door-post of the temple of HaShem;
Καὶ ἀνέστη Ἄννα μετὰ τὸ φαγεῖν αὐτοὺς ἐν Σηλὼμ, καὶ κατέστη ἐνώπιον Κυρίου· καὶ Ἡλὶ ὁ ἱερεὺς, ἐπὶ τοῦ δίφρου ἐπὶ τῶν φλιῶν ναοῦ Κυρίου.
And Hannah rose up after they had eaten in Shiloh, and stood before the Lord: and Eli the priest [was] on a seat by the threshold of the temple of the Lord.
10
וְהִיא מָרַת נָפֶשׁ וַתִּתְפַּלֵּל עַל־יְהוָה וּבָכֹה תִבְכֶּה
and she was in bitterness of soul--and prayed unto HaShem, and wept sore.
Καὶ αὐτὴ κατώδυνος ψυχῇ, καὶ προσηύξατο πρὸς Κύριον, καί κλαίουσα ἔκλαυσε.
And she [was] very much grieved in spirit, and prayed to the Lord, and wept abundantly.
11
וַתִּדֹּר נֶדֶר וַתֹּאמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אִם־רָאֹה תִרְאֶה בָּעֳנִי אֲמָתֶךָ וּזְכַרְתַּנִי וְלֹא־תִשְׁכַּח אֶת־אֲמָתֶךָ וְנָתַתָּה לַאֲמָתְךָ זֶרַע אֲנָשִׁים וּנְתַתִּיו לַיהוָה כָּל־יְמֵי חַיָּיו וּמוֹרָה לֹא־יַעֲלֶה עַל־רֹאשׁוֹ
And she vowed a vow, and said: 'O HaShem of hosts, if Thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of Thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget Thy handmaid, but wilt give unto Thy handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto HaShem all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head.'
Καὶ ηὔξατο εὐχὴν Κυρίῳ, λέγουσα, Ἀδωναῒ Κύριε ἐλωὲ σαβαὼθ, ἐὰν ἐπιβλέπων ἐπιβλέψῃς ἐπὶ τὴν ταπείνωσιν τῆς δούλης σου, καὶ μνησθῇς μου, καὶ δῷς τῇ δούλῃ σου σπέρμα ἀνδρῶν, καὶ δώσω αὐτὸν ἐνώπιόν σου δοτὸν ἕως ἡμέρας θανάτου αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἶνον καὶ μέθυσμα οὐ πίεται, καὶ σίδηρος οὐκ ἀναβήσεται ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ.
And she vowed a vow to the Lord, saying, O Lord God of Sabaoth, if thou wilt indeed look upon the humiliation of thy handmaid, and remember me, and give to thy handmaid a man-child, then will I indeed dedicate him to thee till the day of his death; and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and no razor shall come upon his head.
12
וְהָיָה כִּי הִרְבְּתָה לְהִתְפַּלֵּל לִפְנֵי יְהוָה וְעֵלִי שֹׁמֵר אֶת־פִּיהָ
And it came to pass, as she prayed long before HaShem, that Eli watched her mouth.
Καὶ ἐγενήθη ὅτε ἐπλήθυνε προσευχομένη ἐνώπιον Κύριου, καὶ Ἡλὶ ὁ ἱερεὺς ἐφύλαξε τὸ στόμα αὐτῆς.
And it came to pass, while she was long praying before the Lord, that Eli the priest marked her mouth.
13
וְחַנָּה הִיא מְדַבֶּרֶת עַל־לִבָּהּ רַק שְׂפָתֶיהָ נָּעוֹת וְקוֹלָהּ לֹא יִשָּׁמֵעַ וַיַּחְשְׁבֶהָ עֵלִי לְשִׁכֹּרָה
Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard; therefore, Eli thought she had been drunken.
Καὶ αὕτη ἐλάλει ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῆς, καὶ τὰ χείλη αὐτῆς ἐκινεῖτο, καὶ φωνὴ αὐτῆς οὐκ ἠκούετο· καὶ ἐλογίσατο αὐτὴν Ἡλὶ εἰς μεθύουσαν.
And she was speaking in her heart, and her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: and Eli accounted her a drunken woman.
14
וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלֶיהָ עֵלִי עַד־מָתַי תִּשְׁתַּכָּרִין הָסִירִי אֶת־יֵינֵךְ מֵעָלָיִךְ
And Eli said unto her: 'How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.'
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ τὸ παιδάριον Ἡλὶ, ἕως πότε μεθυσθήσῃ; περιελοῦ τὸν οἶνόν σου, καὶ πορεύου ἐκ προσώπου Κυρίου.
And the servant of Eli said to her, How long wilt thou be drunken? take away thy wine from thee, and go out from the presence of the Lord.
15
וַתַּעַן חַנָּה וַתֹּאמֶר לֹא אֲדֹנִי אִשָּׁה קְשַׁת־רוּחַ אָנֹכִי וְיַיִן וְשֵׁכָר לֹא שָׁתִיתִי וָאֶשְׁפֹּךְ אֶת־נַפְשִׁי לִפְנֵי יְהוָה
And Hannah answered and said: 'No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before HaShem.
Καὶ ἀπεκρίθη Ἄννα, καὶ εἶπεν, οὐχὶ κύριε· γυνὴ ἡ σκληρὰ ἡμέρα ἐγώ εἰμι, καὶ οἶνον καὶ μέθυσμα οὐ πέπωκα, καὶ ἐκχέω τὴν ψυχήν μου ἐνώπιον Κυρίου.
And Hannah answered and said, Nay, my lord, [I live] in a hard day, and I have not drunk wine or strong drink, and I pour out my soul before the Lord.
16
אַל־תִּתֵּן אֶת־אֲמָתְךָ לִפְנֵי בַּת־בְּלִיָּעַל כִּי־מֵרֹב שִׂיחִי וְכַעְסִי דִּבַּרְתִּי עַד־הֵנָּה
Count not thy handmaid for a wicked woman: for out of the abundance of my complaint and my vexation have I spoken hitherto.'
Μὴ δῷς τὴν δούλην σου εἰς θυγατέρα λοιμὴν, ὅτι ἐκ πλήθους ἀδολεσχίας μου ἐκτέτακα ἕως νῦν.
Count not thy handmaid for a pestilent woman, for by reason of the abundance of my importunity I have continued [my prayer] until now.
17
וַיַּעַן עֵלִי וַיֹּאמֶר לְכִי לְשָׁלוֹם וֵאלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יִתֵּן אֶת־שֵׁלָתֵךְ אֲשֶׁר שָׁאַלְתְּ מֵעִמּוֹ
Then Eli answered and said: 'Go in peace, and the G-d of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.'
Καὶ ἀπεκρίθη Ἡλὶ, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ, πορεύου εἰς εἰρήνην· ὁ Θεὸς Ἰσραὴλ δῴη σοι πᾶν αἴτημά σου, ὃ ᾐτήσω παρʼ αὐτοῦ.
And Eli answered and said to her, Go in peace: the God of Israel give thee all thy petition, which thou hast asked of him.
18
וַתֹּאמֶר תִּמְצָא שִׁפְחָתְךָ חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ וַתֵּלֶךְ הָאִשָּׁה לְדַרְכָּהּ וַתֹּאכַל וּפָנֶיהָ לֹא־הָיוּ־לָהּ עוֹד
And she said: 'Let thy servant find favour in thy sight.' So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.
Καὶ εἶπεν, εὗρεν ἡ δούλη σου χάριν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς σου· καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἡ γυνὴ εἰς τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτῆς· καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ κατάλυμα αὐτῆς, καὶ ἔφαγε μετὰ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς αὐτῆς καὶ ἔπιε, καὶ τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς οὐ συνέπεσεν ἔτι.
And she said, Thine handmaid has found favor in thine eyes: and the woman went her way, and entered into her lodging, and ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was no more sad.
19
וַיַּשְׁכִּמוּ בַבֹּקֶר וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ לִפְנֵי יְהוָה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיָּבֹאוּ אֶל־בֵּיתָם הָרָמָתָה וַיֵּדַע אֶלְקָנָה אֶת־חַנָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ וַיּ͏ִזְכְּרֶהָ יְהוָה
And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before HaShem, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah; and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and HaShem remembered her.
Καὶ ὀρθρίζουσι τοπρωῒ καὶ προσκυνοῦσι τῷ Κυρίῳ, καὶ πορεύονται τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτῶν· καὶ εἰσῆλθεν Ἑλκανὰ εἰς τὸν οἴκον αὐτοῦ Ἀρμαθαὶμ, καὶ ἔγνω τὴν Ἄνναν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐμνήσθη αὐτῆς Κύριος, καὶ συνέλαβε.
And they rise early in the morning, and worship the Lord, and they go their way: and Elkanah went into his house at Ramah, and knew his wife Hannah; and the Lord remembered her, and she conceived.
20
וַיְהִי לִתְקֻפוֹת הַיָּמִים וַתַּהַר חַנָּה וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַתִּקְרָא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ שְׁמוּאֵל כִּי מֵיְהוָה שְׁאִלְתִּיו
And it came to pass, when the time was come about, that Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she called his name Samuel: 'because I have asked him of HaShem.'
Καὶ ἐγενήθη τῷ καιρῷ τῶν ἡμερῶν, καὶ ἔτεκεν υἱὸν, καὶ ἐκάλεσε τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Σαμουὴλ, καὶ εἶπεν, ὅτι παρὰ Κυρίου Θεοῦ σαβαὼθ ᾐτησάμην αὐτόν.
And it came to pass when the time was come, that she brought forth a son, and called his name Samuel, and said, Because I asked him of the Lord God of Sabaoth.
21
וַיַּעַל הָאִישׁ אֶלְקָנָה וְכָל־בֵּיתוֹ לִזְבֹּחַ לַיהוָה אֶת־זֶבַח הַיָּמִים וְאֶת־נִדְרוֹ
And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto HaShem the yearly sacrifice, and his vow.
Καὶ ἀνέβη ὁ ἄνθρωπος Ἑλκανὰ καὶ πᾶς ὁ οἶκος αὐτοῦ θῦσαι ἐν Σηλὼμ τὴν θυσίαν τῶν ἡμερῶν, καὶ τὰς εὐχὰς αὐτοῦ, καὶ πάσας τὰς δεκάτας τῆς γῆς αὐτοῦ.
And the man Elkanah and all his house went up to offer in Shiloh the yearly sacrifice, and his vows, and all the tithes of his land.
22
וְחַנָּה לֹא עָלָתָה כִּי־אָמְרָה לְאִישָׁהּ עַד יִגָּמֵל הַנַּעַר וַהֲבִאֹתִיו וְנִרְאָה אֶת־פְּנֵי יְהוָה וְיָשַׁב שָׁם עַד־עוֹלָם
But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband: 'Until the child be weaned, when I will bring him, that he may appear before HaShem, and there abide for ever.'
Καὶ Ἄννα οὐκ ἀνέβη μετʼ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι εἶπε τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς, ἕως τοῦ ἀναβῆναι τὸ παιδάριον, ἐὰν ἀπογαλακτίσω αὐτὸ, καὶ ὀφθήσεται τῷ προσώπῳ Κυρίου, καὶ καθήσεται ἕως αἰῶνος ἐκεῖ.
But Hannah did not go up with him, for she said to her husband, [I will not go up] until the child goes up, when I have weaned him, and he shall be presented before the Lord, and he shall abide there continually.
23
וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ אֶלְקָנָה אִישָׁהּ עֲשִׂי הַטּוֹב בְּעֵינַיִךְ שְׁבִי עַד־גָּמְלֵךְ אֹתוֹ אַךְ יָקֵם יְהוָה אֶת־דְּבָרוֹ וַתֵּשֶׁב הָאִשָּׁה וַתֵּינֶק אֶת־בְּנָהּ עַד־גָּמְלָהּ אֹתוֹ
And Elkanah her husband said unto her: 'Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him; only HaShem establish His word.' So the woman tarried and gave her son suck, until she weaned him.
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ Ἑλκανὰ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, ποίει τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς σου, κάθου ἕως ἂν ἀπογαλακτίσῃς αὐτό· ἀλλὰ στήσαι Κύριος τὸ ἐξελθὸν ἐκ τοῦ στόματός σου· καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἡ γυνὴ καὶ ἐθήλασε τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς, ἕως ἂν ἀπογαλακτίσῃ αὐτόν.
And Elkanah her husband said to her, Do that which is good in thine eyes, abide still until thou shalt have weaned him; but may the Lord establish that which comes out of thy mouth: and the woman tarried, and suckled her son until she had weaned him.
24
וַתַּעֲלֵהוּ עִמָּהּ כַּאֲשֶׁר גְּמָלַתּוּ בְּפָרִים שְׁלֹשָׁה וְאֵיפָה אַחַת קֶמַח וְנֵבֶל יַיִן וַתְּבִאֵהוּ בֵית־יְהוָה שִׁלוֹ וְהַנַּעַר נָעַר
And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of meal, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of HaShem in Shiloh; and the child was young.
Καὶ ἀνέβη μετʼ αὐτοῦ εἰς Σηλὼμ ἐν μόσχῳ τριετίζοντι, καὶ ἄρτοις, καὶ οἰφὶ σεμιδάλεως, καὶ νέβελ οἴνου· καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς οἶκον Κυρίου ἐν Σηλὼμ, καὶ τὸ παιδάριον μετʼ αὐτῶν.
And she went up with him to Shiloh with a calf of three years old, and loaves, and an ephah of fine flour, and a bottle of wine: and she entered into the house of the Lord in Shiloh, and the child with them.
25
וַיִּשְׁחֲטוּ אֶת־הַפָּר וַיָּבִיאוּ אֶת־הַנַּעַר אֶל־עֵלִי
And when the bullock was slain, the child was brought to Eli.
Καὶ προσήγαγον ἐνώπιον Κυρίου· καὶ ἔσφαξεν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ τὴν θυσίαν, ἣν ἐποίει ἐξ ἡμερῶν εἰς ἡμέρας τῷ Κυρίῳ· καὶ προσήγαγε τὸ παιδάριον, καὶ ἔσφαξε τὸν μόσχον· καὶ προσήγαγεν Ἄννα ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ παιδαρίου πρὸς Ἡλὶ,
And they brought him before the Lord; and his father slew his offering which he offered from year to year to the Lord; and he brought near the child, and slew the calf; and Hannah the mother of the child brought him to Eli.
26
וַתֹּאמֶר בִּי אֲדֹנִי חֵי נַפְשְׁךָ אֲדֹנִי אֲנִי הָאִשָּׁה הַנִּצֶּבֶת עִמְּכָה בָּזֶה לְהִתְפַּלֵּל אֶל־יְהוָה
And she said: 'Oh, my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto HaShem.
καὶ εἶπεν, ἐν ἐμοί κύριε ζῇ ἡ ψυχή σου, ἐγὼ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ καταστᾶσα ἐνώπιόν σου μετὰ σοῦ ἐν τῷ προσεύξασθαι πρὸς Κύριον.
And she said, I pray thee, my lord, as thy soul liveth, I [am] the woman that stood in thy presence with thee while praying to the Lord.
27
אֶל־הַנַּעַר הַזֶּה הִתְפַּלָּלְתִּי וַיִּתֵּן יְהוָה לִי אֶת־שְׁאֵלָתִי אֲשֶׁר שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵעִמּוֹ
For this child I prayed; and HaShem hath granted me my petition which I asked of Him;
Ὑπὲρ τοῦ παιδαρίου τούτου προσηυξάμην· καὶ ἐδωκέ μοι Κύριος τὸ αἴτημά μου ὃ ᾐτησάμην παρʼ αὐτοῦ.
For this child I prayed; and the Lord has given me my request that I asked of him.
28
וְגַם אָנֹכִי הִשְׁאִלְתִּהוּ לַיהוָה כָּל־הַיָּמִים אֲשֶׁר הָיָה הוּא שָׁאוּל לַיהוָה וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ שָׁם לַיהוָה
therefore I also have lent him to HaShem; as long as he liveth he is lent to HaShem.' And he worshipped HaShem there.
Κᾀγὼ κιχρῶ αὐτὸν τῷ Κυρίῳ πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἃς ζῇ αὐτὸς, χρῆσιν τῷ Κυρίῳ, καὶ εἶπεν,
And I lend him to the Lord all his days that he lives, a loan to the Lord: and she said,

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.

Building and updating

The page reads prepared data from the data folder; python3 build.py (in the app folder) downloads the sources into sources and rebuilds it in a few minutes. Two files must be added by hand: eng-Brenton_vpl.zip from ebible.org and SPE.zip from CrossWire. python3 build.py --public-domain-only leaves out the three non-commercially-licensed layers; --download-only just fetches the sources. Licences and required credits are listed in SOURCES.md.

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 app, 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, which states no licence, so it is only included when you download it yourself. Their placement was made for this app 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: SOURCES.md.