Deuteronomy 14 — Hebrew and Greek compared
← Deuteronomy 13 compared · Reading text of Deuteronomy 14 · Deuteronomy: all chapters · Deuteronomy 15 compared →
Same 8 Similar 5 Different 5 Divergent 6 Disparate 5
Disparate in this chapter: 14:5, 14:16, 14:17, 14:18, 14:21
Each verse is rendered independently from the Hebrew (Rabbinic reading tradition) and from the Greek (Saints reading tradition). The badge classifies the relationship between the two readings; the note beneath records the source document’s comparison and attributed interpretation. Each column retains its own verse references where numbering differs.
Pagan Practices Forbidden
14:1 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:1 You are children of YHWH your God. Do not cut yourselves or make a bald patch between your eyes for the dead.
Greek · Saints priority
14:1 You are children of the Lord your God. Do not perform purification rites or make a bald patch between your eyes for a dead person.
Hebrew expressly forbids self-cutting. Greek uses the rare φοιβάω, provisionally rendered perform purification rites. LSJ gives cleansing/purification and marks the sense in Deuteronomy 14:1 as doubtful. The precise rite is therefore not securely identified. The lexical difference is retained, but a major change in ritual force cannot be established from this uncertain verb alone. The shared ban on a bald patch for the dead remains explicit. See LSJ, φοιβάω.
14:2 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:2 For you are a holy people to YHWH your God, and YHWH chose you to be His treasured people from all the peoples on the face of the earth.
Greek · Saints priority
14:2 For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord your God chose you to be His special possession from all the nations on the face of the earth.
Greek adds your God to the second divine designation. Treasured people and special possession express the corresponding election terms.
Land Animals
14:3 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:3 Do not eat anything abominable.
Greek · Saints priority
14:3 Do not eat anything abominable.
Both introduce the dietary prohibitions in the same terms.
14:4 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:4 These are the animals you may eat: cattle, sheep, and goats,
Greek · Saints priority
14:4 These are the livestock you may eat: a calf from the cattle, a lamb from the sheep, and a young male goat from the goats,
Greek specifies younger animals and a male goat where Hebrew names the permitted domestic categories more generally.
14:5 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:5 deer, gazelle, fallow deer, ibex, antelope, wild ox, and mountain sheep.
Greek · Saints priority
14:5 deer, gazelle, bubalos, goat-stag, white-rumped antelope, oryx, and giraffe.
The animal identifications differ substantially, especially Hebrew zemer versus Greek giraffe. Several Hebrew species identifications are tentative. Greek bubalos and goat-stag are retained as ancient names of uncertain modern identification, rather than forced into matching Hebrew species.
14:6 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:6 You may eat any animal with a divided hoof split into two parts that chews the cud.
Greek · Saints priority
14:6 You may eat any animal with a divided hoof, its hoof parts separated into two, that brings up the cud.
Both require the divided hoof and cud-chewing criteria.
14:7 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:7 But among those that chew the cud or have a divided hoof, do not eat the camel, hare, or rock hyrax: they chew the cud but do not have a divided hoof; they are unclean for you.
Greek · Saints priority
14:7 But among those that bring up the cud or have divided hooves with separated hoof parts, do not eat the camel, hare, or rock hyrax: they bring up the cud but do not divide the hoof; they are unclean for you.
Greek expands the hoof description. The ancient descriptions of the animals are preserved; modern biological corrections have not been substituted into either text.
14:8 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:8 The pig also, because it has a divided hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Do not eat their meat or touch their carcasses.
Greek · Saints priority
14:8 The pig also, because it has a divided hoof with separated hoof parts but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Do not eat their meat or touch their carcasses.
Greek expands the divided-hoof description; the food and contact prohibitions agree.
Saints: Barnabas 10.1–3 allegorizes the Mosaic swine prohibition, shared with Leviticus 11:7, as a warning against people who remember their Lord only in need. This is reception of the dietary tradition, not proof of exclusive dependence on Deuteronomy or the law’s literal meaning.
Source: Epistle of Barnabas 10
Water Creatures
14:9 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:9 Of everything in the waters, you may eat whatever has fins and scales.
Greek · Saints priority
14:9 Of everything in the waters, you may eat whatever has fins and scales.
The aquatic criteria agree.
14:10 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:10 Do not eat anything without fins and scales; it is unclean for you.
Greek · Saints priority
14:10 Do not eat anything without fins and scales; such creatures are unclean for you.
The prohibition agrees; grammatical number is adjusted naturally in English.
Birds and Insects
14:11 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:11 You may eat every clean bird.
Greek · Saints priority
14:11 You may eat every clean bird.
Both introduce the bird list with the same permission.
14:12 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:12 These are the birds you must not eat: the eagle, bearded vulture, and osprey,
Greek · Saints priority
14:12 These are the birds you must not eat: the eagle, griffon, and sea-eagle,
English species identifications for Hebrew nesher, peres, and ozniyyah are provisional. Greek gryps is rendered griffon as an ancient bird-name; its wider use for a mythical griffin does not establish that a mythical creature is intended here.
14:13 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:13 the kite, falcon, and buzzard by its kind,
Greek · Saints priority
14:13 the vulture, kite, and those like it,
Hebrew lists three names, ra'ah, ayyah, and dayyah; Greek lists two before the kind formula. The Hebrew English identifications are tentative. The difference in listed terms is certain, but uncertainty about species and overlap prevents a confident claim that the dietary permissions differ here.
14:14 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:14 every raven by its kind,
Greek · Saints priority
14:14 every raven and those like it,
The raven category and its associated kinds agree.
14:15 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:15 the ostrich, night bird, gull, and hawk by its kind,
Greek · Saints priority
14:15 the ostrich, owl, and gull,
Greek places the hawk and its kind in verse 17, rather than here. Hebrew tahmas is left as night bird because its exact identification is uncertain.
14:16 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:16 the little owl, great owl, and white owl,
Greek · Saints priority
14:16 the heron, swan, and ibis,
The selected Greek names are materially different from the conventional Hebrew owl identifications. Hebrew kos, yanshuph, and tinshemeth are uncertain species terms; that uncertainty is not erased by matching them to Greek.
14:17 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:17 the pelican, carrion vulture, and cormorant,
Greek · Saints priority
14:17 the diving bird, hawk and those like it, hoopoe, and night-raven,
Greek has a different sequence and more listed terms here, including the hawk moved from Hebrew verse 15. Diving bird preserves the uncertain identification of kataraktēs. Do not equate verse-level order with a one-to-one species alignment.
14:18 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:18 the stork, heron by its kind, hoopoe, and bat.
Greek · Saints priority
14:18 the pelican, plover and those like it, purple swamphen, and bat.
Greek's final sequence differs from Hebrew's; its pelican corresponds to a bird named earlier in Hebrew, and its hoopoe stands in Greek verse 17. Both end with the bat within the broader ancient flying-creature classification.
14:19 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:19 Every flying swarming creature is unclean for you; they shall not be eaten.
Greek · Saints priority
14:19 All crawling creatures among the flying creatures are unclean for you; do not eat them.
Both prohibit this swarming or crawling category of winged creatures; Greek addresses the eater directly.
14:20 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:20 You may eat every clean flying creature.
Greek · Saints priority
14:20 You may eat every clean flying creature.
Both return to the general permission for clean winged creatures.
Carrion and a Young Goat
14:21 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:21 Do not eat any animal found dead. Give it to the resident alien within your gates to eat, or sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to YHWH your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
Greek · Saints priority
14:21 Do not eat any animal found dead. It shall be given to the resident alien in your cities to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. Do not boil a lamb in its mother's milk.
Greek has lamb where Hebrew has young goat, changing the explicitly named animal. Its paroikos is resident alien; the draft's proselyte was the wrong Greek term. Both allow sale, not merely delivery, to the foreigner. Animal found dead is an English idiom for the unslaughtered carcass category; it adds no separate finding event and does not restrict the cause of death to natural causes.
Annual Tithe
14:22 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:22 Set aside a tenth of all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.
Greek · Saints priority
14:22 Set aside a tenth of all the produce of your seed, the yield of your field, year by year.
Both command the annual tithe.
14:23 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:23 Eat before YHWH your God, at the place He will choose to make His name dwell there, the tithe of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and flocks, so that you may learn to fear YHWH your God always.
Greek · Saints priority
14:23 Eat it before the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be invoked there. Bring the tithes of your grain, wine, and oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
Greek adds an explicit bring command and repeats the divine title; invocation replaces the dwelling of the name. Both require consumption of the named goods at the chosen sanctuary. The explicit transport command does not establish a new destination or different set of foods.
14:24 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:24 If the journey is too long for you to carry it, because the place YHWH your God will choose to put His name there is far from you, when YHWH your God blesses you,
Greek · Saints priority
14:24 If the journey is too far for you to carry them, because the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to be invoked there is far from you, since the Lord your God will bless you,
Greek again uses invocation of the name and states the blessing with an explicit future verb.
14:25 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:25 then exchange it for silver, bind the silver in your hand, and go to the place YHWH your God will choose.
Greek · Saints priority
14:25 then sell them for silver, take the silver in your hands, and go to the place the Lord your God will choose.
Greek explicitly says sell and take; Hebrew says exchange and bind up. No modern currency value is supplied.
14:26 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:26 Spend the silver on whatever you desire: cattle, sheep, wine, strong drink, or anything you wish for. Eat there before YHWH your God and rejoice, you and your household.
Greek · Saints priority
14:26 Spend the silver on whatever you desire: cattle, sheep, wine, strong drink, or anything you desire. Eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household,
The purchase list agrees. Greek continues the participants into verse 27.
14:27 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:27 Do not abandon the Levite within your gates, for he has no share or inheritance with you.
Greek · Saints priority
14:27 and the Levite in your cities, for he has no share or allotment with you.
Greek omits the separate do not abandon command and instead joins the Levite to those rejoicing in verse 26. The manner of expressing his inclusion differs; the Greek does not remove his support, which verse 29 also expressly requires.
Third-Year Tithe
14:28 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:28 At the end of three years, bring out the whole tithe of your produce in that year and store it within your gates.
Greek · Saints priority
14:28 After three years, bring out the whole tithe of your produce; in that year, store it in your cities.
Greek attaches in that year to storing the tithe; Hebrew connects it with that year's produce. Both establish local provision on the three-year cycle.
14:29 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
14:29 The Levite, who has no share or inheritance with you, and the resident alien, orphan, and widow within your gates shall come, eat, and be satisfied, so that YHWH your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.
Greek · Saints priority
14:29 The Levite, who has no share or allotment with you, and the newcomer, orphan, and widow in your cities shall come, eat, and be satisfied, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work you do.
Greek omits of your hand and uses newcomer for the resident alien. The four beneficiary groups agree.
← Deuteronomy 13 compared · Reading text of Deuteronomy 14 · Deuteronomy: all chapters · Deuteronomy 15 compared →
Saints Translation · Companion comparison edition · working draft awaiting specialist review.