Deuteronomy 18 — Hebrew and Greek compared
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Same 2 Similar 5 Different 10 Divergent 1 Disparate 4
Disparate in this chapter: 18:5, 18:10, 18:12, 18:22
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.
Provision for the Priests and Levites
18:1 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:1 The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no share or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat YHWH’s offerings made by fire and His inheritance.
Greek · Saints priority
18:1 The Levitical priests, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no share or allotment with Israel. The Lord’s offerings are their allotment; they shall eat them.
Text: Hebrew explicitly names fire-offerings and His inheritance; Greek identifies the offerings as their allotment.
Karpōmata is sacrificial offering language here, not a restriction to fruit.
18:2 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:2 He shall have no inheritance among his brothers; YHWH Himself is his inheritance, as He told him.
Greek · Saints priority
18:2 They shall have no allotment among their brothers; the Lord Himself is his allotment, as He told him.
Text: Greek begins with plural priests, then returns to singular his and him. The draft incorrectly kept the entire Greek verse plural.
18:3 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:3 This shall be the priests’ due from the people, from those slaughtering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give the priest the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the stomach.
Greek · Saints priority
18:3 This is the priests’ entitlement from the people, from those slaughtering the sacrifices, whether a calf or a sheep: they shall give the priest the arm, the jawbones, and the stomach.
Text: Greek names a calf rather than an ox and jawbones rather than explicitly two cheeks. Both allocate the specified parts to the priest.
18:4 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:4 Give him the first of your grain, new wine, and oil, and the first of your sheep’s fleece.
Greek · Saints priority
18:4 Give him the firstfruits of your grain, wine, and oil, and the first of your sheep’s fleece.
Text: Hebrew explicitly describes new wine; Greek says wine. Greek σῖτος is rendered grain, consistently with the other grain, wine, and oil lists in this book; no restriction to wheat is required here. Both require first yields and fleece.
18:5 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:5 For YHWH your God has chosen him from all your tribes to stand and minister in YHWH’s name, he and his sons for all time.
Greek · Saints priority
18:5 For the Lord your God has chosen him from all your tribes to stand before the Lord your God, to minister and bless in His name, he and his sons among the Israelites.
Text: Greek adds blessing as an explicit priestly function and replaces the enduring-time ending with service among the Israelites. The commissioning’s stated duties and final scope differ.
18:6 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:6 If a Levite comes from any of your gates throughout Israel where he resides, coming with all his soul’s desire to the place YHWH will choose,
Greek · Saints priority
18:6 If a Levite comes from one of your cities, from among all the Israelites where he resides, as his soul desires, to the place the Lord will choose,
Text: Greek uses cities for gates and explicitly names the Israelites. Both describe the Levite’s voluntary approach to the chosen sanctuary.
18:7 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:7 then he shall minister in the name of YHWH his God, like all his fellow Levites standing there before YHWH.
Greek · Saints priority
18:7 then he shall minister in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites standing there before the Lord.
Text: Both authorize the arriving Levite’s service alongside those already standing before God. Leitourgeō describes sacred service here.
18:8 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:8 They shall eat share for share, apart from what he receives from the sale of ancestral property.
Greek · Saints priority
18:8 He shall eat an allotted share, apart from the sale associated with his ancestral family.
Text: Hebrew explicitly compares portions and begins in the plural; Greek describes a portion allotted to him. The compressed ancestral-sale clause is difficult in both and does not itself settle later priestly property arrangements.
Forbidden Practices and Wicked Customs
18:9 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:9 When you enter the land YHWH your God is giving you, do not learn to practice the abominations of those nations.
Greek · Saints priority
18:9 If you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to practice the abominations of those nations.
Text: Greek frames the entry conditionally; the prohibition on learning the nations’ practices agrees.
18:10 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:10 No one shall be found among you who makes his son or daughter pass through fire, practices divination, interprets omens, practices augury, or performs sorcery,
Greek · Saints priority
18:10 No one shall be found among you who purifies his son or daughter by fire, practices divination, interprets spoken omens or augury, or performs sorcery,
Text: Hebrew describes passing a child through fire; Greek explicitly describes purification by fire. Both forbid it, but the stated ritual action differs. The divination terms also have differing, partly overlapping ranges.
18:11 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:11 casts spells, consults a medium or spiritist, or inquires of the dead.
Greek · Saints priority
18:11 chants spells, acts as a spirit-medium or observer of portents, or questions the dead.
Text: Greek engastrimythos denotes the belly-speaking medium and teratoskopos an observer of portents; these should not be flattened into identical technical categories with Hebrew ov and yiddeoni.
18:12 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:12 For everyone who does these things is an abomination to YHWH, and because of these abominations YHWH your God is dispossessing them before you.
Greek · Saints priority
18:12 For everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God, and because of these abominations the Lord will destroy them from before you.
Text: Hebrew states dispossession; Greek states destruction. Your God also occurs in different clauses. The destructive action must remain visible without being substituted into Hebrew.
18:13 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:13 Be wholehearted with YHWH your God.
Greek · Saints priority
18:13 Be perfect before the Lord your God.
Text: Hebrew tamim and Greek teleios express wholeness or completeness in this context of fidelity. With becomes before; neither English word alone establishes a different standard of human sinlessness.
18:14 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:14 For these nations you are dispossessing listen to omen-interpreters and diviners; but YHWH your God has not permitted this for you.
Greek · Saints priority
18:14 For these nations you are inheriting will listen to omens and divinations; but the Lord your God has not permitted this for you.
Text: Hebrew names practitioners; Greek names omens and divinations and puts their listening in the future. Both distinguish Israel’s permitted conduct.
The Prophet Like Moses and False Prophets
18:15 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:15 YHWH your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.
Listen to him,
Greek · Saints priority
18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. Listen to him,
Text: Greek lacks the separate from among you phrase, while retaining the prophet’s origin among Israel’s brothers. The common noun prophet is not replaced by a later identification.
Rabbinic: Rashi reads a continuing succession of prophets raised from Israel, each taking the preceding prophet’s place. Rashi, Deut. 18:15
Saints: Peter applies the prophet promise to Jesus. This is an explicit apostolic interpretation, distinct from Rashi’s succession reading. Acts 3:22 –26
18:16 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:16 in accordance with all you asked of YHWH your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying: Let me not hear the voice of YHWH my God again or see this great fire anymore, so that I do not die.
Greek · Saints priority
18:16 in accordance with all you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying: We will not hear the voice of the Lord our God again or see this great fire anymore, so that we do not die.
Text: Hebrew’s first-person singular request becomes first-person plural in Greek. Ekklēsia denotes the gathered people here, without inserting a later ecclesial institution into the narrative.
18:17 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:17 YHWH said to me: They have spoken well.
Greek · Saints priority
18:17 The Lord said to me: Everything they have said is right.
Text: Both express approval of the people’s request. Greek explicitly uses everything.
18:18 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything I command him.
Greek · Saints priority
18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from their brothers. I will put My word in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I command him.
Text: Hebrew has plural My words and everything; Greek has singular My word and a clause describing speech according to the command.
18:19 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:19 As for anyone who will not listen to My words that he speaks in My name, I Myself will hold him accountable.
Greek · Saints priority
18:19 As for anyone who will not listen to what the prophet speaks in My name, I will exact retribution from him.
Text: Greek explicitly names the prophet and expresses punitive retribution; Hebrew says God will require an account. The accountability is shared, with a more explicit punitive formulation in Greek.
Saints: Acts gives the sanction as removal from the people; its wording is not substituted for either Deuteronomy column. Acts 3:23
18:20 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:20 But the prophet who presumes to speak in My name a word I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
Greek · Saints priority
18:20 But the prophet who acts impiously by speaking in My name a word I did not order him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
Text: Greek characterizes the unauthorized speech as impiety; Hebrew as presumption. Both prescribe death for the specified false prophet.
18:21 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:21 If you say in your heart: How can we recognize the word YHWH has not spoken?
Greek · Saints priority
18:21 If you say in your heart: How can we recognize the word the Lord has not spoken?
Text: Both have heart. The draft’s Greek mind was an English substitution, not a lexical difference in this verse.
18:22 Disparate
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
18:22 When a prophet speaks in YHWH’s name and the word does not happen or come to pass, that is a word YHWH has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously; do not fear him.
Greek · Saints priority
18:22 Whatever a prophet speaks in the Lord’s name, if the word does not happen or come to pass, that is a word the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken impiously; you shall not spare him.
Text: Hebrew forbids fear of the false prophet; Greek ouk aphexesthe autou forbids holding back from or sparing him. The draft wrongly made both endings do not be afraid. Greek also describes impiety rather than presumption.
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Saints Translation · Companion comparison edition · working draft awaiting specialist review.