
Deuteronomy 28 — Hebrew and Greek compared
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Same 8 Similar 14 Different 33 Divergent 13 Disparate 0
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.
The Principal Promise
28:1 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:1 If you diligently obey YHWH your God, carefully performing all His commands that I give you today, YHWH your God will set you above all the nations of the earth.
Greek · Saints priority
28:1 When you cross the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, keeping and performing all His commands that I give you today, the Lord your God will set you above all the nations of the earth.
Text: Greek adds the entire Jordan-crossing and land-gift introduction, missing from the draft. Its opening address is plural, becoming singular later; Hebrew is singular.
28:2 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:2 All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey YHWH your God.
Greek · Saints priority
28:2 All these blessings will come upon you and find you if you diligently obey the Lord your God.
Text: Greek has find and emphatic hearing; Hebrew overtake and ordinary hearing in this verse.
The Sixfold Blessing
28:3 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
Greek · Saints priority
28:3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
Text: The paired locations agree.
28:4 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock—the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.
Greek · Saints priority
28:4 Blessed shall be the offspring of your womb and the produce of your land, the herds of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep.
Text: Greek lacks the separate fruit-of-livestock clause and names cattle herds and sheep flocks where Hebrew names their young. This does not exclude animal offspring from the Greek blessing: verse 11 expressly includes them. The difference in wording does not establish an opposing promise of agricultural prosperity.
28:5 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
Greek · Saints priority
28:5 Blessed shall be your storehouses and your reserves.
Text: Hebrew names a basket and kneading bowl; Greek storehouses and reserves. The particular objects differ within the shared blessing of food and provision; neither list purports to exclude the other objects from prosperity.
28:6 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Greek · Saints priority
28:6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
Text: The order and blessing agree.
National Expansion and Security
28:7 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:7 YHWH will hand your enemies who rise against you over defeated before you. They will come against you by one road and flee before you by seven roads.
Greek · Saints priority
28:7 May the Lord your God hand your opposing enemies over crushed before you. They will come against you by one road and flee before you by seven roads.
Text: Greek adds your God and uses crushed for Hebrew defeated. The printed παραδῷ is an aorist subjunctive, here rendered as a blessing with May; it is not the optative form. The following clauses agree on the enemies’ advance and flight.
28:8 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:8 YHWH will command blessing for you in your storehouses and in everything you undertake. He will bless you in the land YHWH your God is giving you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:8 May the Lord send blessing upon you, in your storerooms and in everything you undertake, in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Text: Greek sends the blessing upon you in the storerooms and work; Hebrew commands the blessing for you in those spheres. Greek lacks Hebrew’s separate He will bless you clause; it is not supplied in the Greek column.
28:9 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:9 YHWH will establish you as His holy people, as He swore to you, if you keep YHWH your God’s commands and walk in His ways.
Greek · Saints priority
28:9 May the Lord your God establish you as His holy people, as He swore to your fathers, if you obey the Lord your God and walk in His ways.
Text: Hebrew says the oath was sworn to you; Greek to your fathers. Greek also adds your God and expresses the condition as hearing God’s voice rather than keeping His commands. Both establish the same addressed people as holy, with obedience required; the wording does not exclude that people from the ancestral promise.
28:10 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:10 All the peoples of the earth will see that YHWH’s name is called over you, and they will fear you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:10 All the nations of the earth will see you, that the Lord’s name has been called over you, and they will fear you.
Text: Both use the name-called-over image of belonging. Greek says nations rather than peoples and explicitly supplies you as the object seen.
28:11 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:11 YHWH will give you abundant good in the fruit of your womb, your livestock, and your ground, on the land YHWH swore to your fathers to give you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:11 The Lord your God will multiply you in good things—in your womb’s offspring, your land’s produce, and your livestock’s offspring—on the land the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.
Text: Greek adds your God, uses multiply, and places land produce before livestock offspring. The draft imposed the Hebrew order on Greek.
28:12 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:12 YHWH will open for you His good treasury, the heavens, to give your land rain in season and bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will not borrow.
Greek · Saints priority
28:12 May the Lord open for you His good treasury, heaven, to give your land rain in season and bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will not borrow; you will rule many nations, but they will not rule you.
Text: Greek adds the reciprocal promise of ruling many nations without being ruled by them. It resembles 15:6, without proving the direction of textual change. The addition makes political dominance explicit within a unit that already promises elevation above the nations and being the head (verses 1, 13); it does not establish a contrary Hebrew promise.
28:13 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:13 YHWH will make you the head and not the tail; you will be only above and never beneath, if you heed YHWH your God’s commands that I give you today to keep and perform.
Greek · Saints priority
28:13 May the Lord your God make you the head and not the tail; then you will be above and not beneath, if you heed the Lord your God’s commands that I give you today to keep and perform.
Text: Greek adds your God and says then where Hebrew says only. Its first clause continues the optative blessing form.
28:14 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:14 Do not turn aside, right or left, from any words I command you today by following other gods to serve them.
Greek · Saints priority
28:14 Do not depart, right or left, from any words I command you today by following other gods to worship them.
Text: Greek latreuō concerns worship here because gods are its object. The same verb’s service to human enemies in verse forty-eight is translated contextually.
The Sixfold Curse
28:15 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:15 But if you do not obey YHWH your God, carefully performing all His commands and statutes that I give you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:15 But if you do not obey the Lord your God, keeping and performing all His commands that I give you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.
Text: Greek lacks and statutes in this introductory condition. The resulting curse formula agrees.
28:16 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
Greek · Saints priority
28:16 Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.
Text: The curse reverses verse three in both texts.
28:17 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:17 Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
Greek · Saints priority
28:17 Cursed shall be your storehouses and your reserves.
Text: The particular objects differ as in verse 5: Hebrew food-handling containers, Greek storehouses and reserves. Both participate in the same comprehensive curse of provision; an exemption for the other objects is not asserted.
28:18 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:18 Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and your ground, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock.
Greek · Saints priority
28:18 Cursed shall be the offspring of your womb and your land’s produce, the herds of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep.
Text: Hebrew names animal offspring; Greek cattle herds and sheep flocks. Both also curse human offspring and land produce. The Greek curse later expressly includes livestock offspring (verse 51), so the different formulation here does not establish their exemption.
28:19 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:19 Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
Greek · Saints priority
28:19 Cursed shall you be when you go out, and cursed shall you be when you come in.
Text: Greek reverses the order of coming and going. The earlier draft harmonized its order to Hebrew.
Internal Ruin and Pestilence
28:20 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:20 YHWH will send upon you curse, confusion, and rebuke in everything you undertake, until you are destroyed and until you quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me.
Greek · Saints priority
28:20 May the Lord send you deprivation, starvation, and consumption upon everything you undertake and do, until He destroys you and until He makes you perish quickly because of your evil practices, because you have forsaken Me.
Text: The three afflictions differ: Hebrew curse, confusion and rebuke; Greek deprivation, starvation and consumption. Greek also explicitly supplies the destroying agent. Both threaten the disobedient people with ruin throughout their undertakings, and both retain the first-person Me. Different particulars do not establish opposed outcomes in the full curse unit.
28:21 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:21 YHWH will make pestilence cling to you until He consumes you from the land you are entering to possess.
Greek · Saints priority
28:21 May the Lord make death cling to you until He consumes you from the land you are entering to inherit.
Text: Greek has death, thanatos, which can denote deadly pestilence in this setting; Hebrew explicitly names pestilence. The lexical difference is not proof of unrelated calamities.
28:22 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:22 YHWH will strike you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, sword, blight, and mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.
Greek · Saints priority
28:22 May the Lord strike you with destitution, fever, chills, irritation, slaughter, wind blight, and pallor. They will pursue you until they destroy you.
Text: Several afflictions differ, especially Hebrew wasting disease against Greek destitution and Hebrew inflammation against Greek chills. Hebrew’s pointed text reads sword; drought would require a different vocalization. Precise ancient disease and crop terms remain uncertain. Both lists threaten pursuit to destruction; their differing particulars do not establish an opposed outcome.
28:23 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:23 The heavens over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
Greek · Saints priority
28:23 The heaven over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.
Text: The metals and their locations agree. Hebrew heavens is ordinarily plural in form.
28:24 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:24 YHWH will turn your land’s rain into powder and dust; it will descend upon you from heaven until you are destroyed.
Greek · Saints priority
28:24 May the Lord give your land dust for rain; soil will descend upon you from heaven until He wears you away and until He destroys you.
Text: Greek has two concluding destruction verbs with an active agent. It does not have the draft’s your God or quickly here.
28:25 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:25 YHWH will give you over defeated before your enemies. You will advance against them by one road and flee before them by seven roads. You will become an object of horror to all the earth’s kingdoms.
Greek · Saints priority
28:25 May the Lord give you over to slaughter before your enemies. You will advance against them by one road and flee before them by seven roads. You will be dispersed throughout all the earth’s kingdoms.
Text: Hebrew ends with an object of horror or trembling; Greek with dispersion. Greek also describes slaughter where Hebrew describes defeat. Both predict enemy victory, and Hebrew too explicitly predicts dispersion in verse 64. The particulars here differ without establishing a contrary fate in the full chapter.
28:26 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:26 Your corpse will be food for all the birds of the sky and the animals of the earth, with no one to frighten them away.
Greek · Saints priority
28:26 Your dead will be food for the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth, with no one to frighten them away.
Text: Hebrew has a singular collective corpse and all birds; Greek plural dead and no all. Greek explicitly uses wild-animal terminology.
Mental and Social Oppression
28:27 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:27 YHWH will strike you with Egypt’s boils, tumors, scabs, and itching, from which you cannot be healed.
Greek · Saints priority
28:27 May the Lord strike you with an Egyptian ulcer on the buttocks, severe scabies, and itching, so that you cannot be healed.
Text: Hebrew lists tumors separately; Greek locates the Egyptian ulcer on the buttocks and qualifies the skin disease as severe. These are ancient symptom terms, not assured modern diagnoses. Both threaten incurable bodily affliction; the differing description does not establish a different ultimate outcome.
28:28 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:28 YHWH will strike you with madness, blindness, and bewilderment of heart.
Greek · Saints priority
28:28 May the Lord strike you with madness, blindness, and derangement of mind.
Text: Greek explicitly names the mind where Hebrew names the heart. Both describe mental bewilderment within the curse.
28:29 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:29 You will grope at noon as a blind person gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, with no rescuer.
Greek · Saints priority
28:29 You will grope at noon as a blind person gropes in darkness, and He will not prosper your ways. Then you will be wronged and plundered every day, with no helper.
Text: Hebrew says you will not prosper; Greek He will not prosper your ways, with God inferred as subject from the preceding clause. Both predict failed undertakings and unrelieved oppression. The grammatical agency difference does not mean that Hebrew excludes divine agency from these covenant curses.
28:30 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:30 You will betroth a wife, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but not live in it; plant a vineyard but not bring it into ordinary use.
Greek · Saints priority
28:30 You will take a wife, but another man will have her. You will build a house but not live in it; plant a vineyard but not harvest it.
Text: Hebrew has betrothal and a blunt sexual verb, with a euphemistic traditional reading; Greek has taking a wife and another man having her. Hebrew’s vineyard-release term also differs from Greek harvesting. These particulars remain distinct, but the shared calamity is dispossession of family, house and produce. Greek’s less explicit sexual wording does not assert consent.
28:31 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be seized before you and not returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, with no one to rescue you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:31 Your calf will be slaughtered before you, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be seized from you and not returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, with no one to help you.
Text: Greek calf corresponds to Hebrew ox. Both refer the final help to you, not the draft’s supplied them.
28:32 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while your eyes watch and pine for them all day; your hand will have no power.
Greek · Saints priority
28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation while your eyes watch them, wasting away; your hand will have no strength.
Text: Greek lacks all day and uses a graphic wasting-away verb for the eyes. Hebrew emphasizes exhausting longing.
28:33 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:33 A people you do not know will consume your ground’s fruit and all your toil. You will be continually oppressed and crushed.
Greek · Saints priority
28:33 A nation you do not know will consume your land’s yield and all your labors. You will be continually wronged and crushed.
Text: The loss of produce and labor to an unknown people agrees; oppression is expressed as wrongful treatment in Greek.
28:34 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:34 You will be driven mad by the sight your eyes see.
Greek · Saints priority
28:34 You will be driven mad by the sights your eyes see.
Text: Greek has plural sights. Horamata here need not mean supernatural visions.
Loss of Sovereignty
28:35 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:35 YHWH will strike your knees and legs with severe boils from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
Greek · Saints priority
28:35 May the Lord strike your knees and shins with a severe ulcer from which you cannot be healed, from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head.
Text: The scope and incurability agree. Greek uses an optative and plural feet; both retain the knees-to-head bodily description.
28:36 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:36 YHWH will lead you and the king you appoint over you to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods, wood and stone.
Greek · Saints priority
28:36 May the Lord lead you and the rulers you appoint over yourself to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will worship other gods, wood and stone.
Text: Hebrew specifies the king; Greek names plural rulers. This changes the named leadership taken into exile. Both predict the people’s forced removal with their leadership and service to other gods; the noun and number alone do not establish different constitutional systems or an opposed outcome.
28:37 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:37 You will become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the peoples to which YHWH leads you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:37 There you will become a riddle, a parable, and a tale among all the nations to which the Lord leads you.
Text: Greek has riddle and tale where Hebrew has horror and taunt, and adds there. The expressed forms of public notoriety differ, but both describe the people as a proverbial example among the nations after exile. Greek does not thereby promise favorable renown.
28:38 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:38 You will take much seed into the field but gather little, for the locust will devour it.
Greek · Saints priority
28:38 You will take much seed into the plain but bring in little, for the locust will devour it.
Text: The low yield and locust agree; Greek uses plain or open field.
28:39 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:39 You will plant and cultivate vineyards but neither drink wine nor gather the grapes, for worms will devour them.
Greek · Saints priority
28:39 You will plant and cultivate a vineyard but neither drink wine nor rejoice in it, for worms will devour them.
Text: Hebrew denies gathering; Greek denies enjoyment, with plural vineyards in Hebrew and a singular vineyard in Greek. Both explicitly deny drinking the wine and attribute crop loss to the worm. The differing verbs do not establish that the Greek crop is nevertheless harvested successfully.
28:40 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will not anoint yourself with oil, for your olives will drop off.
Greek · Saints priority
28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will not anoint yourself with oil, for your olives will fall away.
Text: The failed olive yield and lack of oil agree.
28:41 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:41 You will beget sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity.
Greek · Saints priority
28:41 You will beget sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, for they will go into captivity.
Text: Both describe loss through captivity; neither adds the draft’s enjoy them.
28:42 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:42 The whirring insect will take possession of all your trees and your ground’s fruit.
Greek · Saints priority
28:42 Blight will consume all your trees and your land’s produce.
Text: Hebrew names tselatsal, a whirring insect commonly understood as a locust; Greek names erysibē, crop blight or mildew. The destructive agents differ, while the stated outcome remains destruction of the trees and produce.
28:43 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:43 The resident foreigner among you will rise above you higher and higher, while you descend lower and lower.
Greek · Saints priority
28:43 The resident foreigner among you will rise above you higher and higher, while you descend lower and lower.
Text: The repeated upward and downward expressions agree.
28:44 Same
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you the tail.
Greek · Saints priority
28:44 He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you the tail.
Text: The economic and political reversal agrees.
The Horrors of Siege
28:45 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:45 All these curses will come upon you, pursue you, and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey YHWH your God by keeping the commands and statutes He gave you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:45 All these curses will come upon you, pursue you, and overtake you until He destroys you and until He makes you perish, because you did not obey the Lord your God by keeping the commands and ordinances He gave you.
Text: Greek has two active destruction clauses against one Hebrew passive clause. Both connect the curses with disobedience.
28:46 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:46 They will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your offspring forever,
Greek · Saints priority
28:46 There will be signs and wonders upon you and your offspring forever,
Text: Hebrew has singular sign and wonder with they referring to the curses; Greek uses plural signs and wonders.
28:47 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:47 because you did not serve YHWH your God with joy and gladness of heart amid the abundance of everything.
Greek · Saints priority
28:47 because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a good heart because of the abundance of everything.
Text: Both have heart. The earlier note’s alleged Greek mind was incorrect. Abundance supplies the setting or reason for the gratitude that was lacking.
28:48 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:48 You will serve the enemies YHWH sends against you in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and lack of everything. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He destroys you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:48 You will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and lack of everything. He will put an iron collar on your neck until He destroys you.
Text: Hebrew names a yoke; Greek kloios a neck collar or restraint. Greek latreuō here means coerced human service, not worship of the enemies.
28:49 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:49 YHWH will bring a nation against you from far away, from the earth’s end, like an eagle swooping—a nation whose language you do not understand,
Greek · Saints priority
28:49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the earth’s end, like an eagle’s rush—a nation whose speech you do not understand,
Text: Greek’s eagle and rush correspond to Hebrew’s great raptor and swooping. The unknown language agrees.
28:50 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:50 a nation fierce in countenance, showing neither respect for the old nor favor to the young.
Greek · Saints priority
28:50 a nation shameless in countenance, respecting neither the old nor showing mercy to the young.
Text: Greek emphasizes shamelessness where Hebrew emphasizes fierceness or boldness. The lack of regard for age agrees.
28:51 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:51 It will consume your livestock’s offspring and your ground’s fruit until you are destroyed, leaving you no grain, new wine, oil, increase of cattle, or young of the flock, until it makes you perish.
Greek · Saints priority
28:51 It will consume your livestock’s offspring and your land’s produce, leaving you no grain, wine, oil, cattle herds, or sheep flocks, until it makes you perish.
Text: Greek lacks the first destruction clause, has wine rather than new wine, and names herds and flocks rather than their young.
28:52 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:52 It will besiege you in all your towns until the high fortified walls you trusted throughout your land fall. It will besiege all your towns throughout the land YHWH your God gave you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:52 It will wear you down in all your cities until the high fortified walls you trusted throughout your land are demolished. It will afflict you in all the cities the Lord your God gave you.
Text: Greek first describes wearing down or destroying, where Hebrew names siege. Greek’s final relative clause attaches the divine gift to the cities and lacks Hebrew’s repeated all your land phrase. Both describe the fall of the fortified settlements; the Greek does not exclude a siege as the means.
28:53 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:53 You will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters YHWH your God gave you, in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts upon you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:53 You will eat the offspring of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God gave you, in the confinement and affliction your enemy inflicts upon you.
Text: Both predict extreme siege famine. Greek uses general confinement and affliction terms; this is a threatened calamity, not a command.
28:54 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:54 Even the tender and most delicate man among you will look begrudgingly upon his brother, his cherished wife, and his remaining children,
Greek · Saints priority
28:54 Even the tender and most luxurious man among you will look begrudgingly upon his brother, the wife in his embrace, and the children left to him,
Text: Both describe an envious eye toward the closest family. Greek’s remaining-children clause is passive rather than Hebrew’s active leaving.
28:55 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:55 refusing any of them a share of his children’s flesh that he eats, since nothing else remains to him in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts upon you in all your towns.
Greek · Saints priority
28:55 begrudging any of them a share of his children’s flesh that he eats, since nothing remains to him in the confinement and affliction your enemies inflict upon you in all your cities.
Text: Greek continues the begrudging verb from verse fifty-four; its infinitive has no separate not, but the refusal follows from that verb.
Greek enemies is plural, Hebrew enemy singular. This is not evidence that Greek commands sharing.
28:56 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set her foot on the ground because of her luxury and tenderness, will look begrudgingly upon her cherished husband, her son, and her daughter,
Greek · Saints priority
28:56 The tender and most luxurious woman among you, whose foot had never experienced walking on the ground because of her luxury and tenderness, will look begrudgingly upon the husband in her embrace, her son, and her daughter,
Text: Greek elaborates the foot’s lack of experience. The woman’s former luxury and ensuing deprivation agree.
28:57 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:57 and upon the afterbirth emerging between her feet and the children she bears, for she will secretly eat them for lack of everything, in the siege and distress your enemy inflicts upon you in your towns.
Greek · Saints priority
28:57 and upon the afterbirth emerging between her thighs and the child she bears, for she will secretly eat them for lack of everything, in the confinement and affliction your enemy inflicts upon you in all your cities.
Text: Hebrew has feet as a bodily euphemism and plural children; Greek thighs and a singular child. Greek adds all to the cities.
Exile and Reversal of the Exodus
28:58 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:58 If you do not carefully perform all the words of this law written in this book, revering this glorious and fearsome name, YHWH your God,
Greek · Saints priority
28:58 If you do not obey by performing all the words of this law written in this book, revering this honored and wondrous name, the Lord your God,
Text: Hebrew describes the name as fearsome; Greek wondrous. Both explicitly require fear or reverence, so Greek does not remove that response.
28:59 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:59 YHWH will make your plagues and your offspring’s plagues extraordinary—great and enduring plagues, severe and enduring diseases.
Greek · Saints priority
28:59 the Lord will make your plagues and your offspring’s plagues extraordinary—great and astonishing plagues, severe and enduring diseases.
Text: Hebrew’s first enduring becomes Greek astonishing. Both retain persistence in the final disease clause.
28:60 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:60 He will bring back upon you all Egypt’s diseases that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
Greek · Saints priority
28:60 He will bring back upon you all Egypt’s severe suffering that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
Text: Hebrew names diseases; Greek severe pain or suffering, followed by a plural clinging clause. Its added adjective is retained.
28:61 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:61 YHWH will also bring upon you every disease and plague not written in this book of the law, until you are destroyed.
Greek · Saints priority
28:61 The Lord will also bring upon you every infirmity and plague not written in this book of the law, until He destroys you.
Text: Both selected texts specify what is not written. The draft’s Greek addition both written and not written is unsupported by Rahlfs–Hanhart and is removed.
28:62 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:62 You will be left few in number, though you were as numerous as heaven’s stars, because you did not obey YHWH your God.
Greek · Saints priority
28:62 You will be left few in number, instead of being as numerous as heaven’s stars, because you did not obey the Lord your God.
Text: Greek maintains plural address throughout; Hebrew ends in singular address. Both contrast Israel’s former abundance with the few who remain. RH’s instead of construction and Hebrew’s though construction are retained. No separate critical-edition evidence for this verse was available in the final review.
28:63 Divergent
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:63 As YHWH rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so YHWH will rejoice over you to make you perish and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
Greek · Saints priority
28:63 As the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to inherit.
Text: Greek has one destruction infinitive rather than two and no quickly. The draft had added both a second action and speed to Greek.
28:64 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:64 YHWH will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods unknown to you and your fathers, wood and stone.
Greek · Saints priority
28:64 The Lord your God will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will be enslaved to other gods, wood and stone, unknown to you and your fathers.
Text: Greek adds your God, moves wood and stone earlier, and uses douleuō, slave-service, not the draft’s latreuō.
28:65 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:65 Among those nations you will find no ease, and your foot will have no resting place. YHWH will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a languishing soul.
Greek · Saints priority
28:65 Even among those nations He will give you no rest, and your foot will have no place to stand. The Lord will give you a discouraged heart, failing eyes, and a wasting soul.
Text: Greek makes the withholding of rest God’s action, where Hebrew says you will find no ease. Hebrew has a trembling heart; Greek a discouraged heart. Both then explicitly ascribe the distressed heart and failing faculties to God. The first-clause agency difference does not establish a contrary theology or fate.
28:66 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:66 Your life will hang in suspense before you. You will fear night and day and have no assurance of your life.
Greek · Saints priority
28:66 Your life will hang before your eyes. You will fear day and night and have no assurance of your life.
Text: Greek explicitly adds eyes and reverses night/day. Suspense makes Hebrew’s contextual insecurity clear; a Christian crucifixion reading is later reception, not a different literal subject.
28:67 Similar
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:67 In the morning you will say, If only it were evening! At evening you will say, If only it were morning!—because of your heart’s fear and the sight your eyes see.
Greek · Saints priority
28:67 In the morning you will say, If only it were evening! At evening you will say, If only it were morning!—because of your heart’s fear and the sights your eyes see.
Text: Greek has plural sights. Neither source invokes God in the wish; the draft’s Would God is removed.
28:68 Different
Hebrew · Rabbinic priority
28:68 YHWH will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the route of which I told you, You shall never see it again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.
Greek · Saints priority
28:68 The Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships and by the route of which I said, You shall never see it again. There you will be sold to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.
Text: Hebrew’s reflexive sale verb permits offer yourselves for sale; Greek has passive be sold. Both end with no buyer, preserving a severe and difficult image of failed sale. Greek also has and before by the route. Neither wording establishes a successful sale or a different ultimate fate.
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Saints Translation · Companion comparison edition · working draft awaiting specialist review.