Numbers — Hebrew and Greek compared · 18–36
Choose a chapter to explore the source readings and their notes. Original references, source labels, and review records are retained.
Source guide and review record
Saints Translation: Numbers 18–36 [V2]
Numbers
Hebrew and Greek in parallel • Numbers 18–36
Two independent literal-smooth translations preserve the readings of the Masoretic Hebrew and Septuagint Greek. The notes record source differences alongside attributed rabbinic, apostolic, and patristic interpretation.
Base texts: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS 1997) and Rahlfs–Hanhart Septuaginta (RH 2006). Both main texts were checked throughout. The full Göttingen text and apparatus and the NETS Numbers file were unavailable for this final review. See the source register for the precise coverage.
Read the colors: Same · Similar · Different · Divergent · Disparate. Disparate includes substantial differences of legal, ritual, narrative, or theological consequence. Parenthetical MT and LXX references identify numbering or order differences.
Translation Method & Source Register
Scope and comparison
This revision presents all 635 unique verse pairs in Numbers 18–36. Each row preserves a Hebrew–English translation and an independent Greek–English translation, followed by a classification and explanatory notes. The repeated copy of Numbers 30:3–5 in V1 has been removed. No combined column is used to conceal a source difference.
Literal-smooth English preserves the source’s action, participants, number, imagery, and legal force while using readable modern syntax. Rabbinic priority informs the Hebrew column where the language allows more than one defensible reading. Saints priority gives the Greek column its Christian reception setting. Neither priority licenses adding an interpretation to the source wording. Reception notes identify their author or biblical passage; thematic comparisons are distinguished from express citations.
Textual sources and the critical-edition limit
Hebrew running text: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), fifth corrected edition, 1997, as displayed by the German Bible Society. The Hebrew-English wording was reviewed across chapters 18–36. BHS presents the Masoretic tradition; this revision does not claim an independent collation of its full critical apparatus.
Greek running text: Septuaginta, edited by Alfred Rahlfs and revised by Robert Hanhart, second edition, 2006 (RH), as displayed by the German Bible Society. Every chapter in this unit was checked against that Greek text. This is a critical edition, not an exclusive use of Swete or a diplomatic transcription of one ancient codex.
Göttingen reference: Numeri, Septuaginta III/1, John William Wevers, with Udo Quast, second edition, 2020. The Göttingen publication record was verified, but the full 2020 Greek text and apparatus were not accessible for direct collation. Consequently, this revision must not be described as a complete Göttingen-based translation or apparatus audit.
The earlier source register listed Peter W. Flint’s Numbers in A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) for selected comparisons. Its official file was unavailable during this final review. Those comparisons are not treated as verified evidence here; the current translation conclusions rest on the directly consulted BHS and Rahlfs–Hanhart main texts.
Thus a classification describes the specified BHS and RH readings and the documented translation decisions. It does not claim that every Septuagint manuscript or every critical edition has the same reading. Edition-specific readings and uncertain lexical or syntactic choices are identified when relevant. Full direct Göttingen collation remains a further scholarly stage.
Classification key and totals
Same — 163 verses. Ordinary correspondence in the information conveyed; natural differences between Hebrew, Greek, and English grammar do not by themselves create a substantive discrepancy.
Similar — 88 verses. Comparable essentials with a modest shift in idiom, phrasing, or emphasis.
Different — 211 verses. A meaningful difference in a detail, designation, grammatical person, action, number, or image.
Divergent — 78 verses. An addition, omission, expansion, contraction, or reordering that changes the shape of the presentation.
Disparate — 95 verses. A substantial difference in legal, ritual, narrative, or theological consequence. This category is broader than direct contradiction and includes significantly different portrayals or implications.
Each verse receives one principal category; its note may describe more than one feature. These are counts of affected verses, not counts of independent manuscript variants. Classifications have no target quota. A Greek interpretation or a defensible alternative sense of one Hebrew word is not automatically evidence of a different underlying Hebrew manuscript.
Verse numbering and alignment
The leading row reference follows common English chapter numbering. Parentheses give the actual source reference when it differs. At 26:1, the Hebrew unit spans MT 25:19–26:1. English 29:40 corresponds to MT/LXX 30:1; English 30:1–16 correspond to MT/LXX 30:2–17.
Chapter 26 aligns tribes by content while displaying the Greek reference explicitly. Hebrew 26:15–18 align with Greek 26:24–27; Hebrew 26:19–27 with Greek 26:15–23; Hebrew 26:28–43 with Greek 26:32–47; Hebrew 26:44–47 with Greek 26:28–31. The other verses retain matching references. Every Greek verse in the chapter appears once. Editorial headings follow the displayed alignment, not a claim that the Greek has the Hebrew sequence.
Names, divine language, and ancient measures
The Hebrew column uses YHWH; the Greek column uses the Lord where the Greek has Kyrios. Clear divine personal pronouns are capitalized. This convention does not turn an ambiguous human or angelic speaker into God. Ordinary name transcription is normalized for recognition; substantive name differences remain visible. Numerical quantities are written out in the translations. Reference numbers and explanatory calculations may use digits.
Cubits, shekels, ephahs, and hins remain ancient units. Their historical values involve uncertainty; a shekel of silver is not a fixed modern wage or dollar amount. The Greek sacrificial term rendered offering does not, merely by that English choice, deny burning. Words for forgiveness, cleansing, atonement, and expiation are considered in context rather than made to prove a doctrinal disagreement by English synonyms alone.
Reception sources
Thirty-five attributed reception notes accompany selected verses. Rashi’s commentary is consulted in the Chabad Complete Jewish Bible presentation. These notes identify rabbinic explanations without treating every explanation as the only lexical meaning of the Hebrew. Numbers 35:3 also identifies a Rashi-informed lexical choice in its comparison note.
Apostolic and Gospel notes cite the relevant New Testament passages directly, with links at the verse. Where the connection is thematic rather than an express use of Numbers, the label says comparison. Later reception differences are not counted as Hebrew–Greek variants: for example, 1 Corinthians 10:8 names 23,000 deaths in one day, while both source columns of Numbers 25:9 have 24,000.
Patristic sources include Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 94 and 106, and the Epistle of Barnabas 8, in the New Advent editions. The Epistle’s traditional title is used without asserting that the apostolic Barnabas wrote it. Christological interpretations are attributed to their sources and kept in the notes.
The Liddell–Scott–Jones entry for diartaō supports deceive, read passively at 23:19. Its entries for traumatias and titrōskō also support slain in contexts of death, including titrōskō at 31:19. These contextual choices do not assign one gloss to every use of those words.
Historical perspective
The Greek Pentateuch originated in antiquity, conventionally placed in the third century BCE. The surviving manuscripts and the modern critical editions are later witnesses to that translation; no complete Numbers manuscript from about 300 BCE is being compared here. Medieval Masoretic codices likewise preserve a Hebrew textual tradition with ancient antecedents. Translation date, surviving manuscript date, and editorial publication date must be distinguished.
This comparison makes agreement and disagreement visible without assuming either a uniform Greek tradition or a newly created medieval Hebrew text. Assessing the fidelity of a modern Bible requires checking that named translation and its stated textual choices. The present two-column source comparison alone does not establish that every modern translation is unfaithful to both traditions.
Editorial headings divide material for reading and study. They are not represented as an official historical lectionary. The revision preserves difficult legal and narrative content without softening it, and its annotations distinguish translation, textual comparison, and later interpretation.