Old Testament

Four Ways Scholars Date Early Hebrew Bible Manuscripts

Scholars use multiple methods to date the earliest copies of the Old Testament. At their best, they yield a range of fifty years.

In recent years, some scholars have argued that the Psalms were still being collected into the Psalter late into the 1st century AD, well after Jesus’ death. But what if there was a copy of the book of Psalms written much earlier than that? In fact, that seems to be the case with 4QPs^a, a Psalms manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls dated to the late 3rd or early 2nd century BC that must surely play an important role in determining when the book of Psalms was compiled. The dates when manuscripts were written are thus very important for understanding their significance and for understanding the history of the Bible. But the process of how scholars determine those dates is complex and involves several sources of information.

The earliest period from which we have copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament starts from the 3rd century BC. The Dead Sea Scrolls include nearly 1000 early manuscripts—mostly in Hebrew and Aramaic (which use the same alphabet), but also some other languages—discovered in the Judean Desert, most of which date between 350 BC to AD 135.

Far fewer early Hebrew manuscripts have survived from other places like Egypt and from the so-called “silent period” from the 3rd to the 8th centuries AD. That means that the Dead Sea Scrolls are our earliest direct sources for the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish literature and are of immense historical and religious significance. But how do scholars go about dating them? There are four main ways.

1. Internal Dates and Contents

Sometimes scribes wrote the date explicitly on their manuscripts. In such cases, it is easy to know when it was written—as long as the type of calendar the scribe used is clear and well-understood. For instance, the manuscript known as 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land is dated to the third year of the revolt against the Romans by Bar Kokhba (AD 132–135), which corresponds to AD 134. Such dates are common in legal documents and letters, though precious few survive from some periods. Unfortunately, the ancient scribes who copied works of Hebrew literature like the scriptures did not write the date on their manuscripts.

When an explicit date is lacking, the contents of a manuscript may also imply something about its date. If it is possible to determine when a book was originally composed, the copy obviously cannot be dated earlier. In most cases, the books of the Old Testament were written significantly earlier than their earliest surviving copies, so this criterion is generally of limited value.

2. Archeological Context

One of the best indicators for dating early Hebrew manuscripts is where they were discovered, otherwise known as their provenance. Many ancient manuscripts were found in archeological contexts that are datable. For instance, a Leviticus scroll called EGLev was found charred inside a synagogue in En Gedi in Israel that was burned in the 6th or 7th century AD, which means that the scroll cannot be dated later than this destruction. The site of Qumran in the Judean Desert (east of Jerusalem) was destroyed by the Romans in AD 68, so all of the scrolls found in the surrounding caves associated with the site (labelled 1Q, 2Q, 3Q, 4Q, etc.) must have been written earlier than this date. It is unusual (though not impossible) for manuscripts to be many centuries older than the archeological context in which they were discovered. Thus, dating is one reason why it is so important to know as much as we can about where ancient manuscripts came from.

The site of the En Gedi synagogue allows a more precise dating of a Leviticus scroll found at the site. David Jones

3. Radiocarbon Dating

Another important tool that is used to date early Hebrew manuscripts is radiocarbon dating. Carbon-14 (aka ¹⁴C or “radiocarbon”) is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is found throughout the atmosphere and is absorbed into plants and the animals that eat them. ¹⁴C decays at a known rate to become the more common ¹²C.

When plants or animals die, they stop taking in new ¹⁴C, so the amount of ¹⁴C gradually diminishes at a constant rate. By comparing the amount of ¹⁴C left in the organic material with the amount of ¹²C and known historical atmospheric conditions, scientists are able to determine approximately how long ago the plant (e.g., papyrus) or animal (e.g., parchment) that was used to make a manuscript died.

With few exceptions, writers usually used these writing materials soon after they were prepared, so scholars generally suppose that the date when a manuscript was written was very close to when the plant or animal died. In most cases, these tests can tell researchers approximately in which century the manuscript was written. However, fluctuations in the original atmospheric conditions make it difficult to distinguish certain periods, yielding less precise or more ambiguous dates for these stretches of time.

Radiocarbon dating also requires destroying a small part of the manuscript, which makes many institutions hesitant to use the technique. Despite this, the method has been frequently applied to early Hebrew manuscripts, providing a wealth of information that is not available to scholars working on most other types of ancient manuscripts. So far, more than 60 early Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts have been subjected to radiocarbon dating, yielding dates ranging from the 4th century BC up through the 8th century AD.

So far, more than 60 early Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts have been subjected to radiocarbon dating.

4. Ancient Handwriting

Another way of dating early Hebrew manuscripts—in fact, often the most important—is by studying their handwritten scripts, which is a discipline called paleography. When attempting to date early Hebrew manuscripts, the other means of dating mentioned above are frequently unavailable or not sufficiently precise. In such cases, paleographers study the development of different styles of writing over time and try to figure out where an undated manuscript fits into that history on the basis of its handwriting.

One of the best ways of paleographically dating an early Hebrew manuscript is by finding dated or datable manuscripts written in very similar writing styles. The more similar the scripts are, the more likely they are to be from the same period. For instance, one Psalms scroll called 5/6Ḥev Ps was deposited in a cave in Naḥal Ḥever by refugees during the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132–135). The script style looks very similar to 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land, a contract from the same cave which we noted earlier was dated to AD 134. This suggests that 5/6Ḥev Ps must have been written some time close to AD 134, and its archeological context means that it could not have been written later. Thus, 5/6Ḥev Ps can be dated approximately to AD 50–135.

Whenever it is impossible to find close analogies with manuscripts of known date, paleographers try to analyze scripts in light of the general development of writing styles. Since handwriting styles change over time, paleographers can create typologies or timelines for these developments, noting both changes in the general appearance of the scripts and changes in individual letter shapes. They start by placing datable manuscripts on the timeline and observing what has changed between the earlier and the later manuscripts. When paleographers try to date an early Hebrew manuscript that has some features of the earlier manuscripts and some of the later ones, they normally presume that that manuscript was written sometime between the manuscripts dated on either side of it.

For example, when paleographers date 4QSam^b (an old copy of 1 Samuel), they might compare it to early dated manuscripts like WD papDeed of Slave Sale (335 BC) and later ones like 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land mentioned above. The handwriting of 4QSam^b has many features of the earlier manuscripts, but also some later features, so we can place it on the timeline between WD papDeed of Slave Sale (335 BC) and 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land (AD 134) like so: WD papDeed of Slave Sale → 4QSam^b → 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land. Since 4QSam^b is much closer to WD papDeed of Slave Sale than 5/6Ḥev papLease of Land, it must also be dated very early on the timeline. Thus, most paleographers conclude that 4QSam^b must have been written in the 3rd century BC, possibly making it the oldest copy of any part of the Hebrew scriptures in existence.

The more the timeline is filled in with datable manuscripts, the more precisely paleographers can date other manuscripts based on where they fit in the timeline. For this reason, paleographers are constantly looking for new evidence for dating ancient manuscripts and revising the timeline where evidence requires it. And recent developments have seen the use of computer tools to help study and compare ancient handwriting, which has great promise for future gains in the field.

The Foundation for Further Study

By combining the information from the contents of the manuscripts, their archeological contexts, radiocarbon dates, and their handwriting, scholars are able to propose dates for early Hebrew manuscripts. Based on these sources of information, scholars often suggest dates that are quite precise, even within 50-year ranges of possible dates, not much longer than the working lifespan of a scribe.

Not everyone agrees that these narrow date ranges are reliable, however, and a growing number of paleographers prefer to leave open wider ranges of possible dates, such as a century or more. This is especially the case for the 3rd to 8th centuries AD, where hardly any Hebrew manuscripts have survived and the timeline has many long gaps and uncertainties. But despite the limitations, these tools are essential for dating early Hebrew manuscripts and are foundational for any study of the manuscripts and texts of the Hebrew scriptures and thus to the history of the Bible.

Four Lessons from Medieval Illustrated Bibles

Illuminated Bibles are a living testament to human history in addition to being the divine record of history.

David S. Hogg

Among the treasures housed in the British Library is the Luttrell Psalter. It is a lavishly illustrated early 14th century manuscript commissioned by Sir Geoffrey Luttrell. Inside the front cover someone has written the name of Sir Geoffrey followed by the Latin words me fieri fecit. Loosely translated this means, “Sir Geoffrey Luttrell brought me into existence.” This is interesting for at least two reasons.

First, by writing it in the first person, the author is personifying the book itself—treating it as though it were speaking to us. On one level, we might consider this a bit childish since we know books are inanimate. But on another level, precisely because this is written in a book containing a portion of the Bible, itself the only book in all creation that can be described as living and active (Heb. 4:12; 1 Thess. 2:13), it does not seem entirely out of place. Whatever else might be said of their piety, citizens of medieval Europe well understood that the Bible and the church claimed that this is a book that has the power to transform hearts and minds because it is a living word that has the power to impart eternal life (1 Pet. 1:23; 2 Tim. 3:14–17). It is, in short, a book that speaks to us like no other. Thus, to add an element of personification on the inside cover is not entirely out of place.

The second reason this little notation is interesting is that it invites the reader to consider the intentionality behind creating this specific volume. Besides Sir Luttrell, who might have been involved in producing this lavish copy of God’s Word? Printers? Artists? Scribes? Leather workers? Purveyors of fine parchment? Which members of the Luttrell family, young or old, had input into what illuminations they wanted to include? By way of contrast, in our age where Bibles are everywhere, from homes to hotel rooms, and available in multiple formats, from print to audio recordings to software programs to hypertext online versions, considerations about how the Bible is produced have faded into the background. And, it may be argued, rightly so since the process of mass producing print, audio or electronic Bibles is not especially engrossing.

Why Illuminate the Bible?

Be that as it may, the somewhat eccentric Jerome who translated the Bible into Latin in the early fifth century (the text we now call the Vulgate) would be elated at the modern proliferation of simple, straightforward, text-only Bibles published around the globe. Throughout his life, Jerome remained staunchly opposed to the ornamentation of God’s Word—evidence that illustrating the Bible in some way was practiced before the Middle Ages in the earliest centuries of the church. To the list of those who prefer the Bible to remain a simple, text-only book, I suspect we could add some of the leaders of the Reformation, to say nothing of the Puritans, whose opinions on the subject are a foregone conclusion. The collective motto of Jerome & Co. might be, “Just print the Bible. It’s not a coloring book.”

This is, however, not the position taken by many Christians throughout the ancient and medieval church. Exhibit A: the Luttrell Psalter. Here is a portion of the Bible with elaborate ornamentation throughout, to say nothing of the full color illustrations of people and daily life that fill the spaces amidst the sacred leaves. What’s more, this practice was followed well into the sixteenth century. If we fast forward about a century beyond the creation of the Luttrell Psalter to the time when Gutenberg revolutionized book production with his moveable type printing press, we discover that he printed the Bible with large blank spaces at the beginning of books and chapters as well as leaving considerable real estate blank at the margins. This was done on purpose and for decades following Gutenberg’s life.

The point was that everyone who could afford a Gutenberg Bible could take their copy to a book illuminator and make it their own by having it decorated however they wished. Lest you think this an antiquated practice, consider the recent publication of the ESV Bible in formats that either already have ornamentation in them or leave large blank spaces as an intentional invitation for people to add their own illustrations and adornments. It seems illuminated manuscripts are back in style.

At this point, it is worth noting that many Bibles, parts of Bibles, and other manuscripts created in the Middle Ages included no adornment. Illustration was an expensive undertaking. Even so, if the cache of illuminated texts that have survived into our own day is any indication, a lot of Bibles included some form of adornment. But why, we might ask, was adorning the margins and first letters of books and chapters in the Bible done in the first place? Why was it so popular for over 1,500 years? In what follows, I offer four reasons why manuscripts of the Bible were illuminated.

One of several curious creatures (or “grotesques”) in the Luttrell Psalter. BL Add MS 42130

1. Illustration communicates the value of the text

What do you do with the things you value greatly? If it’s a picture, you might have it professionally framed. If it’s an object associated with a strong memory, you may keep it in a special box. If it’s beautiful or costly, you might display it in a glass case. We often convey value through context. In the Middle Ages, all books were relatively expensive, but illuminating a manuscript with colors created from costly dyes and overlaying letters and borders with gold leaf communicated a level of importance that went above and beyond. Depending on the level of craftsmanship required, portions of the Bible or even the whole Bible created in this way could take anywhere from two to four years. Even in a slower age bereft of automation and computers, anything that took multiple years and several people to make signaled significance to the observer.

While communicating the value of the Bible through its physical production could matter in a number of situations, one context in which a visual reminder of the value of the text of Scripture was especially helpful was in missionary work. In her very illuminating book, Hidden Hands, Mary Wellesley cites a letter written by an eighth century missionary named Boniface in which he is requesting an illuminated manuscript of the Pauline epistles, “to impress honour and reverence for the Sacred Scriptures visibly upon the carnally minded to whom I preach.” Wellesley herself comments on the rationale for Boniface’s request writing that a “manuscript was not simply a repository of text but an embodiment, in visual and physical form, of the sacral power of Scripture.”¹

2. Illustration prompts thinking about the text

On the page where Psalm 36 begins (in our English Bibles that would be Psalm 37) in the Luttrell Psalter, there is an illustration at the bottom of the page of a naked blue man. Yes, you read correctly. Furthermore, this little blue man (slightly turned to preserve at least a modicum of modesty) has been hoisted upon a pole held horizontally to the ground and is carried by two people as he waves a leaf of some kind and looks like he is having a grand time (despite what one imagines must be a terribly uncomfortable way to travel!). Why, it seems reasonable to ask, is there a little naked blue man on the page below Psalm 37?

Although we can’t be sure since no interpretive notes are included with the illustration, it is likely the case that this illustration is depicting the wicked, the enemy, described in the Psalm. In medieval England, blue was the color associated with the enemy and thus the wicked because their archrivals, the Scottish, would sometimes paint their bodies with a blue dye before going into battle. Knowing this, and reading Psalm 37:35, for instance, we discover that the Psalmist tells us that he has seen the wicked spreading himself out (naked) like a tree. The fact that we have an identifiable enemy (blue guy), being exalted on a pole and paraded about by two people, and revealed as naked as a tree before the world (holding a leaf in his hand to help us make the connection in case we missed it), it seems an apt, if mildly amusing pictorial representation of the verse.

The “blue man” at the bottom of Psalm 37 on the left page in the Luttrell Psalter. BL Add MS 42130

Again, we must be careful not to read too much into these illustrations, but it appears that the Luttrell family are using a popular cultural trope to heighten and focus the attention of the reader on the contents of the Psalm. As Israel had enemies in their time who would one day pass away under God’s judgment while the righteous alone remained, so the English have their enemies who will not abide despite appearances to the contrary. Instead of passing over a text quickly, the illustration invites the reader to consider who the little blue men are in their life who will not stand in future judgment despite their present prosperity. In fact, whether the reader lives in the 14th or the 21st century, it also prompts a smile—not that someone would fall under judgment, but that, in the end, the righteous will overcome.

3. Illustration is an expression of God-given gifts to create beauty

God did not condemn the Israelites for living in great cities with homes filled with good things (Deut. 6:10–11), nor did he frown upon using wealth to create beautiful things (Solomon’s palace). Historically, in the western classical tradition, the good, the true and the beautiful were held in high regard. Today, one might be forgiven for thinking each of these in their turn has been rejected or ignored. With respect to the Bible, in a culture that prizes functionality and efficiency, sometimes even to the detriment of the good, true, and beautiful, we should take care not to assume our priorities are superior or the standard by which all others should be measured.

Take, for example, a mass-produced digital alarm clock. It is entirely functional with nothing but numbers because it is assumed that all that is needed is accuracy, not beauty (and preferably cheap!). Surely, every clock should be just like this because a clock has only one purpose: to tell the time. But do we not stand amazed at clocks or watches that have been crafted with beauty? I own what is called a skeleton watch. It is called this because while there are hands to tell the time, there is nothing hiding the inner workings so you can see all the wheels, cogs, springs, and coils in their tiny, exquisite detail turning, twisting, untwisting, rotating, flying, and rocking. When I first bought the watch when my children were younger, they used to ask to look at it while we ate dinner and they sat mesmerized by it. I have never once seen them stare in awe at the cheap, but accurate digital alarm clocks they had by their bedside!

From the beginning of creation, God has called humanity to the work of creativity and beauty.

From the beginning of creation in the garden of Eden, God has called humanity to the work of creativity and beauty. Throughout its history, the church has believed that applying artistic or creative gifts to this world and what we make is part of what it means to be made in the image of God. We must never change the text of Scripture, but surely the margins are free for applying God-given talent in a thoughtful way.

4. Illustration connects us with others, past, present, and future

Most of us like new books. There something about the pristine quality, the new book smell, and the wonder of being the first to turn the pages. Recently, however, I heard an author talk about her love of books, and she clearly favored what she called good, clean used copies of classic works. She likes used books that are still in good condition because they include the occasional marginal notation and, more often than not, they fall open to a place the previous owner looked over for some time. Her point was that she loved knowing that she was one in a line of connected readers who all read the book before her. In an unusual way, it reminded her that books and reading are fundamentally communal. What a wonderfully positive way to think in the midst of a world that can often seem bent on using the practice reading and writing as a way to drive a wedge between people.

There is something about a book, especially the Bible which is the very Word of God to humanity, which, when ornamented and illustrated and colored bids us slow down and appreciate the whole, to pause over the wonder not only of revealed truth, but of the generations before us who have done the same and left their mark, their clues to how they understood and applied the same texts we are now perusing. Reading a Bible that includes the artistic fingerprints, marginal notes and interlinear underlinings bids us to forego our modern penchant to read as though we are alone and confronts us as individuals who are part of a body of readers, a genealogy of the faithful, the church throughout the ages. A Bible that is illuminated is a Bible that has a human history in addition to being the divine record of history.

A Bible that is illuminated is a Bible that has a human history in addition to being the divine record of history.

Mary Wellesley is surely right when she wrote that, “manuscripts, by their very nature, resist neat chronologies, because they often tell simultaneous histories. They might have been written in one age, but contain texts dated much earlier, and they also incorporate the histories of their later owners and readers.”² In this sense, medieval illuminated Bibles are first and foremost the living Word of God, but they are also a kind of living testament to generations of faithfulness that draws the reader into conversations about perennial nature truth, goodness, and beauty.

Notes

1
Mary Wellesley, Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers (London: Quercus, 2022), 164
2
Hidden Hands, 9.

The Extraordinary Hebrew Text behind Your English Bible

The Masoretic Text is the fruit of the genius of Jewish textual scholars who codified the pronunciation of the Hebrew text.

Kim Phillips

Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (with a little Aramaic, mainly in Ezra and Daniel). The New Testament, on the other hand, was written in Greek. When you read your Bible in one of the modern English translations, that translation will have been made directly from editions based on the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, and the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament. These Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament are usually referred to (slightly confusingly) as “Hebrew Bible” manuscripts.

In this article we are talking about one very special type of Hebrew Bible manuscript: Masoretic Bible manuscripts (which contain the Masoretic Text). But before we zoom in and focus on those, let’s get a rough idea of the spread (throughout time) of all the various kinds of Hebrew Bible manuscripts.

Bible Manuscripts through the Ages

The absolute earliest little bit of Hebrew Bible currently known comes all the way back from the 7th–6th century BC. In a graveyard in Jerusalem, at a place called Ketef Hinnom, two amulets were found, made from tiny rolls of silver. On one of those rolls was part of the prayer from Numbers 6 referred to as the Priestly Blessing.

The amulets from Ketef Hinnom are the earliest portion of the Hebrew Bible. Source

The Ketef Hinnom amulets are (according to the current state of our knowledge) quite exceptionally early, but they only preserve a few sentences of the text of the Hebrew Bible. The earliest substantial collection of Hebrew Bible manuscripts currently available is of course the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition to many other texts, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain thousands of fragments from over 200 biblical scrolls, written mainly in Hebrew. These date from roughly the mid-third century BC, through to the end of the first century AD. Many of these fragments are tiny, containing only a few letters, while others are far more complete—the famous Great Isaiah Scroll figuring prominently as the most complete biblical scroll from Qumran.

Solomon Schechter studying the thousands of manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Geniza around 1898. Image reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Source
Four Ways Scholars Date Early Hebrew Bible Manuscripts
Scholars use multiple methods to date the earliest copies of the Old Testament. At their best, they yield a range of fifty years.
Drew Longacre

So, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with our earliest large-scale collection of Hebrew Bible manuscripts—an explosion of textual data, from the centuries immediately before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus. They are a resource of unimaginable significance, though not without their limitations. Most obviously: the great majority of the scrolls are highly fragmentary. Of the 915 verses in the book of Proverbs, for example, the Scrolls preserve only fragments from 48 verses—many of which are represented by only a few extant letters.

Sadly, after the Dead Sea Scrolls, the trail goes cold in our hunt for Hebrew Bible manuscripts.

Sadly, after the Dead Sea Scrolls, the trail goes cold in our hunt for Hebrew Bible manuscripts (though manuscripts containing translations of the Bible into Greek, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, and other languages, have survived in relative profusion). For the next seven or eight hundred years we have only a handful of Hebrew Bible manuscript remains. Scrolls of the Hebrew Bible must have continued to be produced and used, but very few traces of them survive. The few scroll fragments we do have from towards the end of this dark period have only survived by dint of the fact that they were stored away for burial (according to Jewish practice then and now), but, by happy providence, never received that burial.

This dark period comes to an end around the year 900. Many fragments of Hebrew Bible manuscripts have survived from between AD 900 and AD 1000, as well as a handful of larger, more complete manuscripts. A great many Hebrew Bible manuscripts—some very complete and beautifully produced—survive from the eleventh century onwards. Many of these are currently housed in libraries in Cambridge, Oxford, London, St. Petersburg, and other European cities. According to our current state of knowledge, the earliest complete Hebrew Bible manuscript (containing all the books of the Old Testament in one volume) still fully preserved today, dates from the year 1008. It is called the Leningrad Codex. We will come back to it later.

From our earliest evidence onwards, the text of the Hebrew Bible was copied onto scrolls (hence Dead Sea Scrolls). From antiquity, through the Middle Ages, and right up to the present day, Jewish ritual requires that the biblical text read in the synagogue must be read from a scroll, rather than any other format of book (remember Jesus reads from a scroll in Luke 4:16–20). Nonetheless, from about AD 900 onwards, a new—and immensely significant—type of Hebrew Bible manuscript appears on the scene, quite different to these scrolls: the Masoretic manuscript.

Masoretic Bible Manuscripts

Let’s compare (just at the visual level for now) this new type of Hebrew Bible manuscript—the Masoretic manuscript—with the more traditional Hebrew Bible scroll.

The contribution of the Masoretes can be seen by comparing Codex Leningrad (left) with Taylor-Schechter NS 1.3 (middle) and the Great Isaiah Scroll (right). Images from Sefaria, Cambridge University Library, and Wikipedia. Taylor-Schechter image reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

On the left is a typical page from a masoretic manuscript (the Leningrad Codex, written in AD 1008). The middle images show part of a scroll of Genesis, from around AD 900, while the images on the right are part of the Great Isaiah Scroll, from about 100 BC. The Genesis scroll and the Isaiah scroll are thus separated in time by about 1000 years, but apart from the parchment color and script style they are quite similar—certainly when compared with the masoretic manuscript. The masoretic manuscript, unlike the scrolls, contains long notes in the top and bottom margins, and little notes squeezed between the columns of the biblical text. Looking more closely at the text itself: the masoretic text appears to have all sorts of dots, lines and circles above, below, and within the main letters, which are totally absent from the text in the two scrolls.

Another dramatic difference between the masoretic manuscripts and the scrolls, which is harder to see from the images above, is that the masoretic manuscripts are not scrolls; they are codices (i.e., they look and work like the books we are used to). What is the meaning of all this innovation in the masoretic manuscripts, after well over 1000 years of conservatism? What are the dots, lines and circles all about, and what are those marginal notes? To answer all these questions, we need to take a sidestep and consider the nature of the Hebrew language, and think more carefully about how the text of the Hebrew Bible was transmitted from well before the time of Jesus, to the “masoretic era.”

Hebrew as a Consonantal Language

Ancient Hebrew, like many Semitic Languages, was a consonantal language. This just means that when it was written down, only the consonants of any given word were recorded; most of the vowels were unwritten (though, over time, four particular consonants began to be introduced to indicate some of the vowels). In addition, there was little to no punctuation in the earliest written forms of the language. So, for example, the phrase “the king’s word” would be written with the following consonants: דבר המלך. Or, in English transliteration: dbr hmlk.

This aspect of the written form of the language means that, frequently, a given word or phrase can be interpreted in multiple ways. So, for example, the phrase above could be read as intended: “the king’s word,” but it could also be read as: “the king spoke,” “speak, O king!,” “speak! Appoint a king!,” or even: “Plague was enthroned as king”!

Of course, context is almost always sufficient to clarify such ambiguities. Imagine if my wife gave me a heart-shaped card on Valentine’s Day, with the following text: “wll lv y fr vr”. The context would justify my reading this as “I will love you forever!” rather than the theoretically possible alternative: “I will leave you for Ivor!” Context is a wonderful thing: I feel loved and appreciated, and Ivor gets to keep his front teeth.

Nonetheless, even in context, some ambiguities remain—occasionally theologically significant ambiguities. For an example, we need look no further than the very opening words of the Hebrew Bible:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ והארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשך על־פני תהום
Br’shyt br’ ’lhym ’t hshmym v’t h’rts vh’rts hyth thv vbhv vkhshkh ‘l pny thvm.

By applying one set of vowels and pauses to this consonantal, unpunctuated text, this sentence could be read as:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

But by applying a different set of vowels and pauses, the same string of consonants could be read rather differently:

When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void, and there was darkness over the face of the deep.

Even in cases like this, however, the threat of ambiguity is more theoretical than actual. From the earliest stages of the transmission of the Hebrew Bible, the text was read out loud, not just stared at mutely (remember Nehemiah 8 and Acts 15:21: “For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath”). Reading the text out loud obviously required the proper vowels, and the proper pauses, to be added in the correct places, thereby annulling the great majority of these potential ambiguities.

There is a great deal of evidence that from a very early stage, a traditional way of reading the bald consonantal text was developed: a Reading Tradition. The reading tradition clothed the consonantal text in all the vowels and pauses necessary for the correct understanding of the written consonants. This reading tradition was then passed on, orally, from generation to generation, just as the written, consonantal, text, was copied from generation to generation. In other words, when we conceptualize how the text of the Hebrew Bible was handed down from well before the time of Jesus, to the Middle Ages, we must envision two simultaneous strands to that transmission: one written (the consonantal text), and one oral (the correct reading of the consonantal text).

The reading tradition clothed the consonantal text in all the vowels and pauses necessary for the correct understanding.

The Masoretes and the Masoretic Text

Now we are ready to return to those innovative Masoretic manuscripts. With the rise of Islam in the 7th century AD, and the concomitant increase in written documentation in the following centuries, there was a general cultural tendency in the Middle East towards increasing “textualization.” During this period, traditions that had previously been preserved orally, were increasingly written down. This move towards textualization was, naturally, felt by the Jewish communities living in the Middle East.

In 7th century Tiberias, in the north of the land of Israel, there arose a group of scholars whose particular expertise lay in the accurate preservation of both the written and the oral strands of the Hebrew biblical text. These scholars—The Masoretes (“transmitters of tradition”)—had themselves received the oral tradition regarding the accurate recitation of the consonantal biblical text. The great innovative genius of these scholars was that they found a way to write down (“textualize”) this recitation tradition which had previously been purely oral. They crafted two sets of symbols, each consisting of dots and lines. One set represented vowels, and the other represented the pauses and linkages required to divide the text into the correct sense-units (these latter signs are usually called “accents”). These vowels and accents were then written in and around the consonantal text itself. Thus, for the first time ever, the written and the oral strands of the Hebrew Bible were brought together in written form on the page. Let’s see an example:

Masoretic vowels and accents in Genesis 1:1 in Codex Leningrad clarify the interpretation. Sefaria

Above, we saw that the Masoretic Text, unlike the biblical text preserved in Hebrew Bible scrolls, seems to have all sorts of dots and lines around the consonants. Now we understand that these represent the vowels and accents of the oral reading tradition, made “visible” for the first time on the page, together with the consonantal text. Thus, almost all of the ambiguity of the pure consonantal text evaporates. The image above shows the Masoretic Text from our earlier example from Genesis 1. The two vowels in the upper red box, and the accent in the lower box, point rather clearly towards the interpretation that translates as: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void…”

Innovation and Preservation

To sum up: the Masoretic Text is the particular form of the Hebrew Bible found in Masoretic manuscripts from the 9th–10th centuries onwards, and is the fruit of the genius of the Masoretes—the Jewish textual scholars active in Tiberias from the 7th to the 9th centuries AD. The Masoretic Text differs from previous forms of the Hebrew Bible; previously only the consonantal text was written down (in scrolls), while the ancient tradition of how those consonants should be read out loud was preserved orally. In the Masoretic Text, for the first time ever, the oral recitation tradition was made visible on the page, together with the consonantal text, thanks to the Masoretes’ creation of vowel and accent signs.

What we have done in this article is to explore, from a historical point of view, what the Masoretic Text is, where it came from, and what makes it different to the previous forms of the Hebrew Bible. We have thought of the Masoretic Text as a kind of medieval innovation. But we cannot claim to have begun to understand the Masoretic Text until we have thought about it from the opposite perspective: as an act of extraordinary—almost miraculous—preservation.

Part 5: The Servant Who Sees Light after Anguish

Some ancient manuscripts of Isaiah 53:11 say the servant sees light after his suffering. Does this predict Jesus’ resurrection?

Anthony Ferguson

During Holy Week, Christians often turn their attention to the servant songs of Isaiah, and to Isaiah 53 in particular, because these passages depict the work of God’s salvation through a coming servant, a servant the New Testament writers identify as none other than Jesus (1 Pet. 2:22; Luke 22:37). In this series, we have reflected on several textual issues related to the servant’s identity and work.

As today is Easter Sunday, we turn our attention to the beginning of Isaiah 53:11 to ask whether Isaiah’s prophecy includes not only the servant’s death, but also his resurrection. A quick survey of a few of our English Bibles illustrates the nature of this textual problem and highlights the issue of what the servant sees.

ESV         Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied
NASB     As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied.
CSB         After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied.
NIV         After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;

These four English translations take a slightly different approach to identifying what the servant sees. They range from an unidentified object to a specific object. On the one side, the ESV does not specify what the servant sees. The NASB identifies the object imprecisely as simply it.The CSB is more specific by describing the servant as seeing “light.” Finally, on the opposite side of the continuum, the NIV not only identifies the servant as seeing light but as seeing the “light of life.”

Witnesses

The difference between our English Bibles at the beginning of Isaiah 53:11 illustrates for us an ancient variant that scribes and Bible translators have considered for at least two thousand years. Here is a survey of how Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and Syriac scribes have approached this variant.

Reading	Witness	Text
1. He shall see	MT	From the anguish of his soul, he shall see; he shall be satisfied מֵעֲמַל נַפְשׁוֹ יִרְאֶה יִשְׂבָּע
	Theodotion, Aquila	he shall see; he shall be filled ὄψεται ἐμπλησθήσεται
	Symmachus	he shall see; he shall be filled ὄψεται χορτασθήσεται
	Vulgate	Because his soul labored, he shall see and he shall be satisfied pro eo quod laboravit anima eius videbit et saturabitur
	Targum	He will deliver their soul from the servitude of the nations. They will look on the vengeance of their enemies. They will be satisfied with the plunder of their kings. מִשִׁעבוּד עַמְמַיָא יְשֵׁיזֵיב נַפשְׁהוֹן יִחזוֹן בְפוֹרעָנוּת סָנְאֵיהוֹן יִסבְעוּן מִבִזַת מַלכֵיהוֹן
	Peshitta	And from the labor of his soul, he shall see and he shall be satisfied ܘܡܢ ܥܡܠܐ ܕܢܦܫܗ ܢܚܙܐ܂ ܘܢܣܒܥ
2. He shall see light	1QIsa^a	From the anguish of his soul, he shall see light and he shall be satisfied מעמל נפשוה יראה אור וישבע
	1QIsa^b	From the anguish of his soul, he shall see light; he shall be s[atisfied מעמל נפשו יראה אור יש֯[בע
	4QIsa^d	From the anguish of his soul, he shall see l[ight] and be satisfied מעמל נפׄשו יראה או֯[ר ]וׄשבע֯
	LXX	From the pain of his soul to show him light and to form ἀπὸ τοῦ πόνου τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ, δεῖξαι αὐτῷ φῶς καὶ πλάσαι

A survey of witnesses to Isaiah 53:11

Although we could discuss multiple textual issues here, we will focus on the problem of what the servant sees. These ancient translations provide us with two basic options.

“He will see” MT, Theodotion, Aquila, Symmachus, Vulgate, Targum, Peshitta
“He will see light” 1QIsa^a, 1QIsa^b, and 4QIsa^d, LXX

External Evidence

The first reading is widespread, occurring in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac texts. Moreover, it is early since Aquila dates to the second century AD, and Theodotion probably dates to the first century. Despite these facts, it is not surprising that these texts agree with the Masoretic Text (MT) since they were all translated from a text very close to the MT. The Targum interprets an MT like text by adding the phrase “on the vengeance of their enemies, showing the textual difficulty in this verse.

The second reading is also widespread, occurring in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew parent text of the LXX. It is even earlier than the first reading since the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) dates to the second century BC. 1QIsa^a is, in fact, our oldest biblical manuscript preserving this verse, and it reads “light.” Unlike the first reading, the external evidence for this second reading can be described as “surprising” since three Isaiah manuscripts from Qumran attest it. Most surprising of all is the testimony of 1QIsa^b, a first-century BC manuscript, that usually reads very closely with the MT. Here, however, it agrees with the LXX and two other Dead Sea Scrolls against the MT.

Overall, the external evidence favors the second reading: the servant sees “light.” Now, we turn to the internal evidence.

Internal Evidence

When considering internal evidence, we are asking the following questions: which reading was more likely to derive from a scribe, and which reading was more likely to derive from the author? We can answer these questions by comparing the reading of 1QIsa^b and the reading of the MT.¹ The use of the Masoretic vowel signs didn’t develop until the fifth through seventh centuries so we will only compare the consonants.

MT מעמל נפשו יראה ישבע
From the anguish of his soul, he shall see; he shall be satisfied

1QIsa^b מעמל נפשו יראה אור יש֯[בע
From the anguish of his soul, he shall see light; he shall be satisfied

Could the MT have lost the word “light” (אור)?

First, let’s consider if the MT lost this word by scribal error. Scribes, at times, omitted text when their eyes skipped over words. This is known as parablepsis (lit. “to look beside”). Parablepsis can be caused when words start with the same letters (homoioarcton) or when they end with them (homoioteleuton). These are not uncommon scribal errors. Yet, when we compare the reading of the MT with the reading of 1QIsa^b, parablepsis is not a likely explanation. Notice how the words אור (ʾôr) and ישבע (yiśbāʿ) do not begin with the same letter, ruling out homoioarcton. Likewise, יראה (yirʾeh) and אור (ʾôr) do not end with the same letter, ruling out homoioteleuton. Thus, the scribe of the MT likely did not commit parablepsis. If this was a scribal error, the error was simply a “random omission.”²

What about an intentional omission? At times, scribes could intentionally omit words for the sake of clarity. But this cause, in my experience, is rare. Moreover, the immediate context of the MT does not provide a basis for omitting this word. That is, the effect of omitting this word does not achieve any apparent goal like providing greater clarity; if anything, it makes it less clear. This explanation seems unlikely.

Could the other witnesses have added “light” (אור)? First, could the word have been added through scribal error? At times, scribes accidentally add words. Reasons for adding content include errors such as dittography (a scribe writes a word twice instead of once), but the letters of the word “light” are not written twice so that explanation does not account for the data. In other instances, scribes may incorporate marginal readings into the text, but there is no evidence for that happening here. It is improbable that the other witnesses added this word by accident.

Second, could the other texts have added this word intentionally? This explanation is possible since the verb “to see” (ראה) often takes an object. People see “something” or “someone.” Even though this verb often takes objects, objects are not always specified.³ It is possible that the lack of an object led a subsequent scribe to add an object. Although this is possible, several witnesses have this object. How did this reading become so widespread if it was a scribal addition?⁴

To See Light or Not?

Finally, we should ask what’s at stake. What would it mean for the servant to “see light” here? There are two idiomatic phrases in Hebrew that are especially relevant. First, the phrase “see light” (יראה אור) is an idiom for describing life while the phrase “not seeing light” is an idiom of death.⁵ Job 33:28 and 30, for example, describe life—resurrected life—as “seeing light.” Moreover, in Psalm 36:9, “seeing light” is associated with the “fountain of life” which is the opposite of death according to Proverbs 13:14 and 14:27. Furthermore, death is described in Job 3:16 and Psalm 49:19 as “not seeing light.” Second, a related Hebrew idiom means “to regain strength” (תארנה עינים).⁶ This idiom is used by Jonathan to describe the effect of honey. Although famished and weak, the taste of honey caused his eyes to be bright (1 Sam. 14:27, 29).⁷ Overall, the idea of “seeing light” describes life. And not just any life, but specifically the revival of life or resurrected life.

Isaiah describes the servant as smitten, afflicted, pierced, crushed, and oppressed. He is described as a lamb led to the slaughter. The climax of this suffering is none other than his death (Isa. 53:8) and being buried (Isa. 53:9); yet, out of this anguish, the servant “sees light” and is satisfied (Isa. 53:11). The reading of 1QIsa^a, 1QIsa^b, 4QIsa^d, and the Hebrew parent text of the LXX describes the servant’s death and resurrection idiomatically as “seeing light.” Thus, what’s at stake, is nothing short of the servant’s resurrection after death.

The question remains: which reading is more original? The two (opposing) explanations with the best support are that:

the reading “light” was lost due to a scribal error
the reading was added for the sake of clarity

Among these options, my conclusion is that the more original reading is likely “he shall see light” because it is more likely that the small word “light” was lost in the MT tradition because of scribal error rather than the reading being a secondary addition preserved in three early Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran and the LXX. The fact that the reading “light” appears in 1QIsa^b is especially important since this text aligns closely with the MT tradition but disagrees here.

Conclusion

The textual problem in this text concerns the resurrection, a matter of first importance for the gospel according to Paul. He says this happened according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3–6). Without the resurrection, humanity is still lost and under the curse of sin. Without the resurrection, we stand before God still under our first father, Adam. The servant, however, as a new Adam, rewrites our past and gives us a new history through his resurrection.

The servant, as a new Adam, rewrites our past and gives us a new history through his resurrection.

This idea is taught in Isaiah 53 since the servant is “cut off from the land of the living”—an idiom for the curse and spiritual death (Isa. 53:8). Remarkably, Isaiah’s servant receives the covenantal blessings of an inheritance (Isa. 53:12) and, despite dying, he “shall see light” (Isa. 53:11). The dead can see light, and this is our hope for this Easter season. He is risen!

Notes

1
Although 1QIsa^a is older than 1QIsa^b, we will compare the MT to 1QIsa^b because this is the only difference between these texts. 1QIsa^a has other minor differences when compared to the MT.
2
Tov uses this language to describe this error in TCHB, 221.
3
See DCH, s.v. ראה.
4
See Dominique Barthelemy Studies in the Text of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, Textual Criticism and the Translator 3 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 399.
5
John Meade mentioned this connection to me in a private conversation.
6
See DCH, s.v. אור.
7
Moreover, in Ben Sira 13:26, the author describes the happy heart as a “bright countenance” פנים אורים.

Part 4: Who Does the Servant Intercede For?

The servant is identified with the many rebels and yet distinct enough from them in order to carry their sins.

John D. Meade

With this next problem in Isaiah 53, we come to a couple of textual problems that again touch on the servant’s vicarious death for the many. The problems in the prologue (52:14–15) showed us a servant who is an anointed high priest above others (rather than a disfigured person) and who sprinkles many nations. In 53:8–9, Isaiah describes the servant as one stricken to death and then subsequently assigned a tomb with a rich man.

The NIV is representative of our English translations for the final two lines of Isaiah 53:12:

For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Is this the correct text and translation?

In what follows, we (1) give the manuscript evidence for the word “sin” in the first line and for the phrase “for the transgressors” in the last; (2) summarize the readings and make some observations about them; (3) treat the difficulty in our received Hebrew text or the Masoretic Text; and (4) conclude with my preferred translation and a few points on the relevance of the reading.

Witnesses

Here, we will list all the witnesses in original language and English translation. The textual problem is indicated in each witness by the use of italics so that one can see the different readings most clearly.¹

Reading	Witness	Text
sin; rebels	MT	yet he bore the sin of many and he intercedes for the rebels (?) וְהוּא חֵטְא רַבִּים נָשָׂא וְלַפֹּשְׁעִים יַפְגִּיעַ
	Latin Vulgate	and he carried the sin of the many and interceded for the transgressors et ipse peccatum multorum tulit et pro transgressoribus rogavit
sins; rebellions	1QIsa^a	yet he bore the sins of many and at their rebellions he intervenes והואה חטאי רבים נשׂא ולפשׁעיהמה יפגע
	1QIsa^b	yet] he bore the sins of many and at their rebellions he intervenes והוא חטא]י רבים נשׂא ולפשׁעיהם יפגיע
	4QIsa^d	yet he bore the sins of many and at their rebellions [he intervenes] והוא חטאי רבים נשׂא ולפשׁעיה[ם יפגיע
	LXX	and he bore the sins of many and due to their sins he was handed over καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκε καὶ διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη
sins; rebels	Theodotion	… and he will torture the wicked ones … et impios torquebit
	Aquila	… and he will resist those mocking him … occurret irridentibus eum
	Symmachus	and he took the sins of the many upon himself and he stood against the traitors αὐτὸς δὲ ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνέλαβε καὶ τοῖς ἀθετοῦσιν ἀντέστη
	Syriac Peshitta	and he bore the sins of the many and he attacked the wicked ܘܗܘ ܚ̈ܛܗܐ ܕܣ̈ܓܝܐܐ ܫܩܠ ܘܒܥ̇ܘ̈ܠܐ ܦܓܥ
	Aramaic Targum	yet he will beseech concerning the sins of many, and to the rebels it shall be forgiven for him וְהוּא עַל חוֹבִין סַגִיאִין יִבעֵי וֻלמָרוֹדַיָא יִשׁתְבֵיק לֵיה

A survey of witnesses to Isaiah 53:12

Isaiah 53:12 in Codex Leningrad (1008 AD), 1QIsa^a (2nd c. BC), and Codex Sinaiticus (4th c. AD). Images from Sefaria, Wikipedia, Codex Sinaiticus

Observations

From these sources, we can discern two problems, one in each line of the verse.

Isaiah 53:12a

“he bore the sins of many” 1QIsa^a, 1QIsa^b, 4QIsa^d, LXX, Symmachus, Peshitta, Targum
“he bore the sin of many” MT, Vulgate

Isaiah 53:12b

“and at their rebellions he intervenes” 1QIsa^a, 1QIsa^b, 4QIsa^d, LXX
“and he intercedes for the rebels” MT, Theodotian, Aquila, Symmachus, Vulgate, Peshitta, Targum

What does the servant bear?

Regarding the first problem, the testimony for “sins” over “sin” is very strong. The difference between texts regards whether the single letter yod (י) is present or lacking. It’s a small letter and therefore could have easily dropped out accidentally. Another possible explanation is that the MT and Vulgate assimilated their texts to the singular “sin” already mentioned in the singular in 53:6 “iniquity” and 53:8 “transgression, rebellion.” In either case, the singular “sin” should be considered secondary, and we should choose the text containing the plural “sins” along with the best and majority of witnesses.

In the second problem, the reading “their rebellions” also enjoys the best external evidence. There is also a clear explanation for how the MT reads “transgressors”: the scribe assimilated his text here to the first instance of “transgressors” earlier in v. 12. In other words, the text containing “for the rebels” can best be explained as a secondary modification of the original “at their rebellions,” while the reverse is more difficult to explain.

In his analysis, Dominque Barthélemy wisely chose to handle the three textual problems in 53:11–12 together because 1QIsa^{a, b}, 4QIsa^d, all agree with LXX’s Hebrew text against the MT in these three well attested real variants among witnesses. Thus, for these verses, we are dealing with an ancient text type (attested by three Qumran texts and the Hebrew parent text of LXX) from which the MT is different in these three variants. Significantly, 1QIsa^b only contains notable variants to the MT in these verses and nowhere else. This gives us reason to suspect error in the internal transmission of the MT for these verses.² Therefore, the MT has probably suffered error in these three crucial places.

The external evidence for these two problems, as for the one in 53:11, is quite impressive, and we should choose its text. But what about the traditional reading of the MT: “and he will intercede for the transgressors”? We must say a word about the implausibility of this reading.

What does he intercede for?

Although most English translations have something like “he intercedes for (יַפְגִּיעַ ל) the transgressors,” this syntax is otherwise unattested in MT, and therefore this reading is uncertain. The Hebrew verb paga‘ means “to meet” “come upon” (cf. Exod. 23:4), often in either the sense of entreat (e.g., Gen 23:8) or encounter with hostility (e.g., Exod. 5:3). Thus, in the causative stem, the verb means “to cause x to come upon y” as it does in Isaiah 53:6: “and Yahweh caused the (הִפְגִּיעַ אֵת) iniquity … to come upon (ב) him.” In Jeremiah 36:25, three individuals make entreaty with (הִפְגִּעוּ ב) the king. In each of these cases, the Hebrew beth preposition marks the person with whom the entreaty is or upon whom something is coming. But in the MT of Isaiah 53:12, we encounter the lamed preposition governing a person (i.e. “transgressors”).³

Although our English translations interpret the syntax positively (“intercession for the benefit of the transgressors”), the Hebrew could be read negatively. In fact, very early Jewish translations of this text into Greek (Theodotion, Aquila, Symmachus) plainly render the proto-MT something like, “he will attack the rebels”; that is, he will encounter the wicked with hostility, describing the servant as defeating enemies. Given the MT’s syntax, both readings are possible. But in contrast to the ambiguity of the MT, the reading of the three Dead Sea Scrolls plus the LXX shows that only the servant could intervene at the rebellions of the many.

Based on the external evidence, there’s a more satisfactory solution for the ending of the song: he intervened at their rebellions. In Isaiah 59:16, another instance of our verb appears without any prepositional phrases: “then he [Yahweh] saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one who intervened (מַפְגִּיעַ).” This usage is akin to the one in our verse, since its complement is now lamed + impersonal object. That is, the lamed preposition does not mark the relation of an event to a person but rather defines the situation or event at which the servant intervenes, i.e., at the rebellions of the many. Note the LXX’s translation “due to their sins” comes close to this meaning showing that the sins of the many are the cause or situation for the servant’s intervention.

The original text changes the way we analyze the grammar of this line. We should also note how the usage in Isaiah 59:16 increases the tension concerning who will intervene for the people. The text claims no man intervenes, but in Isaiah 53:12, the servant does intervene which increases curiosity over his identity.

Putting all this together, we should translate the line: “Yet he bore the sins of many and at their rebellions he intervenes.”

Why it matters

In Isaiah 53:10–12, the song focuses on the relationship between the one and the many. For example, at the end of v. 11, the one servant is described as “righteous,” and he thus declares the many righteous. The many share in the verdict of the one. Also, in the one’s victory, the many are given a portion and with the numerous the victory spoils are divided (cf. Isa. 53:12a). In 53:12b, the servant is numbered with the rebels, and in 53:12c, he intervenes at their rebellions.

The one servant is both identified with the many rebels and yet distinct enough from them in order to carry their sins and intervene at their rebellions. Only the king would be in solidarity with the nation’s plight and at the same time distinct from the nation to rescue it from it (cf. Isaiah 49:1–6 which already prepares the reader for this conclusion).

Only the king would be in solidarity with the nation’s plight and at the same time distinct from the nation to rescue it from it.

One last note on the readings of “sins” and “transgressions / rebellions” in this line. The New Testament authors in many places describe Jesus’ atoning death as “due to our trespasses” (e.g., Rom. 4:25) or “for our sins” (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:3; cf. 1 Pet. 2:24). The reading of Isaiah 53:12 proposed here is right in line with how the apostles interpreted the Messiah’s vicarious death “according to the Scriptures.”

Notes

1
For Theodotion, the reading is found in Armenian translation of a Greek work incorrectly attributed to Chrysostom but presented in Latin translation here. For Aquila, the reading is found in Armenian translation of a Greek work incorrectly attributed to Chrysostom but presented in Latin translation here. Theodoret cites Symmachus and follows with “and so also the Rest [of the translators];” that is, Aquila and Theodotion must have rendered the Hebrew similarly, but he does not give their exact readings.
2
Dominique Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament. 2. Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamentations, Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 50/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 405; cf. also Jan de Waard, A Handbook on Isaiah (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 197–8.
3
Ernst Jenni, Die hebräischen Präpositionen. Band 3: Die Präposition Lamed (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2000), 122, suggests, “to minister to someone,” interpreting the lamed as indicating the relationship between the event of ministering and the entity of the transgressors. All the major Hebrew lexicons (e.g., BDB, HALOT, Gesenius; cf. פָּגַע Hi) render the lamed “for,” i.e., for the benefit of the transgressors.

Part 3: The Servant’s Burial according to the Scriptures

The variation in Isaiah 53:9 touches directly on Christ’s fulfillment of the prophecy in his burial.

Peter J. Gentry

Isaiah’s fourth servant song is by far the most famous, not least because Christians have long read it as one of the greatest Old Testament prophecies about the heart of the Christian faith, the death of Jesus. In this Easter series, we are focusing on major textual problems in Isaiah 53 as a necessary step in identifying the suffering servant.

Christ was buried according to the Scriptures. This is what the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 and he also says that it is a matter of chief importance. With more detail, Matthew reports that Jesus’ body was laid in a new tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea. But were these details predicted in the Scriptures?

Before answering this question by treating the textual problem in Isaiah 53:9, let’s review some conclusions of our series. In Isaiah 52:14–15, we showed that the prologue’s description of the servant’s exaltation was better understood in terms of an exalted high priest’s anointing and his sprinkling of many nations, a theme picked up again and expanded in the latter part of the song.

In the case of Isaiah 53:8, we saw that, although the textual problem is difficult, the Hebrew text behind the LXX is probably the original text, and therefore, Isaiah’s song pictures the servant being stricken to death.

In this article, we move to Isaiah 53:9 and must unpack yet another textual problem, this one having to do with whether the servant is assigned a death or a tomb with the rich. To see why, we will (1) list the witnesses with an English translation; (2) summarize and make some observations about them; (3) show that the best reading is found in 1QIsa^a; and (4) conclude with the relevance of this reading for the New Testament’s portrait of Jesus.

Witnesses

Reading	Witness	Text
1. his tomb	1QIsa^a	And they assigned his burial with wicked men and with a rich man his tomb¹ ויתנו את רשעים קברו ועמ עשירים בומתו
2. in his deaths	MT	And he assigned his burial with wicked men, and with a rich man in his deaths (?) וַיִּתֵּן אֶת־רְשָׁעִים קִבְרוֹ וְאֶת־עָשִׁיר בְּמֹתָ֑יו
	LXX	And I will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death καὶ δώσω τοὺς πονηροὺς ἀντὶ τῆς ταφῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς πλουσίους ἀντὶ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ·
	Symmachus (via Eusebius)	He will assign the wicked for his grave και δωσει τους ασεβεις αντι της ταφης αυτου
	Latin Vulgate	And he will give the wicked for his burial and the rich for his death et dabit impios pro sepultura et divitem pro morte sua
	Syriac Peshitta	He gave his grave with the impious and the rich in his death (or at his death) ܝܗܒ ܪܫܝܥܐ ܩܒܪܗ ܘܥܬܝܪܐ ܒܡܘܬܗ
	Aramaic Targum	And he will hand over the wicked to Gehenna and those rich in possessions which they robbed to a death of Perdition וְיִמסַר יָת רַשִיעַיָא לְגֵיהִנָם וְיָת עַתִּירֵי נִכסַיָא דַּאְנַסוּ בְּמוֹתא דְאַבדָנָא
3. his high places	Medieval MSS²	“his high places” בְּמֹתָ֑יו] בָמתיו

A survey of witnesses to Isaiah 53:9

The three main options are:

“his tomb” 1QIsa^a
“in his deaths” MT, Targum, smoothly translated as “in his death” in LXX, Vulgate, Peshitta
“his high places” Medieval Hebrew manuscripts

Observations

First, we need to consider whether or not the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) from the Dead Sea Scrolls has preserved a better reading than the Masoretic Text. Isaiah 53:9 is rendered by the ESV as: “And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.”

The Great Isaiah Scroll was among the first discovered. Today, it is housed at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Photo by Dennis Jarvis
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For the phrase “in his death,” the Masoretic Text (MT) has “in his deaths,” with the word for death in the plural (בְּמֹתָ֑יו) followed by the pronoun. Elsewhere in the Old Testament the word for “death” is found in the plural only in Ezekiel 28:10 where the phrase means “the deaths of the uncircumcised people” (מוֹתֵי עֲרֵלִים) and both words are plural. Thus, a phrase “in his deaths” where “death” is plural and the referent is singular is both odd and unique. And this is not from a small sample; the noun “death” is found 161× in the MT (including Isa. 53:9).

Two medieval manuscripts and the first hand of a third have בָמתיו (also Rome, Bibl. Vat. Urbinates 1). If the first vowel is qāmeṣ instead of shewa, the phrase would mean “his high places.” This is an error in vocalization since shewa is guaranteed by a Masoretic note in our best manuscripts.³

The Septuagint, the Syriac Peshitta and the Latin Vulgate render this phrase with the word “death” in the singular. This is a facilitating translation, smoothing over the difficulty. The Jewish revisor Symmachus corrects the first-person singular verb in the Septuagint to a 3rd masculine singular pronoun and renders “wicked” (רשעים) by the more usual equivalent “the wicked” (ἀσεβεῖς), but is not extant for the part of the verse we are considering. Nonetheless, the reading of Symmachus shows up the interpretive character of the LXX and aligns closely with the MT.

The paraphrase of the Aramaic Targum is the only witness which allows for this word a plural context thus supporting the MT. 1QIsa^a is the sole witness attesting בומתו, whose meaning will be discussed shortly. Note that 1QIsa^a also has בומתי in Isaiah 14:14 and 58:14. Its testimony is older than all of the other witnesses.

In the history of interpretation, almost the entire Jewish tradition reads “in his deaths.” Three Jewish commentators offer a different interpretation of whom the chief is Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164 AD). Ibn Ezra states: “some say that the word במתיו is from the root בָּמוֹתֵימוֹ (Deut. 33:29), the meaning being the construction one establishes over a grave. במתיו would therefore be similar to קברו [“his grave”]… If someone objects that the vocalization of בָּמוֹת does not change in בָּמותימו, while it changes in the word בְּמתיו, one can answer that this word can be spelled according to two noun patterns like סְרִיסֵי (“officers of”; Gen. 40:7) and סָרִיסֵי (“eunuchs of”; Est. 6:14).”

The Best Reading

Before offering an interpretation of the reading in 1QIsa^a, we must analyze the different ways the terms are spelled in this particular manuscript. This step will ensure accuracy of interpretation. Here is the data of 1QIsa^a with the MT given for comparison in parentheses:

“Tomb” or “Height”

Isaiah 14:14 בומתי (MT בָּמֳתֵי)
Isaiah 58:14 בומתי (MT בָּמֳותֵי)

“Cult Shrine” or “High Place”

Isaiah 16:12 הבמה (MT הַבָּמָה)
Isaiah 36:7 במותיו (MT בָּמֹתָיו)

This analysis shows that 1QIsa^a consistently distinguishes the Hebrew terms for “tomb” and “high place” with distinct ancient spellings for each. Concerning these spellings of 1QIsa^a (בומתו Isa. 53:9, בומתי in 14:14 and 58:14), let us note that, already in the 18th century, before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr. Jubb already surmised that Hebrew lexicography is wrong to confuse a word במה (plural: במות) meaning “a place consecrated to the deity,” “a cult center or shrine,” with a word במות (plural: במותים) designating a “height.”⁴ In this sense (attested in Isa. 14:14; 58:14), the word would designate in Isaiah 53:9 more specifically a funerary mound or tomb. Note that in Isaiah 16:12 and 36:7 where it clearly indicates places of worship, 1QIsa^a does not write waw (ו) in the first syllable. Barthélemy believes that the spellings of 1QIsa^a confirm the opinion of Bauer/Leander (597) who saw in בָּמֳתֵי the plural constructed from a singular בֹּ֫מֶת. He argues that we should correct Jubb’s intuition and say therefore that we have confused in the Masoretic vocalization and in the lexicons, a word בָּמָ֫ה “high place” and a word בֹּ֫מֶת “funerary mound.” 1QIsa^a allows us to find the second word in Isaiah 53:9.

There may be a problem, however, in proposing בֹּ֫מֶת as the form of the noun in the singular. If the singular was “tomb”(בֹּ֫מֶת), the construct plural would be “of tombs” (בָּמְתֵי), like “of holy ones” (קָדְשֵׁי), instead of the spelling “of heights” (בָּמֳתֵי)which is found in MT in Isaiah 14:14 and 58:14. In a reanalysis of the form of the noun, Hardy and Thomas propose a base form *bɘmot derived from original *bumut. This would yield a noun bɘmot, construct masc. plural בָּמֳתֵי. This noun means “back, mountain ridge » height, barrow/funeral mound.” A different and unrelated noun would be bɔmɔ, plural bɔmôt meaning “cult center / shrine.”⁵

But since the Great Isaiah Scroll is consistent in 14:14, 53:9 and 58:14 versus 16:12 and 36:7, we are looking directly at genuine evidence for the Hebrew language in the second or first century BC, not a corruption in one place in a manuscript. And this is the earliest interpretation! Moreover, the base meaning of the noun is “back” and not “corpse.” The notion of a back-shaped geographical feature like a mountain ridge or height can be easily derived metaphorically from “back.” Furthermore, an evolution in lexical usage from “open country” to “height” is just not plausible.

There is good reason, then, on the basis of our earliest witness to the text, to propose the following translation: “And he assigned his grave with the wicked and his tomb with a rich man.”

The Servant’s Tomb in the New Testament

Although this textual problem may not seem significant, this solution actually contributes to the portrait and prediction of the suffering servant. Assigning the servant’s tomb with a rich man accords with a detail given by Matthew that “a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, … took the body [of Jesus] … and laid it in his own new tomb” (Matt. 27:57–60). Our reading of Isaiah 53:9 fits the prediction of the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb that Matthew reports.

Our reading fits the prediction of the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb that Matthew reports.

Therefore, in summary, the servant was stricken to death in 53:8 and assigned a tomb with a rich man in 53:9. There is a progression between these two verses which matches the early creed that Paul also received as of chief importance: “Christ died … according to the Scriptures and was buried … according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4).

Notes

1
Corrector has עשיר (singular) by erasing ים and corrected עמ to עת (= את assuming weakening of gutturals). 1QIsa^b and 4QIsa^d are damaged at this place in the manuscript and do not give pertinent information for this problem.
2
de Rossi 440, 545, primo 304
3
Petrograd Prophets, Paris BN heb 2 and 6, Rome, Bibl. Vat. ebr 468 and 482, and Second Rabbinic Bible.
4
Quoted by Robert Lowth, Isaiah. A New Translation with … Notes, London, 1778.
5
Hardy and Thomas reject the proposal that Isaiah 53:9 is related to bɘmot meaning ‘back’ » ‘height’ for the following reasons: “it preferences the evidence from one text, the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), which it has been suggested represents a corruption, over that of the earliest interpreters; and second, it relies on a meaning of the lexeme, ‘dead body, corpse’, unattested elsewhere (Kogan and Tishchenko, p. 346).” See Humphrey H. Hardy II and Benjamin D. Thomas, “Another Look at Biblical Hebrew bɔmɔ ‘High Place’,” Vetus Testamentum 62 (2012): 175–188. They are responding to L. Kogan and S. Tishchenko, “Lexicographic Notes on Hebrew bamah,” Ugarit-Forschungen 34 (2002), 319–52. Nonetheless, the Great Isaiah Scroll is consistent in Isaiah 14:14, 53:9 and 58:14 versus 16:12 and 36:7.

Topics

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1. Internal Dates and Contents

2. Archeological Context

3. Radiocarbon Dating

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4. Ancient Handwriting

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Bible Manuscripts through the Ages

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Hebrew as a Consonantal Language

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The Masoretes and the Masoretic Text

Innovation and Preservation

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To See Light or Not?

Conclusion

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What does the servant bear?

What does he intercede for?

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The Servant’s Tomb in the New Testament

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