Toon TheologyWhat Jesus quoted from the Hebrew Bible
Scaffold. The Hebrew is the source text as the corpus carries it. Where the Greek of the New Testament follows the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew, that is noted — it matters and it is usually left unmentioned.
Every one of these is a Jewish teacher quoting his own scriptures to people who knew them by heart. Read the Hebrew he was quoting and the sentence changes shape.
The New Testament quotes the Hebrew Bible constantly, and English translations flatten the seam: the same English prose on both sides of the quotation marks. Underneath there are two languages and often two textual traditions.
This is the one collection that puts both readers on the same page. Where the wording diverges, that is the interesting part, not an embarrassment to be smoothed over.
The first and greatest commandment
Quoted when asked which commandment is greatest. It is the second line of the Shema, said twice daily by observant Jews then and now — so he answers a scholar's question with the sentence every child in the room already knew. Measured coverage: 100%, which makes it the easiest verse in the Hebrew Bible to read first.
Deuteronomy 6:5beginner
And the second is like it
The half-verse he joins to the Shema. In Leviticus it closes a paragraph of blunt social legislation — do not steal, do not lie, do not curse the deaf, pay your worker the same day. 'Love your neighbour' arrives there as a summary of unpaid wages and honest scales, not as a sentiment.
Leviticus 19:18intermediate
Vocabulary — 1 word(s) occurring 50 times or fewer
- תִטֹּר֙
The cry from the cross
The hardest verse in this collection to read in Hebrew — 70% coverage, the lowest of any verse I have measured on this site. Quoting a psalm's first line was a way of invoking the whole psalm, and this one ends in vindication. Both facts are true at once, and reaching for either to soften the other is the mistake.
Psalms 22:1advanced
No English for this verse — the KJV table in the corpus covers 27,326 verses of 31,102 and this one falls in the gap. Other languages held: fr. The line above is the glosses in order, not a translation.
Vocabulary — 2 word(s) occurring 50 times or fewer
- אַיֶּ֥לֶת
- שַּׁ֗חַר
Grammar
- מְנַצֵּחַ — piel — intensive or factitive
Read aloud in Nazareth
He reads it in the synagogue, stops mid-sentence, sits down, and says it is fulfilled today. What he leaves off is as pointed as what he reads: the next clause is the day of vengeance of our God, and he does not read it.
Isaiah 61:1advanced
Vocabulary — 5 word(s) occurring 50 times or fewer
- עֲנָוִ֗ים
- חֲבֹ֣שׁ
- שְׁבוּיִם֙
- דְּרֹ֔ור
- פְּקַח־קֹֽוחַ
Grammar
- בַשֵּׂ֣ר — piel — intensive or factitive
- נִשְׁבְּרֵי — nifal — passive or reflexive
Man shall not live by bread alone
Quoted in the wilderness, to a tempter, about bread — and its own original setting is Israel hungry in the wilderness being fed manna. He answers a wilderness test with a wilderness text, from the same forty-year story he is standing inside.
Deuteronomy 8:3intermediate
Vocabulary — 1 word(s) occurring 50 times or fewer
- מֹוצָ֥א
Grammar
- יְעַנְּךָ֮ — piel — intensive or factitive
- יַּרְעִבֶךָ֒ — hifil — causative: “caused to …”
About the Greek and the Hebrew
Where the Greek follows the Septuagint against the Hebrew, the differences are usually small and occasionally load-bearing. Naming them is not a threat to anything; pretending they are not there is.