The Torah: The Five Books of Moses

About the Book

This is the first electronic edition of the critically acclaimed JPS translation of the Torah with the traditional (masoretic) text. This edition of the Bible is an identical copy of the printed text made for your convenient display on your PC, laptop of Tablet PC. It is perfect for individual or group study. It retains most of the benefits of the hardcopy while adding rich functionality embedded in electronic format.

FROM PREFACE

The Jewish Publication Society of America produced its first translation of the Bible in 1917. It was quickly accepted by English-speaking Jews the world over; it is still in use and will no doubt continue to be widely favored. Nevertheless, the need for a new translation has been obvious for years.

For one thing, it is possible and therefore necessary to improve substantially on earlier versions in rendering both the shades of meaning of words and expressions and the force of grammatical forms and constructions. This can be done partly with the help of neglected insights of ancient and medieval Jewish scholarship, and partly by utilizing the new knowledge of the ancient, as well as of the more recent, Near East. For significant advances have been made during the past half century in biblical archaeology and in the recovery of the languages and civilizations of the peoples among whom the Israelites lived and whose modes of living and thinking they largely shared. In accuracy alone … this translation has improved on the first JPS translation in literally hundreds of passages.

Secondly, because the Bible is an eternal book, it must be made intelligible to every generation. The King James Version, upon which almost all English translations of the Bible have hitherto been based, had an archaic flavor even for its readers in the year 1611, when it was first published. Moreover, it rendered the Hebrew to a considerable extent word for word rather than idiomatically, a procedure which nearly always results in quaintness or awkwardness and not infrequently in obscurity. A translation which is stilted where the original is natural, heavy where the original is graceful, or obscure where the original is perfectly intelligible, is the very opposite of faithful.

These were the primary reasons why the Trustees and the Publication Committee of the Jewish Publication Society decided to have a new translation prepared…

While the committee profited much from the work of previous translators, the present rendering is not a revision, but essentially a new translation. A few of its characteristics may be noted. The committee undertook faithfully to follow the traditional (masoretic) text. There were certain points, however, at which footnotes appeared necessary…

Obsolete words and phrases were avoided; and Hebrew idioms were translated, in so far as possible, by means of their normal English equivalents. For the second person singular, the modern "you" was used, even when referring to the Deity ("You"), rather than the archaic "thou" ("Thou"). A further obvious difference between this translation and most of the older ones may be noted in the rendering of the Hebrew particle waw, which is usually translated "and." The Hebrew Bible style demanded its frequent use. But in that style it had the force, not only of "and," but also of "however," "but," "yet," "when," and any number of such other words and particles, or of none at all that can be translated into English. Always to render it as "and" is to misrepresent the Hebrew rather than be faithful to it. Consequently, the committee translated the particle as the sense required, or left it untranslated.

The chapter and verse divisions found in the printed Bible are indispensable as a system of precise reference, but they do not always coincide with the organic divisions of the text. The chapter divisions, whose origin is neither ancient nor Jewish but medieval Christian, sometimes join or separate the wrong paragraphs, sentences, or even parts of sentences. The verse divisions, though considerably older and of Jewish origin, sometimes join together parts of different sentences or separate from each other parts of the same sentence. It is not surprising that Rav Saadia Gaon, the brilliant scholar who translated the Bible into Arabic in the tenth century, paid no attention to the chapter divisions, since they did not exist in his day. More noteworthy is the readiness with which he joined separate verses of the masoretic text (whose authority he did not question) into single sentences when the sense required it. Thus, in joining Gen. 7.24 and 8.1 into a single sentence, the present translation is merely following the example of Saadia. The attentive reader will discover other instances in which the translators have not hesitated to follow what they considered to be the logical units of meaning even when they do not coincide with the conventional chapters and verses. These, however, are marked and numbered throughout…

The Trustees of the Jewish Publication Society and the Committee of Translators [received later] hundreds of suggestions and scores of reviews which this translation of the Torah evoked. The simpler improvements and the inevitable typographical errors were corrected in the successive reprintings. The translators thought it necessary, however, for the sake of greater clarity and faithfulness to the Hebrew text, to subject their work to a thorough re-examination. They incorporated those substantive changes of whose need they had become convinced. Consequently, the second edition, while adhering to the same policies and principles of Bible translation that were followed in the first edition, occasionally differs from it in phrasing and sometimes in meaning.

About the Author

The Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia), the oldest Jewish book publishing house in the United States.

Contents

THE FIVE BOOKS OF THE TORAH

GENESIS

EXODUS

LEVITICUS

NUMBERS

DEUTERONOMY

TABLE OF SCRIPTURAL READINGS

GENESIS

BERESHIT

NOAH

LEKH LEKHA

VA-YERA"

HAYYEI SARAH

TOLEDOT

VA-YETSE

VA-YISHLAH

VA-YESHEV

MIKKETS

VA-YIGGASH

VA-YEHI

EXODUS

SHEMOT

VA"ERA"

BO"

BE-SHALLAH

YITRO

MISHPATIM

TERUMAH

TETSAVVEH

KI TISSA"

VA-YAKHEL

PEKUDEI

LEVITICUS

VA-YIKRA"

TSAV

SHEMINI

TAZRIA"

METSORA"

"AHAREI MOT

KEDOSHIM

"EMOR

BE-HAR

BE-HUKKOTAI

NUMBERS

BE-MIDBAR

NASO"

BE-HA"ALOTEKHA

SHELAH-LEKHA

KORAH

HUKKAT

BALAK

PINHAS

MATTOT

MASE"EI

DEUTERONOMY

DEVARIM

VA-"ETHANNAN

"EKEV

REнEH

SHOFETIM

KI TETSE"

KI TAVO"

NITSAVIM

VA-YELEKH

HA"AZINU

VE-ZO"T HA-BERAKHAH