Torah: The Five Books of Moses

638 Pages·2001·5.43 MB·English

by  The Jewish Publication Society of America

<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE

quickly became apparent. It is, however, the hope of
all those who have had a share in the work that the
translation of the other two parts of the Holy
Scriptures—the Prophets and the Writings—will be
completed within a reasonable period of time and that
the results of our labors will find favor with God and
man.
The Jewish Publication Society
of America
„"΢˙ ‰�˘‰ ˘‡¯ ·¯Ú
September 28, 1962
x
The Tor ah

ä ø å ú
the five books of moses
Electronic edition of
a new JPS translation of
the holy scriptures
according to the Masoretic text
VARDA BOOKS
skokie, illinois, usa
5762 / 2001
COPYRIGHT © 2001 BY VARDA BOOKS
COPYRIGHT © 1962 BY THE JEWISH
PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
THIRD EDITION © 1992 BY
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY
first paperback edition 1999
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission in writing from the publisher.
Designed and typeset by VARDA Graphics, Inc., Skokie, Illinois
Print edition, which served as a basis for this ebook, has been catalogued thus:
Library of Congress Catalog Card information
Bible. O.T. Pentateuch. English. Jewish Publication Society.
1963, 1992.

The Torah: the five books of Moses. 3d ed.

ISBN 0-8276-0015-1

A new translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the
Masoretic text. First section.
BS1223 1963 222'.1'052 62-12948
New ISBN 1-59045-501-0 Library PDF
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE

quickly became apparent. It is, however, the hope of
all those who have had a share in the work that the
translation of the other two parts of the Holy
Scriptures—the Prophets and the Writings—will be
completed within a reasonable period of time and that
the results of our labors will find favor with God and
man.
The Jewish Publication Society
of America
„"΢˙ ‰�˘‰ ˘‡¯ ·¯Ú
September 28, 1962
x
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
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 nec-
essary—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 re­
covery 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 we believe this translation has improved on the
first JPS translation in literally hundreds of passages.
v
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE
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 trans­
lations 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 He­
brew to a considerable extent word for word rather
than idiomatically, a procedure which nearly always re­
sults in quaintness or awkwardness and not infre­
quently 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 Publi­
cation Society decided to have a new translation pre­
pared. Dr. Harry M. Orlinsky, Professor of Bible at the
Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion,
who had urged this undertaking upon the Society, was
asked to serve as editor-in-chief. To serve with him as
fellow editors, the Society invited two eminent schol­
ars: Dr. H. L. Ginsberg, Professor of Bible at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, and Dr. Ephraim A. Speiser,
head of the Department of Semitic and Oriental Lan­
guages at the University of Pennsylvania. The Society
further associated with them three learned rabbis fa­
miliar with the use of the Bible in the synagogue and
vi
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE
home: Rabbis Max Arzt, Bernard J. Bamberger, and
Harry Freedman, belonging to the three sections of or­
ganized Jewish religious life. Subsequently, Dr. Freed­
man left the United States to assume a rabbinic post
in Australia; but, despite his inability to attend sessions,
he has participated actively in the committee's work.
Dr. Solomon Grayzel, editor of the Jewish Publication
Society, served as secretary of the committee.
Messrs. Louis E. Levinthal, Sol Satinsky, Edwin
Wolf, 2nd, and Lesser Zussman, by virtue of their po­
sitions in the Society, participated in the solution of
the committee's problems.
The committee carried on its work through meet­
ings and correspondence. Dr. Orlinsky prepared a
draft translation which was circulated among the seven
working members, each of whom made comments
and suggested changes. These were in turn circulated
among the members who then, at periodic meetings,
arrived at decisions by majority vote.
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 un­
dertook faithfully to follow the traditional (masoretic)
text. There were certain points, however, at which
footnotes appeared necessary: 1) where the committee
had to admit that it did not understand a word or a
vii
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE
passage; 2) where an alternative rendering was possible;
3) where an old rendering, no longer retained, was so
well known that it would very likely be missed, in which
case the traditional translation was given in the name
of "others," usually as found in the Society's version
of 1917; 4) where the understanding of a passage could
be facilitated by reference to another passage elsewhere
in the Bible; 5) where textual variants are to be found
in some of the ancient manuscripts or versions of the
Bible.
Obsolete words and phrases were avoided; and He­
brew idioms were translated, in so far as possible, by
means of their normal English equivalents. For the sec­
ond 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 "how­
ever," "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 par­
ticle as the sense required, or left it untranslated.
viii
<< Chapter >> Home | TOC
PREFACE
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 di­
visions of the text. The chapter divisions, whose origin
is neither ancient nor Jewish but medieval Christian,
sometimes join or separate the wrong paragraphs, sen­
tences, or even parts of sentences. The verse divisions,
though considerably older and of Jewish origin, some­
times join together parts of different sentences or sep­
arate 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 divi­
sions, since they did not exist in his day. More note­
worthy 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 re­
quired 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 dis­
cover other instances in which the translators have not
hesitated to follow what they considered to be the log­
ical units of meaning even when they do not coincide
with the conventional chapters and verses. These, how­
ever, are marked and numbered throughout.
Neither the trustees of the Society nor the translators

suspected that the task was of such magnitude as

ix