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Journey of a Passage

Deuteronomy 12:5

"Will choose" or "has chosen"?

The Masoretic Text speaks of the place God "will choose"; the Samaritan Pentateuch of the place God "has chosen." One letter changes a promise about an unnamed future place into a reference to one already chosen. The difference recurs about twenty times in Deuteronomy 12–26.

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original DeuteronomyUnknown (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy
Samaritan
  1. Samaritan PentateuchAncient tradition; medieval copiesDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy
Greek
  1. SeptuagintTranslated c. 3rd century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

What the difference means

"Will choose"
The place is not yet named in the Torah; Jewish tradition identifies it with Jerusalem, chosen in David's time.
"Has chosen"
The place already exists; Samaritans identify it with Gerizim, where Deuteronomy 11 and 27 (in their text) put the blessing and the altar.
Which is older?
Debated. Some see the past tense as a Samaritan change; others note support in some translations and argue it may be old.

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (debated)

    Original Deuteronomy

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. Translated c. 3rd century BC

    Septuagint

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of the 3rd century BC

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    the place which the Lord will choose

    Giguet's French: "le lieu que vous choisira le Seigneur." Scholars report a past tense in some Greek, Latin and Coptic witnesses at other verses of this formula; not checked here.

  3. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    ad locum, quem elegerit Dominus

    to the place which the Lord shall have chosen

    Future perfect.

  4. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    אֶל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר־יִבְחַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם

    to the place which the LORD your God will choose

    yivchar, imperfect: "will choose."

  5. Ancient tradition; medieval copies

    Samaritan Pentateuch

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Deuteronomy

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Samaritan Pentateuch, Kennicott's 1780 text digitized by A. Sigalov.

    אל המקום אשר בחר יהוה אלהיכם

    to the place which the LORD your God has chosen

    bachar, perfect: "has chosen." For Samaritans, Mount Gerizim.

    Source: Posen Library: Samaritan Pentateuch ↗

  6. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose

    Follows the Hebrew.

What changed, and why

Neither reading names a place. The dispute over which mountain or city God chose divided Jews and Samaritans for more than two thousand years, and a single letter in this formula became part of that divide.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedMT reads "will choose" and SP "has chosen" in 12:5. Checked in the site's library.
  • Disputed"Has chosen" is the original reading.

    Source: E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Fortress, 2012)

Sources

Related lessons

  • The Place God Chooses →Israel must destroy the old high places and bring its offerings only to "the place which the LORD your God shall choose." Meat may now be eaten at home without sacrifice, but never the blood. The Samaritan Torah reads "has chosen," and that one word sits at the heart of a two-thousand-year disagreement.
  • How Deuteronomy Came to Us →Moses on the plains of Moab; a scroll found in Josiah's Temple; an Assyrian loyalty oath; thirty-odd Dead Sea Scrolls, some with readings no modern Hebrew Bible has; a Samaritan Torah that names a different mountain; a Greek name taken from one verse; and a nineteenth-century "manuscript" that vanished. How Deuteronomy reached us, and what is still debated.