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Journey of a Passage

Deuteronomy 26:5

A wandering Aramean, or an Aramean who sought to destroy?

Three words, arami 'oved avi, open the farmer's confession. The Hebrew letters are the same everywhere; the readings are not. Most translations say "a wandering (or perishing) Aramean was my father." The Passover Haggadah and the Vulgate say an Aramean persecuted him.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

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

Three readings

Grammar
The father is the Aramean, wandering or near death: Jacob, who lived in Aram.
Greek
A paraphrase: "my father left Syria."
Haggadah and Vulgate
"An Aramean [Laban] sought to destroy my father": a midrash built into the Passover seder.

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.

    My father left Syria, and went down into Egypt

    Giguet's French: "Mon père a quitté la Syrie."

  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).

    Syrus persequebatur patrem meum

    A Syrian persecuted my father

    The same reading as the Haggadah.

  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.

    אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה

    an Aramean, wandering/perishing, was my father, and he went down into Egypt

    'oved: "perishing, lost, wandering."

  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.

    ארמי אבד אבי וירד מצרימה

    The same consonants.

  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).

    A Syrian ready to perish was my father

    Follows the Hebrew grammar.

What changed, and why

Laban the Aramean (Genesis 31) is the villain of the Haggadah's reading. It is a beloved interpretation, but it is interpretation; the grammar favors the father himself as the Aramean.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe Hebrew consonants of 26:5 are the same in MT and SP.
  • Independently documentedThe Vulgate and the Haggadah read an Aramean persecuting the father.

Sources

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

Related lessons

  • Firstfruits, Identity, and Covenant Commitment →The farmer brings the first of his harvest in a basket and recites Israel's story: "A wandering Aramean was my father." Every third year he declares that the tithe went to the poor. And Israel and God declare their covenant to one another. The opening words have been read in three different ways.
  • 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.