myBibleHistory

Journey of a Passage

Deuteronomy 28:69 / 29:1

One verse, two chapter numbers

"These are the words of the covenant… in the land of Moab" is the last verse of chapter 28 in Hebrew Bibles and the first verse of chapter 29 in English ones. The words are the same; only the numbering differs. Similar one-verse shifts occur at the start of chapters 13 and 23.

Read Deuteronomy 28:69 / 29:1 in every edition

Stable text: no manuscript differences in meaning

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 this verse · ▢ 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
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Where Hebrew and English numbering differ in Deuteronomy

English 12:32
= Hebrew 13:1; chapter 13 then runs one verse lower in Hebrew.
English 22:30
= Hebrew 23:1; chapter 23 runs one verse higher in Hebrew.
English 29:1
= Hebrew 28:69; chapter 29 runs one verse lower in Hebrew.

Every witness, in order

  1. Unknown (debated)

    Original Deuteronomy

    – No copy survives

    No original survives.

  2. 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).

    Hæc sunt verba fœderis… (29:1)

    The Vulgate numbers it 29:1, like English Bibles.

  3. 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.

    אֵלֶּה דִבְרֵי הַבְּרִית אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה יְהוָה אֶת־מֹשֶׁה (28:69)

    These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses

    Numbered 28:69.

  4. 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.

    אלה דברי הברית (28:69 in the library's numbering)

    Follows the Hebrew numbering in our data.

  5. 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).

    These are the words of the covenant… (29:1)

    Numbered 29:1.

What changed, and why

Chapter divisions were added in the 13th century AD and verse numbers in the 16th, and Hebrew and Christian printings did not always agree. A verse that seems to be "missing" at one number is present at another. The site's library aligns verses by content.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedHebrew 28:69 is English 29:1. Checked in the library's Hebrew and English texts.

Sources

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

Related lessons

  • The Covenant for the Generations →In Moab, Moses makes a covenant with everyone present, from leaders to wood-cutters and water-carriers, and "with him that is not here with us this day." One hidden idolater can poison the whole community. And the hidden things belong to God; the revealed things belong to us and our children.
  • The Blessings and the Curses →Fourteen verses of blessing and fifty-four of curse: disease, drought, defeat, siege, famine so terrible that parents eat their children, and exile. Several of these curses closely resemble the curses of an Assyrian loyalty oath from 672 BC. How close, and what that means, is one of the liveliest debates about Deuteronomy.
  • 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.