Nehemiah 9:5–6
"And Ezra said"
In the Hebrew the Levites call the people to bless God and the prayer follows without a new speaker. The Greek tradition adds "And Ezra said" before 9:6. The library's Greek (Giguet) has it; the Hebrew, Vulgate and KJV do not. Many modern translations (NRSV, NAB) follow the Greek.
Disputed addition: some witnesses include it, some do not
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.
✓ includes the disputed words · ✕ does not include them · ❝ quotes part of them · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Memoir c. 430 BC; book compiled c. 400–300 BC (debated)
Original Ezra–Nehemiah
No original survives. No Qumran fragment of Nehemiah has been identified.
Translated c. 2nd century BC or later
Greek 2 Esdras 11–23 (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
Et Esdras dit: Vous êtes le seul Seigneur
And Ezra said: You are the only Lord
Greek 2 Esdras via Giguet's French; not checked against a critical Greek edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate (2 Esdras = Nehemiah)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
Tu ipse, Domine, solus
No speaker named.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
אַתָּה־הוּא יְהוָה לְבַדֶּךָ
You are the LORD, you alone
No speaker named; the Levites of 9:5 are the last named speakers.
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
Thou, even thou, art LORD alone
What changed, and why
Either the Greek preserves an original phrase lost in Hebrew, or a Greek translator supplied a speaker for a prayer that seemed to need one. The phrase fits the joining of Ezra's work with Nehemiah's. The site does not decide; the critical Greek apparatus is not yet checked (certification item C4).
What the evidence shows
- The library's Greek adds "And Ezra said." Via Giguet's French.
- The phrase is original.
Sources
Related lessons
- A Nation's Confession across the Generations →On the 24th day of the month the people fast in sackcloth, separate themselves from foreigners, confess, and listen to the law for a quarter of the day. The Levites call them to bless God, and a long prayer retells Israel's history from creation to the present: Abraham, Egypt, Sinai, the wilderness, the land, the judges, the prophets, the exile, and now servitude to foreign kings. It ends with a written, sealed covenant.
- How Nehemiah Came to Us →Nehemiah begins with "the words of Nehemiah" and much of it is a first-person memoir, framed by lists, a public reading, a prayer and a covenant. In the Hebrew Bible it is the second half of the single book Ezra–Nehemiah. No verse of Nehemiah has been identified among the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Greek it is the last thirteen chapters of 2 Esdras; 1 Esdras shares only the public reading. Its earliest complete Hebrew copies are medieval.