The short answerWhat is this?

The Nash Papyrus is a single sheet of Hebrew — four little fragments that fit together — carrying the Ten Commandments followed by the Shema (“Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one”). It is not a page from a scroll of the Law but a small devotional or liturgical text: almost certainly the daily prayer of a Jew living in Egypt, who folded it up and kept it close. When it came to light around 1902 it was, by centuries, the oldest known copy of any biblical text in Hebrew — and it held that title until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

The text is remarkable in itself. It is not the standard Hebrew (Masoretic) wording but a blend of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, agreeing again and again with the ancient Greek translation, the Septuagint — including the order of the commandments, the wording of several of them, and the preface it sets before the Shema.

The featureThe oldest Bible text, and a window on the Greek

Older than anything else in Hebrew — for a while. Palaeographers place the Nash Papyrus in roughly the second century BC (some would say a little later). Whatever the exact date, from its discovery until 1947 it was simply the oldest known scrap of the Hebrew Scriptures in existence — a full thousand years older than the medieval manuscripts behind the printed Hebrew Bible. It gave scholars their first real glimpse of what a Hebrew biblical text looked like in the age before the rabbis fixed the standard wording.

The daily prayer. The pairing is telling: the Decalogue and the Shema were once recited together every day, and both Talmuds record that the daily reading of the Ten Commandments was later dropped. This little sheet, folded to be carried, looks like exactly that discontinued daily devotion — a piece of ordinary, lived religion rather than an official scroll.

Where it meets the Septuagint. The wording keeps agreeing with the Greek Bible against the standard Hebrew: the order “Adultery, Murder, Steal” (as in the Greek, Philo, and the New Testament); “vain” witness rather than “false”; the neighbour’s wife named before his house; and above all the preface set before the Shema and the extra word at its heart. The Papyrus shows that the Greek translators were often following a genuine Hebrew text, not paraphrasing.

Line by lineThe Hebrew exactly as it sits on the papyrus

The twenty-five surviving lines, transcribed and reconstructed by F. C. Burkitt (Jewish Quarterly Review, 1903). Surviving ink is highlighted; grey letters are restored from the known text where the edges are torn. The photograph sits beside the text so you can compare.

1אנכי יהוה אלהיך אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים

2לוא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני לוא תעשה לך פסל

3וכל תמונה אשר בשמים ממעל ואשר בארץ מתחת

4ואשר במים מתחת לארץ לוא תשתחוה להם ולוא

5תעבדם כי אנכי יהוה אלהיך אל קנוא פקד עון

6אבות על בנים על שלשים ועל רבעים לשנאי ועשה

7חסד לאלפים לאהבי ולשמרי מצותי לוא תשא את

8שם יהוה אלהיך לשוא כי לוא ינקה יהוה את אשר

9ישא את שמה לשוא זכור את יום השבת לקדשו

10ששת ימים תעבוד ועשית כל מלאכתך וביום השביעי

11שבת ליהוה אלהיך לוא תעשה בה כל מלאכה אתה

12ובנך ובתך עבדך ואמתך שורך וחמרך וכל בהמתך

13וגרך אשר בשעריך כי ששת ימים עשה יהוה

14את השמים ואת הארץ את הים ואת כל אשר בם

15וינח ביום השביעי עלכן ברך יהוה את יום

16השביעי ויקדשיו כבד את אביך ואת אמך למען

17ייטב לך ולמען יאריכון ימיך על האדמה אשר

18יהוה אלהיך נתן לך לוא תאנף לוא תרצח לוא

19תגנב לוא תענה ברעך עד שוא לוא תחמוד את

20אשת רעך לוא תתאוה את בית רעך שדהו ועבדו

21ואמתו ושורו וחמרו וכל אשר לרעך

22ואלה החקים והמשפטים אשר צוה משה את בני

23ישראל במדבר בצאתם מארץ מצרים שמע

24ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד הוא ואהבת

25את יהוה אלהיך בכל לבבך

Word by wordRead it, sound it out, and see the meaning

The whole sheet, word by word: the Hebrew on the papyrus, a transliteration to sound it out, and a word-for-word English gloss, with a smooth translation after each section. Words in a gold box appear (at least partly) on the fragment; grey words are reconstructed. Each row reads right to left.

I am the LORD your God — the preamble · Exodus 20:2

You shall have no other gods — First Word · Exodus 20:3–4

…or any likeness — Second Word · Exodus 20:4–5

…for I am a jealous God — Second Word · Exodus 20:5–6

You shall not take up his name in vain — Third Word · Exodus 20:7

Remember the Sabbath day — Fourth Word · Exodus 20:8–11

Honour your father and your mother — Fifth Word · Exodus 20:12

You shall not commit adultery, murder, or steal — Sixth–Eighth Words · Exodus 20:13–15

…nor bear vain witness — Ninth Word · Exodus 20:16

You shall not covet — Tenth Word · Exodus 20:17

These are the statutes Moses commanded — the preface to the Shema

Hear, O Israel — the Shema · Deuteronomy 6:4–5

Reading the detailsTextual notes

A fusion of Exodus and Deuteronomy. The Decalogue exists in two forms in the Bible — Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 — and the Papyrus mixes them, just as a prayer-text drawn from memory and liturgy might. It begins the Sabbath commandment with “Remember” (as Exodus) but includes touches from Deuteronomy, and adds to the Fifth Commandment the clause “that it may be well with thee” from Deuteronomy.

The order of the commandments. Here Adultery comes before Murder before Stealing — the order of the Septuagint (including Philo) and of the New Testament citations in Mark, Luke, Romans, and James, though not Matthew. In the Tenth Commandment the neighbour’s wife is named before his house.

The one disputed word (line 20). Where the text forbids desiring the neighbour’s house, Burkitt read תתאוה (“desire,” as in Deuteronomy), while his colleague S. A. Cook read תחמוד (“covet,” as in Exodus). The surface is damaged at that point; we follow Burkitt and note the alternative.

The Shema and its additions. Before “Hear, O Israel” the Papyrus sets a preface — “And these are the statutes and judgements that Moses commanded…” — found in the Greek but not in the standard Hebrew here; and at the end of “the LORD is one” it adds the word הוא (“he is”), again agreeing with the Greek and with the citation of the Shema in Mark 12:29.

Spelling. The scribe writes “not” fully as לוא (for לא) throughout, and shows the everyday, pre-standard spelling of a text meant to be prayed, not archived.

The manuscriptAt a glance

Why it mattersThe words at the centre of a faith

Few texts sit closer to the heart of Judaism than these two: the Ten Words spoken at Sinai, and the Shema that a devout Jew still recites morning and evening and hoped to have on his lips at death. To hold them in a copy older than the Dead Sea Scrolls — written when the Second Temple still stood — is to reach almost as far back as Hebrew writing on papyrus survives.

And because its wording so often matches the Greek Bible, the Nash Papyrus quietly rewrote what scholars thought they knew: that behind the ancient Greek translation lay real Hebrew texts like this one, and that the wording of Scripture in the last centuries BC was richer and more varied than the single standard that came later.

ReferencesSources

• Transcription, reconstruction & translation: F. C. Burkitt, “The Hebrew Papyrus of the Ten Commandments,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 15 (1903), pp. 392–408 (public domain).
• First publication: S. A. Cook, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (January 1903).
• Dating: W. F. Albright, “A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age: The Nash Papyrus,” Journal of Biblical Literature 56 (1937), pp. 145–176.
• Manuscript: Cambridge University Library, MS Or.233; photograph from the Manuscript Shop listing.
• Biblical text: Exodus 20 & Deuteronomy 5–6; compared with the Septuagint and the Masoretic Hebrew.