Masora

These are computed Masora-style notes, not a reproduction of the historical Masoretic apparatus. The historical Masora (parva and magna) is a manuscript tradition with its own wording, counts, and cross-references; what you see here is computed fresh from this site's texts, in five versions: the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, Targum Onkelos, and Targum Jonathan. For each verse, the lemmas or forms in it that are rare within that version's own coverage, with their counts, and behind each note the full list of verses where that lemma or form occurs. Nothing here is copied from a printed Masora, and no note is ever invented: every count is computed from the text as printed on this site. Use the Version selector to switch versions; each version has its own numbering and its own counts. Onkelos covers the Torah only and Jonathan the Prophets only, as on the concordance page.

A form gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer in the entire Masoretic Text of the Torah and the Prophets (26 books, 15,142 verses, 224,415 word tokens as counted here). That gives 22,538 rare forms, of which 15,567 occur exactly once, and 31,445 note instances across the corpus (about 2.08 per verse). Counts are token counts: if a form occurs twice in one verse, that verse counts twice toward its total, and the occurrence list marks it. Forms are shown in the order they occur in the verse.

A Septuagint note is a Lemma note when the verse has lemma data, and a Form note when it does not — every note is labelled, so the two are never confused. The Septuagint index is lemma-based: a lemma gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer across the whole Septuagint of the Torah and the Prophets (26 books, 15,070 verses). That gives 4,012 rare lemmas, of which 2,598 occur exactly once. But 3,737 of the 15,070 Septuagint verses (about a quarter) have no lemma data in the morphology source — whole verses, never part of a verse, the same gap the concordance page documents. Verses without lemma data get Form notes instead: a surface form gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer among the lemma-less verses only, giving 9,679 rare forms, of which 6,975 occur exactly once. Together the Septuagint has 18,720 note instances (about 1.24 per verse). Counts are token counts, as for the Masoretic Text. The threshold of 3 was chosen after measuring notes per verse at several thresholds (at 3 or fewer the corpus averages 1.24 notes per verse); lemma counts are far more concentrated than Hebrew form counts, so most Septuagint verses genuinely contain no rare lemma, and raising the threshold to chase the Masoretic density would admit lemmas occurring 4–5 times and dilute “rare” without adding genuinely rare material.

A Vulgate note is a Form note: the Vulgate index has no lemma data, so every note counts surface word-forms, exactly as the concordance indexes them. A form gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer across the whole Vulgate of the Torah and the Prophets (26 books, 15,142 verses, 293,001 word tokens as counted here). That gives 19,896 rare forms, of which 13,364 occur exactly once, and 28,443 note instances (about 1.88 per verse). Counts are token counts, as for the other versions. The threshold of 3 was chosen after measuring notes per verse at several thresholds (at 3 or fewer the corpus averages 1.88 notes per verse, close to the Masoretic density); it keeps the classical hapax + dis + tris legomena categories shared with the other two versions. Two tokenization limits are inherited from the concordance and stated honestly: the oe ligature (\u0153, 439 occurrences) falls outside the concordance's Latin letter class, so a word containing it counts as two fragments, and a decomposed diaeresis (2,118 occurrences) likewise splits its word — the notes follow the concordance's counting exactly, so every Magna list agrees with concordance search, but a search for the whole oe-word will not find it.

A Targum note is a Form note: neither Targum index has lemma data, so every note counts surface word-forms, exactly as the concordance indexes them. Counts are within each Targum's own coverage, not across the whole corpus: Onkelos covers the Torah only (5 books, 5,844 verses, 81,018 word tokens as counted here), and a form gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer in Onkelos — giving 10,424 rare forms, of which 6,965 occur exactly once, and 14,856 note instances (about 2.54 per verse). Jonathan covers the Prophets only (21 books, 9,296 verses, 157,682 word tokens), and a form gets a note when it occurs 3 times or fewer in Jonathan — giving 19,216 rare forms, of which 13,361 occur exactly once, and 26,682 note instances (about 2.87 per verse). The threshold of 3 was chosen for both after measuring notes per verse at several thresholds (at 3 or fewer Onkelos averages 2.54 notes per verse and Jonathan 2.87, against the Masoretic 2.08); it keeps the classical hapax + dis + tris legomena categories shared with the other versions, and the densest verses stay readable because notes render collapsed. Counts are token counts, as for the other versions. One tokenization fact, stated honestly: a single presentation-form ligature token in Jonathan (Isaiah 33:15) is keyed exactly as the concordance keys it — the concordance index itself carries that verse under the same key — so its Magna list agrees with concordance search.

Masoretic, Vulgate, and Targum forms here are surface word-forms, exactly as the concordance indexes them: vocalization and cantillation are ignored for matching, but attached prefixes and suffixes make a different form. Searching the "same" word with and without a prefix gives different counts, and a form's count is not a lemma's count. (The Septuagint is the exception: its notes count lemmas where lemma data exists.) Lemma-based Masora notes for the form-based versions are a planned follow-up, not part of this version. The Writings are not included: the concordance index covers the Torah and the Prophets only, and within that, Onkelos covers the Torah only and Jonathan the Prophets only.

Verse text is shown exactly as the concordance prints it, including editorial square brackets marking reconstructed letters in a few verses. The notes themselves are computed from the clean word tokens behind the text, so a bracket never creates a false note, and a bracketed word is still counted under its clean form.

Chapters and verses follow the Masoretic Text's own numbering, and every reference on this page is an MT reference unless it is explicitly labelled KJV. Two books need exact mappings, the same as on the concordance page: Joel — MT 3:1–5 is KJV 2:28–32, and MT 4:1–21 is KJV 3:1–21; Malachi — MT 3:19–24 is KJV 4:1–6 (so MT chapter 3 holds both KJV 3:1–18 and KJV 4:1–6). Each verse in those chapters shows its KJV equivalent beside the MT reference. Beyond those books, verse divisions still differ within many chapters, so a same-numbered verse elsewhere may hold different content; occurrence lists link to the concordance parallel view, where each version is labelled with its own reference.

Chapters and verses follow the Septuagint's own numbering. For Joel and Malachi the Septuagint numbering already coincides with KJV numbering (Joel 3 chapters, Malachi 4 chapters), so no mapping is needed there — unlike the Masoretic Text, where Joel has 4 chapters and Malachi 3. One book needs a warning: Septuagint Jeremiah's arrangement differs from chapter 25 on, so a same-numbered Jeremiah verse in another version may hold different content; Jeremiah chapters 25 and later carry a note on the chapter page, and parallels there are by reference, not content. The Septuagint has 15,070 verses in these 26 books against the Masoretic Text's 15,142: verse divisions differ, so same-numbered verses elsewhere may also hold different content. Occurrence lists link to the concordance parallel view, where each version is labelled with its own reference.

Chapters and verses follow the Vulgate's own numbering. For Joel and Malachi the Vulgate numbering already coincides with KJV numbering (Joel 3 chapters, Malachi 4 chapters), so no chapter mapping is needed there — unlike the Masoretic Text, where Joel has 4 chapters and Malachi 3. No per-verse KJV equivalents are shown for the Vulgate: within-chapter verse divisions differ from the Masoretic Text in 65 chapters (for example 1 Kings 4, with 34 Vulgate verses against 20 Masoretic ones, and 1 Kings 5, with 18 against 32), and there is no reliable per-verse mapping table for those shifts — they are labelled as differing, not forced. Occurrence lists link to the concordance parallel view, where each version is labelled with its own reference.

Chapters and verses follow Targum Onkelos's own numbering. Chapter numbers match the Masoretic Text, but two chapters hold different verse counts, the same as on the concordance page: Onkelos has 22 verses in Exodus 20 and 29 in Deuteronomy 5, where the Masoretic Text has 23 and 30 (the Ten Commandments chapters) — the verses are divided differently there, so no per-verse mapping is forced and those chapters carry a note. Beyond those chapters, a same-numbered verse elsewhere may still hold different content; occurrence lists link to the concordance parallel view, where each version is labelled with its own reference. Onkelos covers the Torah only.

Chapters and verses follow Targum Jonathan's own numbering, which shares the Masoretic numbering tradition: Jonathan's Joel has 4 chapters and its Malachi 3, with the same KJV mappings as the Masoretic Text — Joel: Jonathan 3:1–5 is KJV 2:28–32, and Jonathan 4:1–21 is KJV 3:1–21; Malachi: Jonathan 3:19–24 is KJV 4:1–6. Each verse in those chapters shows its KJV equivalent beside the Jonathan reference, exactly as for the Masoretic Text. Beyond those books, verse divisions still differ within many chapters, so a same-numbered verse elsewhere may hold different content; occurrence lists link to the concordance parallel view, where each version is labelled with its own reference. Jonathan covers the Prophets only.

Masoretic Text verses on this page show the divine names in the abbreviated forms used throughout this site, never in full — including one verse (Deuteronomy 32:6) where a scribal annotation glued to the token kept it out of the usual abbreviation pass; that token is corrected in this page's own data, and the same correction is applied to the shared concordance verse files.

Targum Onkelos verses likewise show the divine names in the abbreviated forms the concordance already uses for Onkelos.

Targum Jonathan verses show the Targum's own wording exactly as the concordance prints it, including its standard compound-name forms, which are not rewritten here: they are Jonathan's own rendering, not an extraction artifact, and changing them would alter the translation across hundreds of verses.

Masoretic Text: the Sefaria Miqra text (CC BY-SA), as used by the concordance. Septuagint: Swete's text (public domain), with lemmas and morphology from the open-source morphology data used by the LXX & Vulgate Reader (CC BY 4.0), as used by the concordance. Vulgate: the lascivaroma Clementine text (CC BY 4.0), as used by the concordance. Targum Onkelos and Targum Jonathan: the Sefaria Targum texts (CC BY-SA / public-domain Mikraot Gedolot text as labelled in the source), as used by the concordance. Counts are computed from those texts as printed here, not from any printed Masora edition.