The Gospels quote older scriptures. When Yeshua reads in a synagogue or answers from the Torah, the scroll in the room is Hebrew. The Gospel that reports the scene is written in Greek, and it often quotes the Septuagint, the Greek translation of those scriptures. The rule here is to render quotations from the Hebrew and, where an evangelist’s argument rests on the Greek, to say so in a note.
The direct Old Testament quotations in the four Gospels are rendered from the Hebrew text and compared with the Greek Septuagint. The Hebrew is the Leningrad codex in Tyndale House’s openly licensed tagged edition, and the Septuagint is Swete’s public-domain edition. Where the prophet’s own words were available, nothing was translated back from the Greek.
Matthew 39, Mark 17, Luke 18, John 14. One more, Matthew 27:9, is marked uncertain and not counted. The list draws on the NA28/UBS5 loci citati, Levinsohn’s OT-quotation index (OpenGNT), and the OpenBible cross-references, and it keeps only high-confidence quotations.
67 are citations, scripture spoken or read aloud by Yeshua, the Immerser, the accuser in the wilderness, crowds, or priests. The other 21 are the evangelists’ own “that it might be fulfilled” formulas.
67 of the 88 match the Hebrew or depend on it directly. The others each carry a named flag: adaptation, phrasing, Targum affinity, the cry from the cross, or a point where the Greek and the Hebrew part ways.
Two AI reviewers checked the map independently. They found a Septuagint lookup that pulled the wrong verse (the Ten Commandments are reordered in the Greek) and one flag that was too broad. Both were fixed.
Here Matthew’s argument rests on the Greek, and the rendering handles it the way it handles the other flagged quotations.
hā-ʿalmāh: “the young woman.” The Hebrew word for “virgin” would be betulāh; that is not the word Isaiah uses.
hē parthenos (παρθένος): “the virgin.” Matthew’s virgin-birth argument follows this Greek reading.
So the rendering gives the prophet his own word (young woman) and notes at the verse that Matthew’s argument rests on the Septuagint’s virgin.
The LXX-divergence flag is on 7 quotations (LXX is the standard abbreviation for the Septuagint). In each, rendering the Hebrew alone would undercut what the evangelist is arguing. The flags were checked against the Greek text.
One flag was withdrawn. Jn 12:38 follows the LXX wording of Isa 53:1, down to an opening “Lord” that the Hebrew lacks, but John’s point rests on what the Hebrew and Greek both say. A quotation is flagged only when the argument rests on the Greek, and different wording alone is not enough.
Only John 19:37 carries this flag. Matthew 2:15 and Matthew 8:17, shown beside it, carry no flag; in both, Matthew follows the Hebrew where the Septuagint differs.
The Hebrew reads daqaru: “pierced.” The Septuagint reads “they mocked” (κατωρχήσαντο). At the crucifixion, John follows the Hebrew against the Greek.
The LXX reads “his children” (plural). Matthew’s “my son” follows the Hebrew.
Where the Hebrew speaks of sickness, the LXX reads “bears our sins.” Matthew keeps the Hebrew’s bodily sense, and the Qala reads “He has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.”
Other quotations carry their own named flags: free adaptation (Jn 12:40’s reworking of Isa 6:10; the conflated Mal 3:1 + Exod 23:20 of “behold, I send my messenger”), a phrasing divergence (whether Isa 40:3’s “in the wilderness” belongs to the voice or the preparing), Targum affinity (Isa 6:9–10 in Mark 4:12 and Luke 8:10), and the cry from the cross (Ps 22:1, Mt 27:46 / Mk 15:34), where the Gospels record the words in Aramaic and the Hebrew psalm is their source.
In the interlinear, a verse that quotes scripture carries a band marked ≡ quotes … with its source. The band holds the full Hebrew verse, a transliteration, a short note, and the divergence flag where there is one. In Matthew 1 the first band you meet is ≡ quotes Isa 7:14 · follows the Greek Old Testament, with the Hebrew and the note side by side.