{{short description|Differences between how the Hebrew Bible is spoken versus read}} [[Image:Aleppo Codex (Deut).jpg|thumb|right|300px|An image from the Masoretic Aleppo Codex of Deuteronomy 33, containing a ''qere'' and ''ketiv'' in the second column, the fifth line, the second word (33:9). The ''ketiv'' is "Beno" - "his son" {{Script/Hebrew|בְּנוֹ}}, while the ''qere'' is "banaw" - "his sons" {{Script/Hebrew|בָּנָיו}}.]] '''Qere and Ketiv''' (from the Aramaic ''qere'' or ''q're'', {{Script/Hebrew|קְרֵי}}, "[what is] read"; ''ketiv'', or ''ketib'', ''kethib'', ''kethibh'', ''kethiv'', {{Script/Hebrew|כְּתִיב}}, "[what is] written") refers to a system for marking differences between what is written in the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible, as preserved by scribal tradition, and what is read. In such situations, the '''qere''' is the technical orthographic device used to indicate the pronunciation of the words in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew language scriptures (Tanakh), while the '''ketiv''' indicates their written form, as inherited from tradition.
The word {{Script/Hebrew|קרי}} is often pointed {{Script/Hebrew|קְרִי}} and pronounced "kri" or "keri", reflecting the opinion that it is a passive participle rather than an imperative. This is reflected in the Ashkenazi pronunciation "keri uchsiv".
==The Masoretic tradition== Torah scrolls for use in public reading in synagogues contain only the Hebrew language consonantal text, handed down by tradition (with only a very limited and ambiguous indication of vowels by means of matres lectionis). However, in the Masoretic codices of the 9th–10th centuries, and most subsequent manuscripts and published editions of the Tanakh intended for personal study, the pure consonantal text is annotated with vowel points, cantillation marks and other diacritic symbols used by the Masoretes to indicate how it should be read and chanted, besides marginal notes serving various functions. That Masoretic reading or pronunciation is known as the ''qere'' (Aramaic קרי "to be read"), while the pre-Masoretic consonantal spelling is known as the ''ketiv'' (Aramaic כתיב "(what is) written").
The basic consonantal text written in the Hebrew alphabet was rarely altered; but sometimes the Masoretes noted a different reading of a word than that found in the pre-Masoretic consonantal text. The scribes used ''qere/ketiv'' to show, without changing the received consonantal text, that in their tradition a different reading of the text was to be used. ''Qere'' were also used to correct obvious errors in the consonantal text without changing it.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}}
However, not all ''qere/ketiv'' represented cases of textual doubt; sometimes the change is deliberate. For example, in Deut. 28:27, the ketiv word ובעפלים ''ophalim'', "hemorrhoids," was replaced with the qere וּבַטְּחֹרִים ''techorim'', "abscesses," because the ketiv was (after the return from Exile) considered too obscene to read in public.<ref>{{cite web |author=Zev Farber |title=Unspoken Hemorrhoids: Making the Torah Reading Polite |website=TheTorah.com |access-date=2021-07-27 |url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/unspoken-hemorrhoids-making-the-torah-reading-polite}}</ref> A very high percentage of ''qere/ketiv'' is accounted for by change of dialect from old archaic Hebrew to later Hebrew. When the old Hebrew dialect fell into disuse and certain words became unfamiliar to the masses, the scribes amended the original dialect to the later familiar dialect. A good example is the word "Jerusalem," which in old Hebrew was always written ירושלם ''yrwšlm'', but in a later period was written ירושלים ''yrwšl'''y'''m''. The qere provides the more familiar reading without altering the text. This is also evident throughout 2 Kings 4, where the archaic Hebrew 2p feminine form of ''-ti'' is consistently eliminated by the qere, which replaces it with the familiar standard form of ''-t''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://torahtextmakesenseofit.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/kk-e.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2018-05-28 |archive-date=2018-05-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180529054113/https://torahtextmakesenseofit.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/kk-e.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>{{Dead link|date=December 2025}}
In such Masoretic texts, the vowel diacritics of the ''qere'' (the Masoretic reading) would be placed in the main text, added around the consonantal letters of the ''ketiv'' (the written variant to be substituted – even if it contains a completely different number of letters), with a special sign indicating that there was a marginal note for this word. In the margins there would be a {{Script/Hebrew|ק}} sign (for ''qere''), followed by the consonants of the ''qere'' reading. In this way, the vowel points were removed from the ''qere'' and written instead on the ''ketiv''. Despite this, the vowels and consonantal letters of the ''qere'' were still meant to be read together.
==="Ordinary" qere=== In an "ordinary" ''qere'', there is only a difference in certain closely related letters, or letters that can be silent (as in Genesis 8:17). For example, the similarly shaped letters {{Script/Hebrew|י ו ן}} are often exchanged (Deuteronomy 34:7), as are {{Script/Hebrew|כ ב}} (Esther 3:4) and the similar-sounding {{Script/Hebrew|ד ת}} (Song of Songs 4:9). Very often, one of the letters {{Script/Hebrew|א ה ו י}} are inserted (Ecclesiastes 10:3) or removed from a word (Deuteronomy 2:33). Many other similar cases exist. Other times, letters are reordered within the word (Ecclesiastes 9:4).
Because the difference between the ''qere'' and ''ketiv'' is relatively large, a note is made in footnotes, sidenotes or brackets to indicate it (see "Typography" below).
==="Vowel" qere=== Sometimes, although the letters are unchanged, the vowel points differ between the ''qere'' and ''ketiv'' of the word (Genesis 12:8). The ''ketiv'' is typically omitted with no indication, leaving only the vowelization for the ''qere''. Often the ''ketiv'' is left in an unusual spelling, but other times, both ''qere'' and ''ketiv'' remain in standard spelling.
This type of ''qere'' is different from ''qere'' perpetuum, because here, the consonants do not change. In a ''qere'' perpetuum, the consonants actually do change.
==="Omitted" qere=== Occasionally, a word is not read at all (Ruth 3:12), in which case the word is marked ''ketiv velo qere'', meaning "written and not read."
==="Added" qere=== Occasionally, a word is read but not written at all (Judges 20:14; Ruth 3:5), in which case the word is marked ''qere velo ketiv'', meaning "read and not written."
==="Euphemistic" qere=== In rarer cases, the word is replaced entirely (Deuteronomy 28:27, 30; Samuel I 5:6) for reasons of ''tohorat halashon'', "purity of language."<ref>Megillah 25b</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=ArtScroll.com |url=https://www.artscroll.com/ |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=www.artscroll.com}}</ref> This type of ''qere'' is noted in a printed Hebrew Bible.
==="Split/Joined" qere=== In such a case, a ''ketiv'' is one word while the ''qere'' is multiple words (Deuteronomy 33:2) or vice versa (Lamentations 4:3).
===Qere perpetuum=== In a few cases a change may be marked solely by the adjustment of the vowels written on the consonants, without any notes in the margin, if it is common enough that this will suffice for the reader to recognize it. This is known as a '''''qere perpetuum''''' ("perpetual" ''qere''). It differs from an "ordinary ''qere''" in that there is no note marker and no accompanying marginal note — these are certain commonly occurring cases of ''qere''/''ketiv'' in which the reader is expected to understand that a ''qere'' exists merely from seeing the vowel points of the ''qere'' in the consonantal letters of the ''ketiv''.
thumb|right|300px|Qere perpetuum of the 3rd. fem. singular pronoun For example, in the Pentateuch, the third-person singular feminine pronoun {{Script/Hebrew|היא}} ''hī'' is usually spelled the same as the third-person singular masculine pronoun {{Script/Hebrew|הוא}} ''hū''. The Masoretes indicated this situation by adding a written diacritic symbol for the vowel [i] to the pre-Masoretic consonantal spelling ''hwʔ'' {{Script/Hebrew|הוא}} (see diagram). The resulting orthography would seem to indicate a pronunciation ''hiw'', but this is meaningless in Biblical Hebrew, and a knowledgeable reader of the biblical text would know to read the feminine pronoun ''hī'' here.
Another example of an important ''qere perpetuum'' in the text of the Bible is the name of the God of Israel – {{Script/Hebrew|יהוה}} (cf. Tetragrammaton). Often it is marked with the vowels {{Script/Hebrew|יְהֹוָה}}, indicating that it is to be pronounced as {{Script/Hebrew|אֲדֹנָי}} ''Adonai'' (meaning "my Lord") rather than with its own vowels. The consensus of mainstream scholarship is that "Yehowah" (or in Latin transcription "Jehovah") is a pseudo-Hebrew form which was mistakenly created when Medieval and/or Renaissance Christian scholars misunderstood this common ''qere perpetuum'', so that "the bastard word 'Jehovah' [was] obtained by fusing the vowels of the one word with the consonants of the other"<ref>Entry "Tetragrammaton" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'' (2nd. edition) edited by F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone. (1978), p. 1354 {{ISBN|0-19-211545-6}}</ref> (similar to reading ''hiw'' for the ''qere perpetuum'' of the third-person singular feminine pronoun). The usual Jewish practice at the time of the Masoretes was to pronounce it as "Adonai", as is still the Jewish custom today{{As of?|date=December 2025}}.<ref>''The New Brown–Driver–Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon With an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic'' by Frances Brown, with the cooperation of S.R. Driver and Charles Briggs (1907), p. 218 (entry יהוה listed under root הוה).</ref>
Occasionally, the Tetragrammaton is marked {{Script/Hebrew|יֱהֹוִה}} (Deuteronomy 3:24, Psalms 73:28) to indicate a qere of {{Script/Hebrew|אֱלֹהִים}} ''Elohim'', another Divine Name.<ref>pp. xvi. "Pronouncing the Names of God." Tikkun, The Kestenbaum Edition. Commentary by Rabbi Avie Gold. Brooklyn: [http://www.artscroll.com/ Mesorah Publications, Ltd.], 2004.</ref>
==Interpretation and significance==
===Jewish tradition=== In Jewish tradition, both the ''qere'' and the ''ketiv'' are considered highly significant. When reading the Torah scroll in the synagogue, Jewish law stipulates that the ''qere'' is to be read and not the ''ketiv'', to the extent that if the ''ketiv'' was read, it must be corrected and read according to the ''qere''.<ref>Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 141:8</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=December 2025}}<ref>{{Cite web |title="Keri" and "Ketiv": Words in the Torah That are Not Pronounced According to Their Spelling |url=http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=1378 |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=www.dailyhalacha.com |archive-date=2018-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180901113557/http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=1378 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In addition however, Jewish law requires the scroll to be written according to the ''ketiv'', and this is so critical that substituting the ''qere'' for the ''ketiv'' invalidates the entire Torah scroll.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Touger |first=Eliyahu |title=Tefillin, Mezuzah and Sefer Torah - Chapter Seven |url=https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/925429/jewish/%3E/library/article_cdo/aid/925429/jewish/Tefillin-Mezuzah-and-Sefer-Torah-Chapter-Seven.htm |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=www.chabad.org |language=en}}</ref><ref>pp. 594-95. ''Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations'' by Abraham Joshua Heschel and Gordon Tucker.</ref>
Various traditional commentaries on the Torah illustrate the interplay of meaning between the ''qere'' and the ''ketiv'', showing how each enhances the meaning of the other. Some examples of this include:
*Genesis 8:17: "Take out (''ketiv''/written: Send out) all the living things that are with you, from all the flesh: the birds, the animals, all the creeping things that creep over the earth; they shall swarm in the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth." **Rashi, ibid.: It is written as "send out" and read as "take out." [Noah] is to say to them, "Go out!" Thus, [the written form] "send out." If they do not want to go out, you should take them out. *Genesis 12:8: "And he [Abram] moved from there to the mountain east of Beit-Eil and set up his tent (''ketiv''/written: her tent); Beit-Eil was in the west and Ai in the east. He built an altar there to the Lord and called in the name of the Lord." **Rashi, ibid.: It is written as "her tent." First, he set up his wife's tent, and afterwards his own. Bereishit Rabbah[, 39:15]. **''Siftei Chachamim'', ibid.: How does Rashi know that Abraham erected his wife's tent before his own; maybe he put up his own tent first? His words were based on the words of the Talmud that "one should honor his wife more than himself" (Yevamot 62b).<ref>Chumash, the Gutnick Edition. Compiled and adapted by R. Chaim Miller. Brooklyn: [http://www.kolmenachem.com Kol Menachem], 2006.</ref> *Exodus 39:33: "And they brought the Mishkan to Moses: the tent and all its vessels; its hooks, its beams, its bars (''ketiv''/written: its bar), its pillars, and its sockets." **Rashi, Exodus 26:26: The five [bars which supported the wall-planks and kept them straight] were [in] three [lines going horizontally through each plank of the three walls], but the top and bottom [bars in the three walls] were made of two parts, each extending through half of the wall. Each [bar] would enter a hole [in the wall] on opposite sides until they met each other. Thus we find that the top and bottom [bars] were [really] two [bars each], which were four [half-bars]. The middle bar, however, extended the entire length of the wall, going from end to end of the wall. **''Mefane'ach Nelamim'', cited in ''Eim LaMikra VeLaMasoret'', Exodus 39:33: The Talmud (Shabbat 98b with Rashi) understands "from end to end" as a miracle: after the planks were in place on the three sides of the Mishkan, a seventy-cubit-long bar would be inserted into the center of the first plank at the eastern end of either the northern or southern wall. When that bar reached the end of that wall, it would miraculously curve itself so that it continued within the western wall. At the end of that wall, it again turned to fill the space drilled through the planks of the third wall.... Thus the middle bar, which seemed to be three separate bars for the three walls, was really one long bar. The ''qere'', "its bars" refers to the simple interpretation that there were three distinct middle-bars, one for each wall. But the ''ketiv'', "its bar," refers to the second interpretation, that the three middle bars were really only one bar that miraculously spanned all three walls.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ArtScroll.com |url=https://www.artscroll.com/ |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=www.artscroll.com}}</ref>
===In translations===
Modern translators nevertheless tend to follow the ''qere'' rather than the ''ketiv''.{{Citation needed|date=December 2025}}
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener in his 1884 commentary on the 1611 Authorized Version of the Bible (a.k.a. the King James Bible) reports 6637 marginal notes in the KJV Old Testament, of which 31 are instances of the KJV translators drawing attention to ''qere'' and ''ketiv'', most being like Psalm 100 verse 3 with ''ketiv'' being in the main KJV text and the ''qere'' in the KJV marginalia (albeit that the Revised Version placed this ''qere'' in the main text{{sfn|Earle|1894|p=325}}), but a handful (such as 1 Samuel 27:8 for example) being the other way around.{{sfn|Scrivener|1884|pp=41–42}}
==Typography== Modern editions of the Chumash and Tanakh include information about the ''qere'' and ''ketiv'', but with varying formatting, even among books from the same publisher. Usually, the ''qere'' is written in the main text with its vowels, and the ''ketiv'' is in a side- or footnote (as in the Gutnick and Stone editions of the Chumash, from Kol Menachem<ref>[http://www.kolmenachem.com/ Kol Menachem]</ref> and Artscroll,<ref>[http://www.artscroll.com/ Artscroll]</ref> respectively). Other times, the ''ketiv'' is indicated in brackets, in-line with the main text (as in the Rubin edition of the Prophets, also from Artscroll).
In a Tikkun, which is used to train the synagogue Torah reader, both the full text using the ''ketiv'' and the full text using the ''qere'' are printed, side-by-side. However, an additional note is still made in brackets (as in the Kestenbaum edition from Artscroll) or in a footnote (as in the Tikkun LaKorim from Ktav.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ktav Publishing House |url=https://ktav.com/ |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=Ktav Publishing House |language=en}}</ref>)
In older prayerbooks (such as the older, all-Hebrew edition of Siddur Tehillat Hashem al pi Nusach HaArizal, in the prayer Tikkun Chatzot), the ''ketiv'' was vowelized according to the ''qere'' and printed in the main text. The unvowelized ''qere'' was printed in a footnote.
==See also== * {{ill|Gikun|lt=|ja|義訓}}
==References== {{reflist|35em}}
=== Sources === {{refbegin}} * {{cite book|title=The Authorized Version of the English Bible (1611): Its Subsequent Reprints and Modern Representatives|author1-first=Frederick H.|author1-last=Scrivener|author1-link=Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1884}} ({{Internet Archive|name=The Authorized Version of the English Bible|id=cu31924029268708|page=51}}) * {{cite book|title=The Psalter of the Great Bible of 1539: A Landmark in English Literature|author1-first=John|author1-last=Earle|publisher=John Murray|year=1894|location=London}} ({{Internet Archive|name=The Psalter of the Great Bible of 1539|id=cu31924029296832|page=395}}) {{refend}}
==External links== * {{Cite GHG|17}} * [http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=1378 {{"'}}Keri' and 'Ketiv': Words in the Torah That Are Not Pronounced According to Their Spelling"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180901113557/http://www.dailyhalacha.com/m/halacha.aspx?id=1378 |date=2018-09-01 }} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20180901145525/http://www.kjv-only.com/qerelist.html The KJV Qere List]—a list of where the King James Bible uses the Qere. * [http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol08/Graves2003.html "The Origins of ''Ketiv-Qere'' Readings"]—article by Michael Graves in ''TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism''. Vol. 8 (2003).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Qere And Ketiv}} Category:Hebrew alphabet Category:Language of the Hebrew Bible