גלגולי הנוסח של הפתיחה לספר שמות

The first five verses of the Book of Exodus enumerate the names of Jacob’s sons and the sum total of the group that descended to Egypt. This passage, which is an abstract of the list of the descendants of Jacob who came to Egypt in Gen 46:8–27, has six textual witnesses. In addition to the three complete witnesses – the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint – the passage has been partially preserved in three fragmentary scrolls from Qumran: 4QpaleoGen–Exodl (4Q11), 4QGen–Exoda (4Q1), and 4QExodb (4Q13). These six textual witnesses display quite a few variants, including the number of people who descended to Egypt (70 vs. 75). In this article I discuss the variants, trace the evolution of the different texts, and present a reconstruction of the original version of these verses, with special attention to the contribution of 4QExodb.