Q. While I was writing a reflection that drew from a verse in Malachi, I noticed that the chapter and verse were different in different translations of the Bible; some had Mal 3:20 while others had Mal 4:2 for the same passage. Why?
A. Fabulous question, as it brings up some important historical and textual points regarding the Bible. The first historical point is that the familiar idea of “chapter and verse”—something we rightly appreciate today—is a bit of a novelty. It was unknown to the ancient rabbis, to the apostles and evangelists, and to the fathers of the Church in both East and West.
At the same time, there were a number of ancient Jewish and Christian traditions of dividing and subdividing the texts of scripture for different purposes such as highlighting unified sections with extra-biblical headings, adding Hebrew letters to the beginning and end of a given section for the sake of daily study, and subdividing texts for public liturgical use. These divisions and subdivisions differed widely according to the manuscript that was used and the region where it occurred.
Eventually and with few exceptions, the division of chapters in the Old and New Testaments that we are broadly familiar with today in Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and even many Jewish circles originate from the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton (d. 1228) who based his work in the Latin Vulgate.
Similarly, with few exceptions, the division of the verses in the New Testament that are standard today originate with Robert Estienne (d. 1559), a humanist and printer who carried out this work shortly after he left the Catholic Church and joined the Calvinist Protestants in Geneva.
Interestingly, the division of chapter and verse in both the Old and New Testaments that is standard in countless languages throughout the world today, originate in an English translation of the Bible which was composed in Geneva around the 1560s; this translation was from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, but used the chapter divisions of the Vulgate.
Historically, as this development of chapter and verse progressed and became standardized in different Jewish and Christian circles, there eventually came to be two major sets of divisions: one set for Hebrew Bible along with the Greek Septuagint (both of which of course are only the OT), and one for the Latin Vulgate (which, of course, is the OT and NT).
In the Hebrew texts and in the Greek Septuagint, the book of Malachi is divided into three chapters, the third chapter of which has 24 verses. In the Latin Vulgate Malachi is divided into four chapters, the third chapter of which has 18 verses and the fourth chapter of which has six verses – the same text, just different chapter and verse.
This moderate diversity of textual sources is the origin of the different numbering of chapters and verses in Malachi as well as the book of Joel for that matter, where the verses, not the text, in chapters two and three differ according to translation.
Today, most English translations of the Bible base their chapter and verse divisions of Malachi on the Latin Vulgate, e.g. RSV (Revised Standard Version), KJV (King James Version), ESV (English Standard Version), NIV (New International Version) but there are some, such as the NJB (New Jerusalem Bible) and notably the NAB (New American Bible), upon which the Catholic lectionary in America is based, that use the chapter and verse divisions of the OT from the Hebrew Bible and Greek Septuagint.
This question was answered by Father Andrew Heaslip, director of religious education for the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
