Why do ordering and verse numbers differ between Bibles?

Have you ever been reading in different Bibles, or looking up references, and found different books included, books not in the order you expected, or verse numbers varying between versions? If so, this is completely normal and everything is working fine!

This articles outlines some of the main reasons for these types of differences.

Variations in Books and Ordering

The main reason for different books being included – or books appearing in different orders – in some Bibles is that they are based on different original language texts (or on different translations).

The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (with a small amount of Aramaic) but there was also a translation written in Greek – known as the Septuagint. The Hebrew text (the Masoretic text) has a particular set of books and order, while the Septuagint both introduces additional books and reorders / renames some of them. The screenshot below gives some examples of this (comparing translations of the Hebrew and Greek texts for the Old Testament):

1. Some books have different names - such as 1 Kingdoms instead of 1 Samuel
2. The Hebrew books of Ezra and Nehemiah being included in Esdras B
3. Esther appearing after Job in the Greek version as opposed to directly before Job in the Hebrew text
4. Further additional books - such as Judith and Tobit - appearing in the Greek version

Something similar occurs in Luther's translation of the Bible into German - where a different set of additional books are included but after the ones found in the Hebrew text.

Variations in Chapters

There are a very few cases where books that appear in both versions have different numbers of chapters - such as:

1. The Septuagint having 151 Psalms instead of 150
2. The Septuagint including additional material in the book of Esther

Variations in Chapter Numbering

Sometimes, different texts handle chapter boundaries differently. For example, the Septuagint combines Psalms 9 & 10 in the Hebrew Bible into Psalm 9. This results in many of the Psalms having different numbers depending on whether the Hebrew or Greek Bible is used (this is resolved by the end of the book!).

Note: Logos understands these different numbering schemes, so tools like Text Comparison handle these differences correctly and transparently.

Variations in Verses

Sometimes, different translations include verses that are absent in others. For example, the NKJV includes Matthew 17:21 whereas the LEB moves directly from Matthew 17:20 to verse 22. Both indicate, in footnotes, that this is due to differences in the Greek manuscripts the translation is based on.

Note: None of these differences are due to anything not working - but simply differences due to the underlying texts.