נNun

Between "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom" (verse 13, mem's verse) and "Jehovah upholdeth all that fall" (verse 14, samek's verse), the alphabet skips nun. The traditional Hebrew text has no nun verse, and the KJV, ASV and Berean Standard Bible all follow it and leave the gap. But three ancient witnesses supply one: the Dead Sea Scrolls copy of the Psalms, the Greek Old Testament, and the Syriac all read "Faithful is the LORD in all his words, and gracious in all his works." The Talmud already knew the verse was missing and offered a reason — nun begins naphla, "fallen," the first word of Amos's lament that the virgin of Israel is fallen, and David would not put a downfall into a psalm of praise. The case for the traditional text is just as checkable: the supplied verse is nearly a duplicate of verse 17, which is exactly what a copyist filling a gap would produce. This is the best text-critical lesson in the Bible, and it fits in one finger-trace down a page.

Nine nun characters in the Hebrew Bible are printed reversed, and most of them come in a pair, one before and one after the two verses about the ark setting out: "Rise up, O Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered." The scribes were flagging a passage as, in effect, out of its place — brackets in a text that had no brackets. More of them are scattered in Psalm 107. Whatever the reason was, the Masoretes did not remove the marks; they preserved them, and printed Hebrew Bibles still carry them today.

Judges ends with a shrine at Dan and a hired priest, and the text names him: Jonathan, son of Gershom, son of Manasseh. Except that in the manuscripts the nun of Manasseh is written suspended — raised above the line, out of the row. Take it out and the name is Moses. The scribes could not bring themselves to write plainly that the priest of an idol shrine was Moses's own grandson, so they lifted one letter above the line — and by lifting it rather than replacing it, they left both readings visible for anyone who looked. It is the most human mark in the Hebrew Bible.