Psalm 100:3, “and not we ourselves”, or “and his we are”?
Psalm 100:3 has both readings: the written Masoretic text says “and not we ourselves”; the marginal reading says “and his we are”, meaning that we belong to him.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads וְל֣וֹ. The copies also carry ולא [hebrew consonantal tradition]; the committee kept the base text.”
“The base text reads וְלוֹ. The copies also carry ולא [hebrew reading tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The two forms are homophones.”
The committee's APB 4.0 decision kept the base text and prints “and we belong to him”. Its textual note states: “The base text reads וְלוֹ. The copies also carry ולא [hebrew reading tradition]; the committee kept the base text. The two forms are homophones.” The two translators were GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI), who read first, and Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic), who read second. No separate rationale note matches this crux.
The argument for each reading
If “his we are”
The Masoretic qere supports reading A: ולו, meaning “and his we are”. This marginal reading makes belonging to God explicit immediately after the statement that he made the people. The verse then calls them his people and the flock of his pasture, so the possessive reading carries that language of belonging through the sentence. The qere preserves this reading alongside the written form. Its place in the margin gives it a distinct role in the Masoretic tradition, and most modern translations print its sense.
If “not we ourselves”
The Masoretic Text (Westminster Leningrad Codex) supports reading B in its ketiv, the written text: ולא. Its sense is “he made us, and not we ourselves.” This reading places a denial after the statement that God made the people. The contrast concerns who made them: God made them, and they did not make themselves. The written form therefore gives the sentence a coherent emphasis of its own. The following description of the people as his people and his flock still expresses belonging to God.
The written text and the marginal reading preserve different senses of two forms that sound alike. Their coexistence does not establish how the difference arose. The variant changes the emphasis of one phrase: it either denies that the people made themselves or states that they belong to God. Both readings retain God's making of the people and their description as his people and his flock.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.