For those who are accustomed to the Koren תנ”ך (which is a very pretty book about which I have much to say, but not in this post), as well as a number of recent printed versions of the Hebrew Bible, the format for the list of the 31 kings (did they inspire Baskin Robbins?) killed by Joshua and the conquering Israelites has 31 lines, with the name of one king on each line, a long space in the middle of the page, and the word אחד at the end of the line. The format is reminiscent of the format of שירת האזינו. The Koren format is depicted below in Figure 1. I apologize for the poor photograph from my Galaxy SIII – usually I would make a proper scan, but I’m lazy tonight.
Figure 1. – Koren
As far as I can tell, beginning with Rav Mordechai Breuer’s תנ”ך published by Mossad HaRav Kook, we got a new format, with two kings on each line (Figure 2).
Figure 2. – Rav Breuer
Where does the “new” format come from, and why are there two formats?
Well, it seems that a) the “new” format is probably actually the old format, and b) there have been at least two formats for a fairly long time. Here are some examples from Bible Manuscripts and early printed Bibles.
The Aleppo Codex has the two king per row format as shown in Figure 3, and therefore it should come as no surprise that Rav Breuer follows this format in his תנ”ך.
Figure 3 – Aleppo Codex
Here are some other old Bible manuscripts and printed editions:
Figure 4 – Cairo Codex – From the Karaite Synagogue at Abbasiya. Written in 895 by Moshe ben Asher.
Figure 5 – Leningrad Codex
Figure 6 – Spanish Bible 1260
Figure 7 – Prague Bible 1489 – (Yeshiva University Museum)
Figure 8 – Daniel Bomberg – Rabbinic Bible 1545 Venice