History of the Hebrew Alphabet

Transcription

CORNELL
Jn
U
N
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
LIBRARY
Tenenbaum
Judaica Fund
Dr. Morris
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
3 1924 096 083 393
The
tine
original of
tiiis
bool<
is in
Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright
restrictions in
the United States on the use of the
text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924096083393
A Short History of the Hebrew Text
Phonttiplao*]
A SHORT HISTORY
OP
THE HEBREW TEXT
OF THK
OLD TESTAMENT
IIY
THOMAS
H.
WEIH,
B.D.
AMIatAHT TO PROrEnnOR OK ORIRNTAL LANGUAORH
IN
THE
UHIVEBHITY OF GLAflDDW
J
y. WJjry
^ vr^l =qi^5 ^ ly// X (Til ,9 ^ J ^ w=LY
.
-fnÂ^ljjfSx^^.yyf Yfl
'Tt^'^
=i,1<»w
a^^^
|i
^1
SECOND EDITION
y/fyi ^>»^
vv-<;^.=l4:^yS.xV0/ijfYr4' ^^"'^^y/
WITH AN AITKNDIX,
lilllLKKiltAPH Y
AND rNDKX
\
|:s^W'i'i'<^«^97y^=»'<-'^rry-FY"i*=^'?îrH^!f>'
I
z o?Ly*i jij r-t^^
$>
/; f +^ t^ ^
I
^7. (./y^X^j Hxl,5>'
LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
14
<yiq>
>ft/
XV-
THE MOABITB STONE.
HENRIETTA
ST.,
COVKNT GAUDEN
1907
I
i
PREFACE.
The
following pages would not have seen the light
bat for the fact that there
(Composition, going over the
The
object aimed
the
Hebrew
the
form
modem
ait
is
no precisely similar
same grotmd,
in existence.
has been to trace the growth of
text from its beginning until it reaches
in
which
printed
it
Hebrew
appears to the
Bible.
reader of
a
It has been sought to
explain everything which meets the eye on the printed
page, or to indicate where such explanation
may be
i%adily found.
In putting these page(s together, I have especially
tio
acknowledge
my
indebtedness to the Rev. Professor
James Robertson, D.D. not
only for indicating where
the best sources of information on the various points
were to be obtained, but also for carefully revising
the proof-sheets; and also to the Rev. Professor Dickson,
ROBERTS LIBRARY
SouthwesUrn
Baptist Saminaty
IV
PEEFACE.
PEEFACE.
LL.D., for reading a proof and suggesting many im-
The works which have been most
Canon
Taylor's
freely used
The Alphabet, the introduction
to
are
Canon
DriTer's Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of
Samud, Dr. Ludwig
Blau's Masoretische Untersuchungen
and Zur Einleitung in
die heUige Schrifl, and, for the
last chapter, Dr. Ginsburg's Introduction to the
Hebrew
Bible.
that of the
Codex Baby-
128) has been executed by Mr.
James Hyatt,
In regard to the
lonicus
(p.
plates,
London; and that of the Carpentras Stele
(p.
16) at
the Clarendon Press, Oxford, with the permission of
the
of the British
authorities
Delegates of the Press.
ness to the Rev.
Museum and
I have to express
my
of the
indebted-
Canon Taylor for kindly offering, and
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner
to his publishers, Messrs.
and Company, for consenting, to lend the dicMs for
the Baal Lebanon Liscription and Turin Papyrus (p. 7).
The electros for the Hebrew Manuscript, British
Museum, Oriental 4445 (p. 126), for the Siloam Inscription (p. 9)
and
supplied by Messrs.
for the set of
Wm.
Collins,
Glasgow; and those of the Tell
el
Jewish Coins were
Sons and Company,
Hesy Tablet
(p.
4)
by the Palestine Exploration Fund.
The History
following
an extremely interesting one. The
the subPerhaps
outline.
pages give only the barest
with as it deserves
ject will be taken up and dealt
ment
provements.
of the
Hebrew Text
of the
Old Testa-
h.
''
is
by more capable hands.
Glasgow, 1899.
T.
H.
W.
CONTENTS.
Pogu
XI
Notes on the Plates
CHAPTER
I.
BARLIB8T FOBH OV WBITIHO IN IBEAEL.
9. Before the Settle1. Invention of Alphabetic WriUng.
in the", Old
Writing
to
References
3.
Canaan.
ment in
4. Intcriptions
Testament
Canaan.
6.
dated after the Settlement in
1—
Orthography of the Period
CHAPTER
II.
THB TWO HEBBKW BCBEPTS.
2. Arameean Scripts.
1. The Old Hebrew Alphabet
New Hebrew Cha8. Orthography of the Period. 4. The
Character. 6. Sumracter. 6. Inscriptions in New Hebrew
mary.
7.
Writing Materials
CHAPTER
1.
III.
THB OHANQB OF BCBIPT.
2. The Change in the Law.
Theories.
Varioni
Other Books. 4. Evidence of
Text Itself. 6. Conclusion
tiie
11—22
Ln.
CHAPTER
B.
8.
In
Evidence of
23-34
IV.
THB PBBBBBVATION OF THB TEXT.
1.
Internal Conditions.
Lxi Version
2.
External Circumstances.
3.
The
84—41
vm
TV
^-*
CONTENTS.
CONTENTS.
Pages
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
P«gu
V.
THE TOOAIilZATlON OF THE TEXT.
The Upper Limit
The Antiquity of the Points. 2.
Date. 5. Various
The Lower Limit 4. The Probable
SESOBIFTION OF TEXT OE FIB8T OKNTDBT.
1.
Purely ConsonantaL 2. Word-Separation. 3. Other
Break! in the Text 4. The Final FormB of Letters.
6. Origin of Final Letters.
6. Talmadio Reference to
1.
Final Letter*.
9.
7.
Conclusion.
Anomalous Forms.
10.
12.
Nuns.
Large and Small
14.
Systems.
Letters.
16.
16. Abbreviations.
Suspended
17.
Sum-
mary
7.
A. Intentional Alteration. 1. mrr and ^P3 2. Euphemistic
Expressions. 3. The TiqqAn Soferim or 'Correction of
CHAPTER Vn.
PB00SEB8 OF BI8T0BT OF TEXT DDBINa FIBBT BETEN
OHSISTIAN OENTCBIBS.
3.
Means
2.
The Text not always
to Preserve the
CHAPTER
Text
.
.
88—93
VIII.
DITJBION OF TEXT.
1.
Verses.
2.
Sections of the Law.
The Poetical Books and
and Names of the Books
4.
Passages.
Definition of the
8.
Other Parts of the Massorah
1.
MANUBOBIPTB AND PEINTBD TEXTS.
The Chapters.
Manuscripts. 2. Printed Editions. 3.
3.
6.
^^^
^^^^
Massoreticse
4. Clausulae
4. Failure
tli0 Eye.
3. Errors due to the Ear.
of Memory. 6. Errors due to Carelessness or Ignorance.
71—88
6. Conclusion
as Written.
Sevirs.
1.
B. Unintentional
due to
Bead
XI.
THE UABBOBAH.
Term. 2. The Qris and
CHAPTER XIL
the Scribes.'
4. The
Alteration of Original Documents: Classification of Scribal
Errors. 1. Failures to understand the Sense. 2. Erron
All Study of the Text vras Oral.
CHAPTER
VI.
ALTERATION OF OBIQINAIi DOOUMENTB.
'IttAr Soferim.
X.
Peculiar Pointings
41—71
CHAPTER
1.
Various Recension
CHAPTER
of Passages.
Letters and Divided Nun.
6.
THE FALE8TINIAN 8TBTEM.
Dagesh
Language. 2. The Consonants^ 3.
1. The Living
Summary.
6. The ^<>'''>^\^_^^^
B.
Vowels.
The
4.
Forte.
The Dotted Words. 11. Their
13. The Inverted
Antiquity.
List
8.
The Vowel-Letters.
8.
IX.
The Haftarahs.
Number, Order
93—100
Index of Scripture Texts
143
NOTES ON THE PLATES.
THE MOABITB STONE.
The
following are the transliteration and translation of the
The dotted letters are doubtful.
first six lines.
a |.nmpa.»D3^nKt .nnan MyK\ pan .inw.^n
.Vaa .>3Kin.'oi.i3ôn.âo."'ij?trn.''a.VB'
DVlWB'
Ka,tMDa.«ia«n ."'3.)an.iD\aK0.n« .wy^.^N-i»viô.'
.noK .nD"0|aKD .n«.i3j;K.Kn.DJ."io«î.n3a.nD^nî|n3
the son of Chemoshgad king of Moab, the
was king over Moab thirty years, and I
And I made this high-place to Chefather.
after
my
reigned
because he saved me from all the
Q-r-h-h
am Mesha
I
Dibonite.
mosh
My
father
in
and because he made me to look upon all those that
afflicted Moab
hated me. Omri was king of Israel, and he had
many days, for Chemosh was angry [fem.] with his land. And
will afflict Moab in
his son succeded him, and he also said, I
kings,
my
days.
He
said
XII
THE
BAAIi
LEBANON INSCBIPTION AND TURIN
PAPYRUS.
<jf
Blessed be Taba, the daughter of Tahapi, devoted worshipper
the God Osiris. Aught of evil she did not, and calumny
Canon
blessed:
(so.
thou be at peace
Taylor's Alphabet;—
Dens, Domine mi, ex conculcatione servum
tuum Pakhim
e[npe]
Vita unica et verax dominus meus Jehovah
....
modern square Hebrew run
Tiya .napan , -dt . .th
p . »« . ^p
oVî
. . .
.
Di
. * . ,
n^ JTOK
iru . hy
,nD«
.
,
iT-u
r\hH)
.
tr!?»
.
m
.
.
ni;?ai
mpV
.
tr
.
PALMYRENE AND HEBREW
y\p
as follows;—
.
iyi
nti
.
.
napan (p)
bt^
.
trK
.
)mn
n nasnn lan . napi
.
!]
INSCRIPTIONS.
a. This inscription is in the uncial Palmyrene character and
does not show the ligatures; but these very much resemble
those in the Hebrew (no. 6). The transliteration is;—
THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION.
lines in
man she never uttered. Before Osiris be thou
from Osiris take thou water. Be thou a worshipper
before Osiris), my darling; and among the pious [mayest
against any
The translation of the former is given in
the text: the
following translation of the latter by
Lenonnant is offered in
The
.
D'n«Da na-on .h» .nnon ,p .oôn
asnn .^y .isn .naa rvn .hdn .n
.
pby KID
pv
iv^b
that is;— "To Baal of heaven, lord of the worlds, has offered the
canopy and couch Agatbangelus."
The inscription is from Reland's Paheatina.
Nos. 1, a and 2 a are referred to in the text p.
are taken from Chwolson's Corp. Inscr. Hebr.
6 and 17. The transliteration and translation are;
pnv
.
min- ityv non ^\v^»b a
TTin
•'ia
iiylrKi
^d
THE CARPENTRAS STELE.
The following are the transliteration and translation given
Canon Driver's Text of the Books of Samuel, p. XVIIL
Kn^K
^TDi«
non niDK m^
-np
i>D
n KHicn
vh
now
'snai
Dnp
'Ton
p
iâi
ânn
may
-in
ma
Man nana
kV ty^wa Dynic
nana noiK
'nyoj nnê
mp
'in
.
.
18.
.
«]DV
Tin
in
XIII
NOTES ON THE PLATE&
.
They
n»
oa
'3a
"This [is the grave] of Eleazar, Hanniah, Joezer, Judah ....
Johanan, sons of Joseph .... seph and Eleazar, sons of Hanniah .... sons of Hezir."
•"1^
p
'iSn noi' htrwtf
[Bn-yoa]
nioipo âai ntn oipoa mhvf
myoa
naia wan ntn
tjipt^n
'n'
ntyy
"Peace be upon this place and upon all the places of Israel.
Joseh the Levite, son of Levi, made this lintel: may blessing
come upon his works."
XIV
One might
say that, even
were not known independinferring the monotheism of the
if it
one would be safe in
Jews from the inartistic character of
ently,
their inscriptions.
the bricks in a wall.
The column on the
S
COINS.
The silver shekel of Simon the Maccabee has, on the obverse
the legend ^Mnir bpv, Shekel of Israel and the date K, that is
the first year of independence, or 142 b.o. on the reverse,
,i«npn D'^V, Jerutalem the Holy. The chalice is thought to
represent the pot of manna the triple lily or hyacinth, Aaron'srod. Many refer these coins to the years 66 70 a. d.
:
:
—
of the half-shekel is the same as that of the
shekel, except that instead of Shekel of Israel there stand the
The design
words
'}pV7\ "tn,
The
half-shekel.
THE SUPERLINEAK PUNCTUATION.
In the ordinary or Palestinian system of
passage
is
vocalization,
the
pointed thus;
KJ»â ^3i?npT lani? »nvl»
by
Dr. Chamizer should be
The pointing kindly supplied
compared with the specimen given in Baer's Job; and also with
that of Merx' Chrestomathia Targumica.
.
etc.
r>
DIP,
THE RABBINIC
This page
in the
is
BIBLE.
from the Warsaw edition of 1862.
first place,
It shows,
a poetical passage of the text arranged like
left is
the
Targom
-tJt?^::TtSnisf^r^SL;^by
These are surrounded
Urguin, the massorah magna.
and
top
the
ee^;:m'entaries: to
"«f•j/^yj, ^,^^
ben Isaac; to the top and Wt, "'«'^';
Se
JEWISH
XV
^
B*bbi Solomon
"J ^^S,;,"'
of lUlbag
along the bottom that
Eabbi David Kimchi; and
page are
the
of
foot
the
rrRabbi Levi ben Ger.on. At
two
late hagadio commentaries.
ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDA
p. 34,
1.
p. 06,
1. 5,
p. CO,
1.
12,
Blauin 'Gedenkbiich
David Kaufmanii.'Brcslau, MKK), shows that the old script continued into
.
.
.
the third century a.d.
Foi-
'
Nun
22, It has
read 'Vav
'
1.
26,
Exactly as in Jer.
p. 85,
1.
8,
Add Ps.
II,
1.
viii.
inay-20: similarly
p. 84,
p. 99,
;
1. lit.
been suggested that the 3 following
in 1 S.14, 14
p. 89,
so p.
'
95, 7,
'
23
18,
flock
See Blau in J.Q.iJ.,
:
in Ps.
ilO,
12
D^'^t^'J'
P —70.
Ps. 139, 20.
and people.'
'
471.
viii.
1 1,
The reference is Baba Bathra 14 b.butthe distinction
8,
Similarly D'/ltC^B with a prefix receives the article.
1.
of former andlatter prophets i8notTalmudic(Blnu).
p. 119,
1.
p. 119,1. 15,
Other examples
(regularly)
:
be found Gn.
will
Ps. 62, 4
:
p.119,1.18,
The original orthography is miDP
p. 124,1.11,
The Qri sometimes
the words
is
14,
p. 139, 141,
Add
the reference to
p. 125,
II
16,
or JT)IDP(Blau).
(Blau).
5m is due to
insertion of the
3:
euphemistic as in the case of
byV and wh^y>
The
1.
6,
Ph. 68, 3.
Baer (Blau).
Chr. 19, 13 [2 R. 10, 12] .ir,Zunz, Geschichte und Litteratur,' 207, and 'Gesani1
'
melte gchriften,'
iii.
77 (Blau).
:
CHAPTER
I.
EAKLIEST FORM OF WHITING IN ISRAEL.
1.
Invention of Alphabetic Writinff.
of their liistory the Israelites
the art of writing
uncertain.
is
At what
In their traditional
Old Testament, the art
history as given in the
referred to before the time of Moses.
the book of Genesis there
is
period
became acquainted with
is
no mention of writing and
the verb meaning to write does not once occur.
the account of the acquisition by
of
Machpelah given
Genesis, nothing
is
of purchase, such as
in
not
In the whole of
Abraham
the twenty-third
In
of the cave
chapter of
said of a written document or bill
we read
of in the similar transaction
recorded in the thirty-second chapter of Jeremiah.
Mention
is
made, indeed,
m
the thirty-eighth chapter
of Genesis, of a signet-ring, but this does not necessarily
As
imply an engraved inscription.
to the period at
to be used, the
the year 1500
which alphabetic writing began
commonly accepted view
b. 0. it
is
that about
was pretty generally practised
-"-%:u
a
CHAPTER
among
the Phoenicians.
the nature of
tilings,
It
is
EARLIEST FORM OF WRITING IK ISRAEL.
I.
not,
however,
likely, in
that the Israelites were in their
nomadic state acquainted with alphabetic
writing.
More
probably they acquired the art at the time of their
settlement on the East and West of the Jordan.
The form
year 1400
of writing in use in Palestine about the
b.c.,
at least for purposes of international
process of writing would naturally appeal to a com-
mercial people such as they were.
the invention of a Semitic people
That the alphabet
is
is
proved by the fact
of guttural letters which are peculiar to the Semitic
languages being represented in
it,
as well as by the
absence of letters to indicate vowel sounds.
same
At
the
time, the possession of an alphabet does not ex-
correspondence, was the syllabic Babylonian cuneiform.
clude the simultaneous employment of a less developed
The Hebrews, however, do not appear
form of
adopted this
:
at any rate, they are not
ever to have
known ever
to
writing.
Before the Settlement in Canaan,
2.
Of the
liter-
have employed a script other than alphabetic.
ature and script which existed in Canaan immediately
Both the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets go back
to the same original. This original script was purely
before the immigration of the Israelites some remains
alphabetic and
These number about three himdred, and were discovered
it
had a Semitic
origin, that is to say,
have come down to us in the Tell
its inventors spoke a Semitic language whether they
were themselves Semites or not. The Classical authors
in 1887
are unanimous in their assertion that the Greeks received the alphabet from the Phoenicians (Herod, v, 58);
east
but as to the original inventors of the alphabet, they
Philistines
variously assign that honour to the Phoenicians (Lucan,
one of the kings of the
Pharsalia
Arsinoe was.
citus,
The
iii,
Annals
opinion
220), Syrians, Assyrians or Egyptians (Taxi,
14: Pliny, Nat. Hist. ed. Sillig,
now
generally held
is
vii,
192).
that the Phoenicians
the year 1900 b.c.
all
others somewhere about
Such a great
simplification in the
Amama
by a peasant woman at Tell
Upper Egypt, the
bank of the
site of
Nile.
el
tablets.
Amama
in
the ancient Arsinoe on the
They
consist for the
most part
of letters sent by the vassal kings of the Amorites,
and
and Phoenicians,
On
el
They are written
Egypt
is,
to
Amenophis IV,
dynasty, whose capital
in the
Aramaic language
a non-alphabetic script,
to the fourteenth or fifteenth century b.
c.
May
1892 there was discovered at Tell
site of
the Lachish of the Old Testament,
the 14th
Hesy, the
to
XVIHth
in the cuneiform, that
and belong
found alphabetic signs in use in Egypt and adopted
these to the exclusion of
el
a precisely similar tablet.
This forms the only pre-
4
CHAPTER
[To fko*
p. 4]
I.
Israelitish inscription as yet found in Palestine.
It
was
discoTered in the Amorite stratum of the mound, and
mentions Zimiidi, who was king of Lachish about the
year 1400
found
in
and
and who
b. o.
Egypt.
solitary
mentioned on the tablets
also
is
..
English versions of this interesting
relic
be found
will
Condor's book on the Tell
el
in
Amarna
Lieut.-Colonel.
Tablets, and in
the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration
Fund
1893 by Professor Sayce.
for Jan.
If the Israelites ever acquired
script,
The
trans-
however, do not agree.
lations,
and employed
this
which they found in use in the country of their
adoption, no remains of
it
have come down to our
time from them.
3.
Rrferences
Hi
earliest reference
Testament
is
Writing in the Old Testament
to
Ex.
to writing to
17, i4,
The
be found in the Old
where Moses
is
conmianded
to write in a book an account of the victory just gained
over
the
Amalek
in
Rephidim, and
entry in the
first
mentioned in Num.
the
Book
clusive,
Book
21, u.
In £x.
of the Covenant, that
in the
may have been
Wars of Jehovah
this
of the
is.
24, 7
Moses reads
Exodus 20
— 23
in-
audience of the people and thereafter
goes up into the Mountain to receive the two tables
of the
Law. From
this point
onwards, the references to
J.
EARLIEST FORM OF WRITING IN ISRAEL.
writing occur with increasing frequency, but
be noted that
'
it
and preserving what
The
art of writing
it
is
to
always as a means of storing up
is
is
is
written, not of circulating
it.
a possession of the few and the
diffusion or publication of literature takes place orally.
But when we come down
to the times of the Judges,
that a chance prisoner was
able
to
write
down
the princes of Succoth for Gideon (Jud.
8, H),
seems
to point to the
•the
fact
knowledge of reading and writing
being general.
In view, however, of the late date now assigned to
most of the
earlier books of the
Old Testament,
it is
maintained that statements such as these are valid only
for the period in wliich the author wrote, not for that
of which he treated.
Yet
ia
the word which came later to signify 'scribe'
found in the Song of Deborah (Jud.
6, 14, a. v.)
:
Out of Machir came down governors,
And
and
out of Zebulon they that handle the pen of the writer,
this
position
poem
is
generally admitted to be the com-
of a poet
who was contemporary with the
events which he describes.
The word
however, properly means staff
in this passage
translated pen,
and that
mean no more than
for scribe
chief,
may
the poet
wishing to give variety to his vocabulary.
By
the beginning of
tlie
monarchy,
in
any case,
it
CHAPTEB
6
is
I.
evident that the higher ofSciala at court must have
possessed a knowledge of writing as well as the king
(2
Sam.
and the nohles
11, 14)
(8,17);
and yet reading
remained so long an accomplishment of the
even as late as the reigns of
Ahah and
few, that
Joash,
that Elijah and Elisha do not as a rule think
while to put their discourses in writing.
we
it
Samuel, in-
deed, reduced to writing the constitution of the
Israelitish
monarchy
(1
Sam.
10, 25),
find
worth
new
and written laws
existed before the time of the earliest writing prophets
(Hos.
8, 12);
but of written literature in the strict sense
there appears at this period to have been none.
Only
laws were written and annals: the rest was diffused
and handed down
orally.
that not only do
Amos and Hosea
Yet so great a change had
come over the people within the next hundred years,
courses,
but
it
is
write
their dis-
by many supposed that the old
sacred legends of the Patriarchs, of the Judges and
of David, which
one generation to
now
for the
now been passed on from
another by word of mouth, were
time made permanent in writing.
had
first
until
Similarly the poetry of the Arabs of the
ance,
and even that composed
Muhammed, were
the
first
century
after
Time
of Ignor-
the coming of
not written down until the close of
a. h.
Even Jeremiah,
famous Arabian poet or
like the
like
'illiterate
many a
Prophet'
[Tq face
p. 7]
EARLIEST FORM OF WRITING IN ISRAEL.
seem
himself, does not
to
7
have written anything, whether
he couUl have done so or not.
In order to determine in what script the earlier
prophets,
Amos, Hosea, Micah and Isaiah and
contemporaries wrote,
inscriptions
it
their
necessary to tuni to the
is
which have survived and have been
dis-
covered up to the present time.
4. Inscriptions dated after the Settlement in Canaan.
loa^^va^
]n^
m
nnt iâ
nm
nay nunn
mp
i^d
The
script
only
in
which prevailed during
Palestine
bordering upon
THE BAAIi LEBANON INSCEIPTION.
itself
it,
but
also
this
in
period,
not
countries
the
was the Phcenician. The following
are the principal inscriptions:
1.
The most
script extant
is
made up
found near
ancient specimen
of the
Phoenician
the inscription of Baal Lebanon.
is
of eight fragments
the
of bronze
summit of a mountain
some twenty miles from LimasoL
in
It
and was
Cyprus
Six of these form
consecutive portions of the rim of a bowl about one
»^ 'SITJ^
.
,
»
^»'> -Styx/) ^Yft
D^nD
pay
THE TUBIN PAPYKUS
foot
in
diameter and the inscription on them runs:
1«<A>1
"This vessel of bronze was offered by a citizen of
Carthage, servant of Hiram, king of the Sidonians, to
ntynnriD '«io ^«
(Egyptian Aramaic,
p. 16).
Baal Lebanon
Ids Lord."
are detached.
The bowl
The two remaining portions
is
supposed to have formed
part of the plunder of a temple on the Lebanon which
had been carried
to Cyprus.
The forms
of the letters
are the most ancient known and are assigned to the
8
CHAPTEB
I.
beginning of the ninth century. The Carthage mentioned
is
not the African
and might
2.
By
the
city:
name means New Town
common.
well be
far the longest
and most important Phoenician
inscription of this period yet discovered
known Moabite
the well-
is
Stone, which was fomid at Dhiban, the
ancient Dibon, in 1868 and which
is
now
in the Louvre.
This stele measured forty-one inches by twenty-one
and the
of the inscription
Mesha, the king of
is
referred to in 2 Kings
how he
1, i
and chap.
In
3.
it
he relates
tlirew off the yoke of the king of Israel, re-
—
covered and rebuilt his
mentioned
in Is. 16
road across the
towns most of which are
and 16 and Jer. 48 constructed a
—
Amon
and subequently undertook an
expedition against the Edomites.
scription
is
The
logy.
The author
Moab who is
inscription ran to thirty-four lines.
The date
of the in-
about the year 896 in the ordinary chronoletters
present the appearance of having
been drawn by a scribe and cut by an
The genuineness
of
the
stone
illiterate
has
not
mason.
been
ua-
questioned.
3.
a
The
lion
—
fifteen lion-weights
—^weights
in the
form of
discovered at Nineveh, for the most part bear
legends in both cuneiform and Phoenician characters.
'
j
They belong
to
the latter part
of the
the beginning of the seventh century.
eighth
and
Other small
j
i
[To fM*
p. •]
EARLIEST FORM OF WHITING IN ISRAEL.
remains in
9
same character have been found
tlie
else-
where.
4.
and
But not only was the Phoenician alphabet known
Palestine:
it
was the form of
vrriting
employed by
Israelites themselves during the period
This
upon
in general use in the countries bordering
fact,
tlie
under review.
which had been long recognised on other
grounds, has been put beyond question by the discovei-y in the year
account of
1880 of
Siloam Inscription.
may be read
'find'
tliis
tlie
in the
Statements of the Palestine Exploration
year 1881.
This inscription
is
An
Quarterly
Fund
for the
engraved on a recessed
tablet in the wall of the tunnel connecting the l)ool
of Siloam with St. Mary's well.
The
half-an-inch in lieight, deeply incised.
is
letters are over
The language
pure Hebrew and the script similar to that of the
Moabite Stone, but exhibiting a later phase. It
is
not
earlier than the eighth nor later tlian the sixth century.
Most
likely it
belongs to the reign of Hezekiah, the
tunnel being the conduit referred to as being the work
of
Hezekiah
in 2
Or, the tunnel
which case
K.
20, 20: 2 Chr. 32, 30: Ecclus. 48, 17.
may be
'the
waters of Shiloah
spoken of by Isaiah (8,
si SISI
t
the work of an earlier time, in
6),
that
go
softly*,
would mean the waters flowing
through the Siloam tunnel.
The Siloam
Inscription shows the alphabet in use
CHAPTER
10
Some
THE TWO HEBREW
be a form of PhoBnician not materi-
in ancient Israel to
ally different
I.
from the other early examples extant.
of the letters betray a slight
movement towards a
more advanced type: others, such as the n with three
bars and the triangular Jf, show a more archaic form.
The long
tails
are due solely to the taste and fancy
There are no special forms of
4.
ri
as
letters
when
final
1.
1
There
5.
11
SCRIPTS.
no hesitation about dividing words at
is
the ends of hues, even in the middle of a syllable.
6.
The
writing
7.
The
letter
from right to left
is
B does not occur.
of the artist
6.
Orthography of {he Period.
Word-separation:
1.
CHAPTER
Both on the Moabite Stone and on the Siloam Inscription the words are separated
by a
point,
as in
rare.
The
THE TWO HEBREW
II.
SCRIPTS.
the oldest Greek inscriptions.
The Old Hebrew
1.
The
Vowel-letters:
2.
scriptio
plena
Moabite Stone regularly omits the
and
,
«31D,
In the Silpam Inscription
dual.
]n3\ ni»,
Stone has
and »KT
tsn
and
as in 11K=>OJM.
T
VH
niD« and
Tlj;
^
are
in fulL
it
all
is
of the
W,
Por
suffixal
DOSin,
written defectively, but
the last the Moabite
even omits to indicate
The
h\p,
plural
^
final
vowels
and the verbal
The
n in the
pers. sing. masc. is indicated
by the
Moabite Stone but by
the Siloam Inscription,
which even writes
would have
3.
lyT
1
in
letter
where the Old Testament Text
1ny^.
Except the word-divider there are no vowel or
other points.
The OBDEB
is known
of the
which the
in
other
first
old
Hebrew
followed one an-
letters
of all from the order of the letters
Greek alphabet taken according
merical values.
This
is
to their nu-
confirmed, though not perhaps
the time of the Exile, by the alphabetic Psalms
till
are, however, fully written.
The
letters, all consonants.
affix
suffix of the 3rd
Alphabet.
alphabet, like the Phoenician, consisted of twenty-two
and by the
figure called athbash, tS^SMM.
Examples of
the latter are found in the Bible in Jer. 26, 26 and
61,
and
1
4i.
In
this
cipher a
word
is
disguised by
substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the
the second last for the second and so on.
name.
Thus
in the passages cited
and n^T03 becomes
'Dp 3^,
hM
is
first,
Hence the
called yovf
which the Authorized Version
12
CHAPTER n.
translates: 'In the midst of
Later
me'.
Psalms 9 and
The
may
or, it
them that
10, 26, 34, 37,
1
—
4:
In
all
112, 119
111,
these the order of
the same as that to which
one or two exceptions.
very striking resemblance
and
precedes
y.
In Ps. 37 the y
34, apparently both the
omit
1
is
work
of the
names of the
same
text
—
The names
ciple,
In any case the
ox.
it
the
more probable that they are
are given on the acrophonic prin-
each beginning with the letter of which
name.
Thus
begin with
in Ethiopic the
and so the
y,
word
letter
hand. Similarly, the word nun,
may be nothing more than corruptions of the
or they may be due to a preference of the sense
letter i is called
are cut
down
given for the
originality
—
first
letters standing together
bear similar names, as
either feminine
3 (hand), D (water) and
i (fish),
4.
Hebrew.
In
In
simka there
the case of the Ethiopic the halves of the alphabet
were transposed, whence the conjectural etymology of
time in
tlie
for
Hand
called
'fish',
the
yaman, right
In Arabic the names
The Hebrew names are
LXX version of Lam.
so on are
or emphatic masculine forms
Gamma-=galma=gamla
is
it is
does not
being obsolete, the
The Greek names Alpha, Beta and
1
and
is
'
nahash serpent.
to monosyllables.
of the present order appears also from this, that the
p and 1 (head).
foot the Phoe-
what had once
letters are extremely ancient, being the
makes
Pss. 25
>
in
Hebrew, Greek and, with exceptions, Ethiopic;
in
original.
same author,
The
and
so that,
and the fact that the Hebrew names are not Hebrew
and append a second verse commencing with fi
These and other anomalies, how-
to the form on the part of the poet
a house,
vocables
at the conclusion.
ever,
for
some
In Lam. 2
B.
obscured.
their original,
to
been a reed they recognised an
tlie letters
to be
took
13
8CEIPT8.
what had once been the picture of a
nicians
145.
we are accustomed, with
Thus there seems
doubt as to the place of the letter
and
up against
Pr. 31, 10—31 and possibly the begin-
ning of Nahum.
it
rise
be, earlier, there are the acrostic
other alphabetic portions of the Old Testament
Lam.
are
is
THE TWO HEBBEW
of the
or in Sigma==
also a transposition of letters.
In passing over from the Phoenicians to the Greeks
the word eieOTcnt=LMN-=ABC.
the alphabet necessarily underwent various modifications.
The NAMES of the letters are supposed to have
been applied to them from a fancied resemblance of
The
the Egyptian signs to certain objects.
sonantal value altogether and became vowels, that
ire
must assume that these had ceased
letters representing the four guttural
sounds wliich
are peculiar to the Semitic languages lost their con-
In this case
^5\ttO became AEHO,
to bear any
i.
is
the letters being inverted with
CHAPTER
14
n.
the change in the direction of the writing.
culiar Semitic guttural qoph
a
its
old name.
6,
but
is
the Latin F.
form and numerical value of 60
name
form of
The
pe-
Greek as
It has survived as a letter in the Latin Q.
only a numeral in Greek, with
is
value of
its
in
but retained as a numerical sign for 90 under
letter,
Vav
was rejected
to the
sin.
Greek
Tsadhe
is
2
its
Hebrew
SatneWi gave
its place,
Greek
to the
"S,
but
which has the place and
dropped as a
letter,
but ap-
pears as the numeral «ampi*=900, the present value
of the
modem
final y.
But whilst the Greek alphabet retained the forms
and even the names of the old Hebrew or Phoenician
letters almost without alteration,
the Eastern scripts
diverged more and more from them.
of Phoenician trade
especially the
hj the
The
destruction
later Assyrian kings,
and
conquest of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar
about the year 672, led to the decay and almost complete disappearance of the Phoenician script from south-
western Asia, and to the substitution in
its place, for
purposes of commerce and international intercourse, of
the Aramean.1
2.
Aramean
Scripts.
The
oldest specimens of the
i
Charts ahowing how one language supplanted another in
western Asia will be found in Hommel's Die Semiten und ihre
Bedeutung fur die Kulturgeschichte.
To fM*
p.
u]
THE TWO HEBEEW
Aramean alphabet
wliich
15
SCRIPTS.
have survived are
a few
characters inscribed on the cuneiform clay tablets of
Nineveh, as the Phoenician letters were upon the lion-
They belong
weights.
sian Satraps
333
down
There
B. c.
to the seventh century.
found on
this script is
tlie
to the time of Alexander the Great,
is
very
little
noticeable in
from the Plioenician during
divergence
beyond the opening of the loops of certain
B
as
'
g
2.
The
D A
and
;
and
^
become
Meantime an Aramean
Saqqarah near Cairo found
b.
now
this
1877.
lies,
called,
after the
period
is
Egypt
the stele of
It belongs to
and tho
is
French town where
There are also
a number of papyri which bring the history of
down
to the first
centmy
b.
3.
A
>
by Jews.*
third stage in the development of the
is
this
c, several being com-
positions of a religious nature apparently
alphabet
the
the Carpentras Inscription, belonging to
the latter part of the fourth centuiy.
script
of
f.
script is found in
in
way
letters sucli
c, but the letters are indistinct ;
memorial tablet
it
and
tlie
example of the Egyptian Aramaic
cardinal
O
J
oldest instance of its occurrence
the year 482
Later
numerous Per-
coins of the
Aramean
found in the series of inscriptions belonging
Oriental Series of Palseographical Soc. plates 25, 26 and 63.
16
CHAPTER
THE TWO HEBREW
II.
to the first three Christian centuries
One
Palmyrene.
of these
dated the year 9
and known as the
and prohably
oldest
tlie
Several have been
b. c.
is
found in
This
it.
is
17
SCRIPTS.
seen most distinctly (a) in the opening of
loops of the letters heth, daleth, feth, qoph and
the
resh:
A4[0]p/1
become JJiyW^H:
in
(b)
the
Algeria and one as far north as South Shields; but
omission of the bars characteristic of the letters he,
by
vav, zayin, heth
far the greater
and belong
266
—273
ties
to
A. D.
number have been found
at
Palmyra
the time of Odenathus and Zenobia,
Hence the name. There
are two varie-
of this script, a highly ornate uncial and a cursive.
The language
in
which the inscriptions are written
is
a dialect of Aramaic resembling the Biblical.
Orthography of the Rriod.
3.
The words are no longer
divided
1.
in the
Moabite Stone and Siloam Inscription but (except
the Palmyrene) by a space.
2.
Vowel
text of the
letters are
3,
There
The use
and
in the
and
final
in
is still
no trace of vowel or other
Palmyrene involved a
forms of
letters
points.
Aramaic
distinction of initial
so connected.
In some of
the Egyptian papyri the letters kaph, lamed and
nun
have each two forms.
5.
in the direction of the
in the
point to note at present
is
diverge from the Phoenician
Hebrew square
Palmyrene they become almost
Aramaic
to curve towards the left
4.
27ie
New
had ceased
Hebretv Character.
After the return of
to
be the channel of commercial
inter-
course in the countries bordering upon Palestine.
had passed on
Cilicia
to the
West ^nd
and
character, until
identical with
Syria,
before Christ,
the
and
Egypt
in
employed by the Jews in
if
not earlier
its
It
place had been
wliere
th'e
still.
Aramaic Language became
At
it
was the
second century
the same time
the lingua franca of
the Seleucid Empire displacing Assyrian, Babylonian,
Hebrew and
Phoenician.
divided into two
into Syriac,
The most important
Aramean scripts
that the
kaph, lamed, mem, pe and tsadhe, which are vertical
in the old Aramaic, beginning in the Egyptian
script
of ligatures in the Egyptian
the tails of the
taken by the more cursive Aramaic in Mesopotamia,
used as freely as in the present
Old Testament.
4
(c) in
the Jewish exiles from Babylon the Phoenician script
Word-separation:
by a point as
and tau; and
In Syria the Aramean script
branches
:
a northern which grew
and a southern or Jewish from wliich the
Hebrew square character was produced, some time
before the commencement of the Christian era.
5. Inscriptions in New Hebrew Character. The
oldest example of the Hebrew square character is
18
CHAPTER
[To fko*
11.
p. 18]
al
Ameer
near Heshbon which was used as a place
of retreat in the
year 176
which may date much
letters,
b. c.
The
>
iTa"iy,
In either case two of the
letters
which
number
c.
D
O
HH
H
&
I
P
c
n
09
Is
of Jerusalem by Titus in the year 70 a.d., have been
Two
identical
supposed
the
words
longest
"Mi
site
Dnn,
that
inscription
inscriptions
of
ancient
this
period
Tomb
entrance of the so-called
the
were found near
is
10,21.
The
letters
the
But the
(A
n
I
£
I
I
r.
r
that over the
of St. James, really
tomb of the Bene Hezir mentioned
Neh.
bearing
Limit of Gezer.
is,
of
^
Gezer
C
V.
C
? 3
1= k
CO
of other short inscriptions, all probably
to be assigned to the century before the destruction
found.
n
n
T
is
belong to
to be observed.
A
'*i
Arabhyah, and
the old script: on the latter reading the scriptio plena
is
D
inscription,
rraiB, Tobiah, according to the initial letter
doubtful.
5>
-£•
later tlian that, consists of five
which are variously read
C
C
thought to be an inscription found in a cave at Araq
in 1 Chr. 24,
is,
are in the square character
but very rudely formed. The
final
nun is
c
distinguishable
c
c
from the medial, but not so pe; and vav, zayin and
a>
II
yod are scarcely to be distinguished from one another.
-2
•3
c
c
Ligatures are used.'
.
Joaephns Ant. xii, 4, 11
DO. I: Driver p. XXII.
* Chwolaon noa. II and II
i
:
a.
Chwolson Corp.
>
Driver
Inacr.
p.
Hebr.
XXIII.
e.
x:
o
.1
M
M
S
•a
,3!
-J
o.
«
I
«e
t^
flQ
n
§^
o
r~
g.
C
a
CT
r\
T
-S
CQ
u
-c
n
-^
.2*
CD
tz.
r\
.2
iH
en
THE TWO HEDEEW
The
19
SCRIPTS.
inscriptions of the next two centuries arc found
outside Palestine; but in the year 1863
Benan
dis-
covered among the ruins of one of the synagogues of
Kefr Birim near Safed an inscription' which he as-
may well
Hebrew square
signed to about the year 300 a. d., though
be
In
earlier.
character
it
"the transition to the
may be
'scriptio iJlena is
said
regular,
to
and
be accomplished" 2.
final D,
During the subsequent centuries
'
all
it
]
and
>]
Tiie
are used.
inscriptions arc found
over the then civilized world in Italy, France, Spain,
at Babylon,
two dated
Tiflis
and Derbend. From Aden there are
inscriptions, one of the year
also the date of the oldest dated
The forms
916 which
is
Hebrew Manuscript 3.
of the letters in this latter are the
same
as those in use at the present day, but without
tlie
uniform squareness, the great resemblances between
different letters,
to the forms
and the
by way
a later and vicious
6.
ias
Summary.
useless tags
ornameni
of
and apices added
These are due to
style.
Thus
the
Hebrew square character
seen in the printed texts of the Old Testament
a development of a branch of the Aramean
is
script,
which was also the mother of the two other great
>
*
Chwokon
The
no. 17.
»
Driver
p.
XXV.
MSS
dates of the Crimean tombstoneB and
are generally
regarded ag forgeries.
B2
CHAPTEB
20
THE TWO HEBSEW
tr.
By
Semitic literary scripts, Arabic and Syriac.
third century
B. c.
the
Aramean
script
was
passage. Is.
use in those countries where Assyrian, Babylonian,
Hebrew and Fhcsnician had been employed before.
But though general, its use was not universal in southwestern Asia. To this day the Samaritan Bible — the
Books
fiye
Hebrew
of
Moses
—
îs
read from a form of the old
or Phoenician character; and in the time of
the Maccabees, and even as late as the war of
A. D., coins
acter as
found on the Moabite Stone, a thousand
is
were struck
in the
same char-
The
question
now
arises:
When,
if ever,
were the
the chisel
it
ts'in
Otherwise the style was such a reed as was used in
Egypt from the
it
about the writing materials employed by the
Hebrews before and
The
7.
Writing materials.*
The
stylus DJ?
was made of
a material suitable to the substance on which
it
was
intended to be used. For engraving on stone or metal
an iron
style
was used, Job
19, 24,
sometimes furnished
The
Jer. 36,
ink,
is,
was carried in the ink-horn,
as at the present day in the girdle of the
9, 2,
professional scribe.
The
oldest material used for writing
Amama
tablets.
is
upon was
\fhi Is. 8,
has
it,
1
Documents which
means not a
roll,
but such a metal
tablets were in use
but in Job
19,
u
3, 23,
it
was desired
Probably
as the Authorized Version
tablet.
that
among
in
proved by the Tell
to preserve were engraved on stone or metal.
is,
The plural
is
trans-
metal mirrors.
Lead
the Greeks and
Romans,
the meaning seems to be tracing out
the letters themselves in molten lead upon the rock.
2 Esdras 14,
c£ Luke
Benzinger, Hebraieche Archeeologie, p. 290.
LXX
pen-knife mentioned in Jer. 36, 23 was used to
lated 'glasses' at ch.
after the Exile.
the
sharpen the calamus.
el
tlu'ng
2
rightly translate by KoAa/ios.
portions were originally written down, into the square
to this point
In Ps. 46,
earliest times.
Syria as in Babylon clay, as
will be convenient here to say some-
mentioned as a
has probably some connection
of the Siloam Inscription, in which the more ancient
But before proceeding
is
In one obscure
DnSBVI in Genesis, Exodus and, after them, in Daniel
Jewish Scriptures transliterated from the old Hebrew
character of the present day?
i.
with the name given to the Egyptian sacred scribes
-'
Ezek.
years earlier.
8, i,
Jer. 17,
point,
writing instrument:
Bar
Gochba 135
a diamond
with
the
in general
21
SCBIFT8.
24
mentions boxwood as one material used,
1, 63.
Such materials however were soon discarded
for
CHAPTEB IL
22
THE CHASOE OF
23
8CBIPT.
ordinary use, and by the times of the kings we already
read of 'books' being used,
and
30, 8
Lower Egypt,
in
if
not earlier, Ex. 24,
The papyrus
often.
still
plant. Is. 18,
2,
7
THE CHAKQE OF
have furnished the material of wliich books were
i-
of script from the old
to the
as being used for that purpose: the word occurs 2 John
all
2 Esdras 16,
Tobit
2,
Neither
7, i4.
is
there any
evidence in the Old Testament for the use of skins;
though the JaTCIC have the words
Jer. 36 (in the
Greek
where parchment
is
43).
The
is
2 Tim.
hand
sides.
to
Law
Egypt
and Jowritten
in
the
in the
columns, Jer. 36,
staff.
to the question of
Hebrew
change
of the Siloam Inscription
modem square character, the
having taken place
tlie
fact of
any change at
been denied. This was the
lias
opinion ofEleazar of Modin,
{• 1
35a. d., wliich he founded
on a Rabbinic deduction from the mention of the hooks
of the pillars in Ex. 27,
as well as on
lo,
tlie
the Jewish script and language in Esther
mention of
8, 9:
he said
that the language had not changed and so the script
had remained unchanged
Another opinion was
also.
though the script had
that,
changed, yet the square character was the original.
form of
rolls,
end of which was wound round a
in
ii
b. c.
The books were
was
4, 13,
roll of the
on parchment as having been sent
year 286
and x^F^P
only scriptural passage
mentioned
sephus speaks of a magnificent
x^/^Tibv
As
1. Varioiis Theories.
made. Yet the Old Testament nowhere mentions paper
12,
8CBIPT.
grows abundantly in Palestine in
the Huleh, the plain of Gennesaret and elsewhere, and
may
CHAPTER HL
Is.
:
extinct
23,
Sometimes the
Ezek.
staff.
2, 9,
The
each
writing
beginning from the right
roll
was written on both
The Patriarch Rabbi Jehuda
of the Mishnah, b. 136, d.
c.
the Holy, the collector
210, wlio generally goes
by
name of Rabbi without any further qualification,
said: The Law was given to Israel in the square
character: when they sinned the script was changed
to YV^'t aud when they repented in Ezra's time the
the
old character
on Zech
was
9, 12:
soners of hope:
restored.
He
founds this opinion
'Turn again to the stronghold ye prieven to-day do I declare that I will
render double unto
thee.'
He
says the stronghold
is
24
CHAPTEB m.
THE CHANGE OF
Jerusalem and to render double, TMVC, means
the law to
take
its
for YV"]
old garb,
and
yv^
is
to restore
supposed to be a mis-
to be the deession
of Epiphanius,
the form of script used on monuments, that
is,
the
PhoBnician.
because
solely
they
are
is to
be accepted
not ba«ed on any tradition,
but
on ezegetical and theological or hagadic grounds
—on a conTiction
of the sanctity
and immutability of
even the form of the letter of Scripture.
The same
Hebrew character by
and use
the Israelites be-
fore the Exile has been put forward within recent years,
on another ground,
post-exilic
—that the conservative mind of the
Jews makes any change
event impossible*.
But
this
of script after that
assumption seems to be
disposed of by the fact of the striking of coins in the
old character so late as the second Christian century
and at a moment of intense
religious
and national
ex-
citement
By
ing to Clemens Alexandrinus and Porpliyry, three scripts
pen of a man'
is
sible that one
(8, i)
to
interpreted as meaning
to write in a certain character, and
it is
Demotic, thougli
and a sacred.
36) a profane
(ii,
always pos-
form of script may have been employed
the Hieroglyphic,
time,
Herodotus mentions only
It is true, also,
that the upper classes in Isaiah's time spoke both
and Aramaic, 2 K.
the latter, 2 K.
Aramaic
means
18,
26=l8. 36,
but
B, 7,
it
letters,
ii,
and could read
tlicy
own language
witli
and the passage
the ordinary cursive hand.
Hebrew
does not follow that
Is. 8,
probably only
i
and not
to write distinctly in large letters,
And
there
is
in
no reason to
doubt that the characters found on the Siloam Inare
scription
the
characters
in
which Isaiah
the autographs of his prophecies, and in which
pre-exilic literature of the
virrote
all
the
Hebrews was written down.
In dealing with the question as to when the change
of script took place,
tinction
others* the injunction given to Isaiah
'write with the
two
and the same
at one
in use
were in the habit of writing their
view, however, as to the existence
of the present
and
for metal tablets
parchment or papyrus, as in Egypt there were, accord-
Hieratic and
Neither of these opinions, however,
and another
for writiiig on stone
25
SCRIPT.
between the
it
is
convenient to
Law and
make a
dis-
the rest of the books.
In the case of the latest books no change would be
necessaiy,
if
their authors already wrote in
tlio
square
character.
2.
The Change
in
the
Law.
The most ancient
Hebrew law-
authority on the change of script of the
>
Stntck.
1
Hoffmann.
books
is
Eleazar ben Jacob who lived after the middle
CHAPTER m.
26
He
of the first century a.d.
THE CraANOE OF
states that
a prophet at
Syrian, that
Aramaic.
is,
the time of the return from the Captivity declared that
Jer. 35 (42), ii
the Torah was to he written in the square character.
nwvin was
The next
the Cutheans, that
R. Jose
authority
is
states, after
about a century
Ezra
both a new script and a new language.
on
dassietia
point
this
treatise Sanhedrin 21b,
the
and
Law was
the
Ezra
^"OJf
modem
The
first is
that
straight, or as the script
square, y310.
Then
there
is
of the third century that
term again
may be
is
them
left
script
:
Herod,
DiTOy
)hvvf,
it is
is
equivalent to
came
be named
to
i,
for
106, 178
;
and
so
it
is
in
^^^B'K
may be
rendering of
Samaritans, 2 K. 17,
pun
loosely used for
this
be taken
oy, the un-
The Talmudic
tradition from the second century on-
wards is unanimous in crediting Ezra with the introduction
of the square character, as far as the
Law was
con-
These statements cannot be accepted on their
merits; for until the second century there
reference to Ezra, and the tradition of the
first
is
no
century
only mentions
an unnamed prophet of Ezra's time.
Moreover,
as
has
Talmud
very prone to assign to Ezra everything
is
been
frequently
remarked,
is
possibility
the
be referred to Moses. All
that can be inferred from such statements
Num.
to
instructed laity.
which can by no
Talmudic
But
24.
is
later,
It
The word
309 as meaning
ICi^KD,
'which letters came up with them
from Babylon;' or again
is
-{-
due to malice, and the word
ISmtm the equivalent of the Hebrew
cerned.
called
Hasda
explained by R.
is
LXX
Cf. the
their appendix to Job.
proper sense as the transliteration of the Greek
own
the explanation of K. Levi
the
its
the
'IWK means Assyrian; and
Babylonian as
in
As-
square character aro
capable of two interpretations.
loosely used
22. 24
1WHD
to
Assyrian character and in
Israel chose for herself the
3fO: the
explanation
character
There are three possible explanations of the
^tt?H.
term "IWH.
24,
'Originally
Hebrew
In this passage the old
Hebrew,
the hcus
and the Aramaic tongue to the
character
ni&VTn'.
this
said:
it is
character and the holy tongue and
Hebrew
6.
But
was given again
it
in the
Aramaic tongue.
syrian
i.
where
in the holy tongue:
when
a passage in the Talmud,
ia
given to Israel in the
in the days of
later,
Ezra introduced
tliat
4, 7,
and
27
8CBIPT.
known already from Matt.
B, is,
is
that, as
in the first century
the square character was employed in the copies of
the Law.
The
foreign
origin
of this script
was ac-
knowledged, and regarded as an uncomfortable fact
which had to be made the best
of.
Hence the change
of script was either denied altogether, or represented
as
a reversion to the original usage
or,
lastly,
the
CBAPTEB m.
28
was
responsibility
THE CHANGE OF
laid on the shoulders of an
acknow-
ledged authority such as Ezra and so legalized.
the necessity for such a reference at
to the fact that the
new
script
was
all
A
lost.
practice
is
in the first
it
had then
its
the absence of any
been made more exclusive by
On
worship.
Nehemiah's return to Jenisalem ho found
that they had
succeeded in establishing themselves
married to the high
have been.
pelled
script.
In Antiquities
xii, 2,
Aramaic
4 he makes Demetrius,
exile, declined, refusing
also to allow the Samaritans to participate iu their
Nehemiah, whoever the author of these books may
points to an
This the Jews, who had
and temple of Jerusalem.
there
of Josephus
On
they offered their assistance in rebuilding the walls
still,
mention of such a thing in the books of Ezra and
The testimony
24.
the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity
further objection to Ezra as the
new
originator of the
K. 17,
seems to point
been employed for such a length of time that
was
colonists then introduced, 2
But
century, of disputed authority, although
origin
and the foreign
29
8CKIPT.
and that the daughter of Sanhallat had been
priest's
by Nehemiah,
this
grandson
(13, 28).
Ex-
person seems to have re-
moved with those Jews who
refused
to
be ruled by
Kehemiah, to Samaria, establishing there an organized
the librarian of Ptolemy U,
Fhiladelphus (284-247)
religious community.
Law
Hebrew characters; but
year 433, but Josephus thought they happened exactly
speak of the
as written in
in the first section of the
there being
many books
same chapter he speaks of
of laws
among
were worthy of being added to the
the iTews which
king's library but
a century
Ant.
acy.
These events occurred about the
later, at the
xi, 7, 2.
beginning of Alexander's suprem-
Whichever date be
correct,
this
which, being written in a language and a character
was most probably the occasion from which the Samaritan Pentateuch had its origin. Perhaps the most
of their ovm, yet very like the Aramaic, would be
important divergence which
diffi-
cult of translation.
The
question
existence
little
among
text
— the
by the
was made at the same
time.
the Samaritans of a character very
Samaritan Pentateuch
lies
is
still
further complicated
removed from the old Hebrew.
The Samaritans
time
it
makes from the Hebrew
The present
l atest
who remained
employed the old
that at whatever
in this,
probably about the year 433,
script.
Yet
there
4
value of the
was obtained from the Jews, that
are a mixed race descended from the northern Israelites
in the laud after the deportation of 722,
it
reading of Gerizim for Ebal in Dt. 27,
is
is
at the
these latter still
nothing historic-
CHAPTER m.
30
ally impossible in the old view
THE CHANGE OF
which looked upon the
Samaritan Pentateuch simply as the
Judah and
existed in both
In that
times.
case
Law
known
In
to
to the jots and tittles of the
to
it.
language
and
of Esther
writing
as
The
Law, Matt.
we suppose them
The book
— Hebrew,
distinguished ft-om the
(8, 9)
6, is,
rather
was
and the Jewish
Aramaic
form, can only be the old
there
is
is
at the
time in use
Hebrew
generally
character.
In the
now dated 165
b.
c,
The Chaldeans used Aramaic:
the other writing must be intended to be old Hebrew.*
4. Evidence
ofLXX. The LXX
translation is hardly
evidence for the script of Palestine seeing that
made
in Alexandria.
The Law was probably
as the tradition states in
it
was
translated
script in
this
and was
LXX
from
is
b. c.
the complete
were written.
tlie
second century
b. c. if
not
A
Itself.
better
source of
found in the variations between parallel
Hebrew
passages in the
text
itself.
The best examples
of these for the present pui-pose are found in the lists
1
of proper names, as for instance of the cities of the
Levites in Josh. 21 and 1 Chr.
in 2 S. 23
and
6,
or of David's heroes
1 Chr. 11, or in the genealogical trees
in the books of Chronicles
and those
in the other books.
Gesenius in his 'Geschichte der hebriiischen Sprache
und
1.
Schrift' §
43 gives the following amongst others:
Confusion of 3 and
chaniah and Shebhaniah:
t
and
3 and
^
D,
Gen.
1
K.
36,
7,
the reign of Ptolemy II, and
by the middle of the second century
LXX
does not prove that the same script
Evidence of Text
evidence
as
writing,
the writing on the wall which could not be
read except by a Jew.
existed
it
Variations of the
in use in Palestine equally early.
5.
The
them.
to
and
before,
speaks of the Jewish
peculiar
Aramaic
the
to have been confined
throughout the Persian Empire alongside of the cunei-
book of Daniel, which
'.
But, as has been said, the Jews of Egypt employed
reference
Jewish language can only mean the language of the
book of Esther
Sira
which the copies used by the
in
been with the Law, the other books continued to be
written in the old script after Ezra's time.
if
Ben
to
Greek had been
point to an early form of the square character as that
However the case may have
the Other Books.
gains point,
into
the Hebrew, due to mistaking one letter for another,
the subject of discussion.
3.
Old Testament
accomplished, at least so far as
which had
from much earlier
Israel
would contribute nothing
it
translation of the
31
SCRIPT.
1
Ecclug. prologue.
3,
11,
27—1 Chr.
4i-2
Chr.
12, 3
and
17=1 Chr.
9, i5.
Neh.
1, 42.
4,
n,
le.
14,
She-
CHAPTEE m.
32
3 and
t
and
i
and
Ps. 18,
1,
1,
12— 2
Ps. 31, 3—71,
Ezra
1,
2,
S. 22, 12.
3.
2=Neh.
7, 7:
Nebuchadnezzar and
N ebuchadrezzar.
I
1
3
and
J
and n, Num.
Chr.
D,
2 S. 23, 35-= 1 Chr. 11,
26,
35— 1 Chr.
7, 20:
Josh. 21,
82=
6, 61.
1 and 1, Ps. 18, ii-2
2.
14, 13
37.
and very
S. 22, 11:
Lev. 11, i4=.Dt.
often.
3. a and 1, 2 S. 23, 29=1 Chr. 11, 30.
The consonants most frequently confused in the
Hebrew text are t and T which are very much alike
both in the old and in the new
tlie
scripts.
3 and 1 on
other hand are more similar in the old, but they
also resemble one another in the earlier though not
The other examples point to
the square character for their origin, and may be taken
as proving that, when these errors arose, the hooks
were written in that character. But the question is,
"When did these errors arise? They arose subsequently
in the later
Aramaic.
to the date of the
LXX
translation, for they are 'not
found in that translation with rare exceptions.
Of
all
the instances which Gesenius cites only one clear case
of the Greek reproducing the error of the
text occurs and that one
(II, 22, 11).
is
Hebrew
from the books of Samuel
These books became corrupt at a very
'
(Io't*e» f.
M]
THE CHANGE OF
early date
JDWISH AMD OTHDR OOINa
book
and
the divergent readings of parallel passages
Hebrew
of the
a greater extent than any other
Old Testament.
in the
Hence
to
33
8CBIPT.
instead
text
of proving
tlio
square
character to have been in early use, show that the
books
SHKKKL OF SIVON HACOABAUS.
in
which these divergences occur were not written
completion of the
that character until after the
in
Silver.
LXX
translation, that is until about the middle of the
second century
6.
b. c. at
thc earliest.
After the testimony of the Talmud,
Conclusion.
the main argument for the ascription of the introduction
HALF-SHKKBL. BiLvn.
of the square character to Ezra,
his time the script
not have been changed.
this
was the
case.
The
Maccabees and of the
AT AimoCB, iKO mowH i» thi
Tbstamiht as thc AaSABIOW OB Fakthiho, Bbomzi.
OOIN OF AUOUSTtrS, «rBn»
Niw
is
the belief that after
was regarded as sacred and could
It
is
very doubtful whether
coins of the periods of the
last
Jewish war would certainly
have been struck in the sacred script
had existed
if
a sacred script
at the time, but their legends are in the
Hebrew language and in the old Hebrew script, although
those of Herod were stamped in the Greek language
and character; so
DBNABIUB OF TIBBBIUS— Th»
"Pbckt."
Bilvcb
it is
not a case merely of the retention
of a practice obsolete elsewhere, like the retention by
the
Arabs
the
titles
of the Gufic character on their coins or in
of the Surahs of the
Koran long
after the
present script was in use for other purposes, or like
SHALL JBWIBB OOIN OF ALBXANDBR JANKAUB,
"Mm." BBOHn. lOS—TSb.o.
rsoBAiiLT th*
the retention of Latin on some of our coins. It points
CHAPTER
34
THE PBE8EBVATI0N OF THE TEXT.
rV.
rather to two scripts having been in use at the time,
like the Roman and black-letter types in Germany, or
like the
old
Arabic and
Hebrew
letters
Roman
systems of numerals.
seem to have been used
The
for busi-
ness purposes long after the square character was used
Moreover, the old
exclusively for sacred piurposes.
script
was more
the new.
And
the
legible
to
western foreigners than
Talmud permits Jews
resident out-
side of Palestine to possess copies of the
Law
Median, Hebrew, Elamitic and Greek.
Here 'Hebrew'
in Coptic,
can only mean the old Hebrew script, not the language,
and the other terms must mean scripts also.
centre of that religion was destroyed,
sorbed
whole soul
in,
the study of the Book.
Hence
it
comes
about that, whereas no manuscript of any part of the
Jewish Scriptures
known
older
than the tenth
century
to exist in the original language, yet by
is
means
of citations from tliem in Jewish works of the second
century and earlier, by means of quotations in the
New
Testament and,
lation
as
it
it is
still
more, from the
LXX
trans-
possible to sliow that the consonantal text
existed
at
beginning of the Christian era
the
was substantially what
and
later
it is
now.
Although the Jews
periods do not seem to have
any scruples about transliterating
or even translating
IV.
tlie
of the nation was thrown into, and for centuries ab-
of that
CHAPTER
35
it
it
had
into other scripts
into other languages,
such as
the Muslims have in the case of the Koran, yet they
THE PEE8EBVATI0N OE THE TSXT.
evinced a regard for the letters of the original text
1. Internal Conditions.
The Jews were
well, indeed,
themselves almost amounting to superstition.
It
seems
named by the Arabs one of the peoples of the Book. Ever
temple
since the discovery of the book of the law in the
to have been the transliterated copies of the Jewish
at Jerusalem in the reign of Josiah in the year 625,
their
or it may have been centuries before that date,
suggested to Origen the idea of the second column of
been inseparably bound up vrith a book;
but from the time of the return from Babylon the
fulfil to
religion of Palestine became an attempt to
Greek
religion has
the letter the written word.
And when
the national
Scriptures for use in countries outside Palestine that
Hebrew text in
from 185 to 254 All
the Hexapla, which represents the
letters
>.
Origen lived
the most important Greek
*
translations
of the
Blau, Heilige Schrift p. 81.
C»
Old
CHAPTEE
36
rV.
Testament were made by Jews
THE PKESEBVATION OF THE TEXT.
— the
LXX,
We
37
those of
themselves would cUng to them.
—and had
for their
of some books which no longer exist and which
object a nearer approximation in sense to the
Hebrew
well have perished at this time.
Aquila, Theodotion and
—that
Symmachus
of Aquila being so extremely literal that
For example,
hardly be called Greek.
The
apparently the work
translates l>TNn riK
version
is
also
by trw
tî* yî'.
in
Gen.
can
it
1,
i
he
lyrics, chiefly
sense of Scripture, external circumstances
spired to preserve the purity of the text.
its literature.
it
at the
Even a persecution
As
also con-
persecution
same time
purifies
directed against the
that of Antiochus Epiphanes,
books themselves,
like
while reducing the
number of copies only
increases the
care bestowed in emending and protecting those which
survive.
this
21, 14)
10, is
Such
Hebr. 2
in Jewish history at which
the existence of their sacred literature was especially
endangered.
The
first
was that which ended
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple under
chadnezzar in the year 687
away
to Babylon,
b. o.
and
S. 1, 18
may
Book
1
of
K.
were
probably collections of
war-songs, such as the
Lament
of
David
over Jonathan, which would naturally,
amongst the
Jews as amongst other
beginnings of
literature.
It
is
peoples, form
often supposed that
tlie
it
was during the
Exile that the early historical materials were worked
into something of their present shape as found in
up
the books from Genesis to Kings, after which the sources
of this compilation may have been discarded as separate
books.
Similarly the
duced to
its
Law
is
supposed to have been re-
present form in the years following the
return from the Exile.
The second epoch
at which the Jewish sacred literits
existence
was
that of the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes.
This was the
first
religious persecution to
which the
Jews were subjected from without, and the only one
Nebu-
for centuries.
books are not named, but
it,
the
names
in the
Amongst the plimder
they must surely have formed part of
is
the
and the Book of the Wars of
ature was brought into jeopardy of
There are three moments
oarried
Both
of Jewish or of
External (Hrcumstances. In addition to the great
the Church, so
LXX.
Jehovah (Num.
labour expended in the attempt to arrive at the exact
pui-ifies
8, 63
Syriac (Peshitto)
Jewish-Christian hands.
2.
Jashar mentioned Josh.
know
for the captives
Antiochus ordered
all
copies of the
or even of any of the books to be destroyed
;
Law
and any
person found in possession of a copy of the former was
liable to capital punisliment, 1
Mace.
1, 56. 57,
Jos. Ant.
38
CHAPTER
IV.
THE PKESEEVATION OF THE TEXT.
The author of Cbroniclea appears to mention a
considerable historical and biograpliical literature
which
has not surrived.
xii, 5.
48, 7: omit the reference to Bethlehem, Rachel's
by Titus and the destruction of the Temple. But by
this time the Law at least had long
been a definite
fixed quantity, which had been minutely studied
and
commented upon, to such an extent that if every copy
had perished
it
could have been restored from memory.
Besides, ever since the exile there had existed a Jewish
colony in Babylon, where the scriptures were as eagerly
studied as in Palestine,
the Babylonian
Tahnud
if
not more
so.
According to
the copies of the
Law
were
destroyed by Titus, but Josephus (Wars vii, 5, 7) states
that one copy had a place in the triumph of Vespasian.
In
this
copy,
Law known
which
is
been thirty-two
trivial variations
some of which are said
manuscript belonging
Some
the earliest manuscript of the
as having existed, there are said to have
from the received
Dt. 29, 22
omit
'
Admah and
Zeboim'.
Vespasian's manuscript was deposited in
palace at
Rome and
handed over
tlie
royal
subsequently in the year 220
to the synagogue of Asverus,
i.
e.
Severus,
most probably the emperor Alexander Sevenis who was
a good friend to the Jews.
as
The other scriptures were not considered so sacred
the Law, but they were considered sacred and
minutely studied.
in Is. 21, 11
of
Jerome mentions a various reading
Rumah,
i.
e.
Rome,
manuscript belonging to R. Meir
is
it
for
Dumah:
in
a
was also found. It
stated that at one time only three manuscripts of
the
Law
were
left
and that a text was obtained by
the simple method of choosing in every instance of
diversity the
reading of two against one.
Josephus
(Life 76) states that he obtained from Titus a gift of
the sacred books after the
fall
of the City.
Doubts have been cast upon these statements of
Meir of the second century.
Josephus and others, and such early accounts are
to fi.
idea of the slightness of the variations which
may
tained from the following examples:
'my native land' read 'my
be ob-
generally simply discarded.
But
that such a process of
ascertaining and fixing the true text, especially of the
Law, was thus early gone through
18, 21: for 'its cry' read 'their cry'.
24, 7: for
:
to have been found also in a
attracted notice even at this early period
6n.
text,
tomb
being in Benjamin.
For a
third time the Jewish Scriptures were
seriously
imperilled on the occasion of the capture of
Jerusalem
39
land'.
result
—that
Hebrew
there
are
no various
is
clear from the
readings
text of~tEeT)ld Testament in the
in
the
sense in
40
CHAPTBE
rV.
DESCRIPTION OF TEXT OF FIEST CENTUBT.
which we speak of various readings
is
drawn
to
in the
New. Attention
or the
fact in the preface to the Revised
tliis
English Version.
3.
The
LXX
Version.
Tiiere
competition with the
Hebrew
the text, and that
the
is
only one of the
is
In the
original as a witness to
LXX.
first
are centuries older than the
This claim rests upon
Hebrew— the former
— from
Hebrew
text before
b.
in Palestine,
and the Apostles quoted
so little did
text
in
those places wliere
especially in
At
Bibles lived together
either indiffer-
their divergences affect the sense.
CHAPTER
1.
Purdy
Consonantal. In order to obtain some idea
of the appearance which the
at the period of
the beginning of the Christian era,
remember
The
letters
the former the Greek
being trying to the eyes.
chapters
is
;
though the order of the
also completely changed,
whether tho Greek
is
and
it is
a question
a condensation of the Hebrew,
it is
necessary to
that the script at this time consisted solely
character.
the shorter by one eighth of
text presented
of consonants, in an early form of the square character,
of
mostly effected by dropping certain
Hebrew
reduction to uniformity about
its first
tliat
constantly recurring formulae
V.
DESCBIPTION OF TEXT OF FIEST CENTUBT.
resembling
is
has become corrupt,
sense of the original.
Apart from the Apocrypha it is only in the Book of
Jeremiah and in the later chapters of Sxodus that
the Greek differs very widely from tlie Hebrew. In
tliis is
it
those books where the translator does
not seem to have been able to make any intelligible
text
c, whereas
the first century of our era.
Hebrew and Greek
the whole, but
LXX
of the
no evidence for the existence of a uniform
that time the
ently,
style of the
the middle of the
third to the middle of the second century
is
.i'
Secondly, the
was made long before a uniform Hebrew
such as we now have existed
there
Rabbinic
place the Greek manuscripts
fourth, the latter of the tenth century.
LXX
in
In the case of the other books the
forms an invaluable aid towards the restoration of the
ancient Versions which has any claim to come into
two grounds.
Hebrew an expansion
original text.
41
than we are used
written on separate
tlie
to,
earliest
may have been much
in
The
By
ment we must understand
different
'books' in the
rolls
that
smaller
Jerome complains of
for
rolls.
inscriptions
their
books were
Old Testa-
or volumes, as in Is.
34, 4 'the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll',
"IBD.
The word nVjD
is
not used before the time of
42
CHAPTER
V.
43
DEBCEIPTION OF TEXT OF FIBST CENTOBT.
Jeremiah and then only
in a few passages. Jesus was
handed the roll of the prophecies of Isaiah, Luke 4, 17. Most
of these volumes were the property of the synagogues^
on Aramean Inscriptions.
private persons rarely possessed one, hut acquired their
Testament autographs were written in the old Hebrew
knowledge of their contents in the schools and from
hearing them read in the synagogues, where the
Law
In these
ception of the Palmyrene, the words are divided by a
It
space.
natural to suppose that when the Old
is
character they had this point, but that when they began
to be written
square character the use of the
in the
was read through regularly once in three years and
accompanied hy extracts from the prophets. The text
point was dropped.
ran on continuously without division into
and the converse. There are
but the words were separated hy
or,
probahly, verses
an
interstice as well as indicated
letters.
The
;
chapters
by the use of
four vowel letters were used
final
more spar-
ingly in the earlier, regularly in the later books, but
there were no other vowel-signs.
The
text consisted
letters are
by
Hence
combined
tradition,
They are Gen.
n
30,
read DD B^MD
'is
dots placed over them.
Job
Moabite Stone and
38,
Ps. 55, 16
1
and
although the
a point
cf.
Pentateuch
;
so that
is
it
found also in the Samaritan
was
still
employed by the Jews
in the year 433 or possibly later, that
date
the
Samaritan Pentateuch was
is,
at whatever
obtained from
e,
coins both Samaritan and Jewish, on gems and
Phoenician inscriptions generally,
it is
not found, nor
mentioned
M
MS: Ex.
4, 2:
Dt. 33,
2
of
\
is
4:
the text
Neh.
where
first
18, s:
fire':
Ezek.
n"'lO ^n, 'a
means
2, is:
1
8, 6:
Ps.
host of af-
'let desolations
Chr.
9, 4:
27, 12:
|D is written in full, as
Uke the Arabic
would
even
article,
assimilated to the following consonant,
the Latin inL^îll. Other examples are Jer. 44, is
tK )D:
word
Joel
is
1 Chr. 5, is ^33
1, 12:
are 2 S.
Job
p and frequently.
written as two in Jud. 16, 25: 1 S.
Is. 9, 6: 44, 24:
2 Chr. 34,
Other passages
them.
On
40,
(15)
always be done at
Siloam Inscription the words are divided by means of
This point
fifteen places
'weak persons,' for
10, 10 D"'K3/n
be upon them': 123,
the
133 for
consumed
words were marked by the scribes with one or more
On
form one word instead of two,
to
(text corrupt): Is. 3, 15 D3^B for D3^ no: Jer. 6, 29 should
flicted':
Word-Separation.
frequently happens that
it
where two words are written as one.
wholly of the twenty-two consonants, except that a few
2.
with the ex-
last,
5, 2
38, 12:
in
Lam.
1, e:
4,
9, i: 24, 9:
3.
which tradition and the text
«^1D nn^n
Ezra
6:
4, 12.
for M-'Sien n^\n:
One
difi'er,
Ezek. 42,
9:
44
LXX,
The
/
/
CHAPTEB
based as
it
was on an Aramean text
Jer.
in
was not used, frequently groups
from the Hebrew. Examples are:
wliich the dividing point
midst of
the letters diflferently
first
Hos.
Hebrew
11, 2
From
Dn^3BD
'3BD From before me. They...
Hebrew "ff IM) And I told thee,
Ohr. 17, 10
Greek 1^1J«1 And I
shall
Hebrew tr by By the
Greek why Going up.
73, 4 Hebrew OniD^ At their
Conjecture DH ^n'> To them.
Ps. 106,
Ps.
7
Other Breaks in the Text.
3.
make
TiXX
the
sea,
Gn.
heel
of
49,
19, 20,
for
the last of
Ps. 42,
be,
so
destruction).'
death,
is
LXX
in the
join the
Oppression upon oppression, deceit
8:
'Thou art God.
The LXX read
for
ir\ jat?
Thou
'Thou
the jussive
wVi.
turnest
atSTl
(man
Turn
art.
and
so,
to
not...'
too,
in
word or verses had been divided by a point
and the evident wrong
the variations with the
divisions should have been fewer: if there had been
If the
Perfect
»...
LXX
no indication at
for
the end
of a
is
wrong or
The
all,
they should have been more fre-
conclusion
that words and verses were
is
divided simply by a space.
Thus
v.
. .
.
instead
.'
Asher
.
.,'
'overcome at the
last.
read, 'press upon their
making the
first letter
of
v.
20
:
no
'His countenance.
my
O my
God,' as in
God,' should
v. 12
and
43,
5.
themselves were not separated at
number
now
is
For other examples
cf.
Driver
p.
XXXI.
first,
century
The Psalms
so that their
The Authorized English
Hebrew. But the Greek makes
doubtful.
one Psahn of 9 and 10 and of 114 and 115, at the
same time
splitting
Syriac follows the
texts read.
first
division into chapters or even books.
Version follows the
19,
6, 7
some
of,
we must
.
Moreover, there was in the text of the
in
thus
<
The
11, 12.
quent.
'my countenance and
And
lina ^n3ty,
divides differently from the Hebrew, just as
Asher
As
2,
which accounts
verses
the verse division
in the case of words.
Out
HDID
deceit',
'Thine habitation
of,
two letters to the previous verse, '(weaiy them-
Ps. 90,
thee great.
any indication to mark the end of a verse, other than
For frequently
instead
(upon deceit),' nonoa noio iiro
Neither was there
the same space which was used
word.
9, B, 6;
selves) to repent.
before them.
Greek nn
1
45
DESCBIPTION OF TEXT OP FIRST CENTUBY.
V.
still
116 and 147 each into two.
LXX
with regard to 114
preserving the total of 150.
scripts join
together Psalms 42 and 43.
The
and 147,
Some manuPs. 1 does
46
CHAPTEB
DESCEIPXION OP TEXT OF FIBST CENTDHT.
V.
not seem to have been counted, for in Acts 13,
Codex Bezae calls the second Psalm the first.
The Final Forms of
4.
forms of
final
5.
to
Mathiah ben Harash
the Palmyrena
Hence
in
which modify the forms
of the second century b.
between the
Icaph,
square
century.
o.
Final
rejected.
In
all
the
is
forms of
final
also found in the
inscriptions,
that
in
is,
final
the
first
But
it
centuiy
form
D
|
*)
y.
obtained by turning
is
which were in the Phoenician
originally vertical, but which
scripts
the
are not found in any
in alphabetical order, T
tails,
said that
by the middle of
Sinai; so,
who died
Moses received
tlie
second
In the third century they wore credited to the pro-
forms had been accepted and the rest
except D the
down again
He
found a distinction
tliere is
mem and pe
These were,
a. d.).
century the final letters were regarded as of autliority.
known from other sources that by
five special final
them on Mount
Aramaic and
inscription until the end of the third century.
is
117
consonants,
final
(a pupil of R. Eleazar
of the Egyptian Papyri
Final nun
Hebrew
account for the genesis of the
in the year
Ligatures begin to
and medial and
initial
lamed and nun.
earliest
first
some
Before the end of the
Origin of Final Letters.
ligatures between the letters
their appearance in the Egyptian
final
second century only one of the Jewish sages attempts
are a necessary result arising from the employment of
make
The
letters obviate this.
In the old Hebrew of the Siloam
Inscription there are no special final forms. These
letters.
of the letters which they unite.
There
f\.
a stroke drawn to meet the next word.
the use of special
is
final
seems to have been a disinclination to end a word with
Connected with the
Letters.
indication of the division of words
adopted for fear of confusion with
the
ss
47
had
in the later
begun to curve towards the
left,
Aramean
so that in form
J
The letters themselves are often referred to in
Talmud and by Jerome. The Samaritan Chronicle
phets.
the
of the eleventh century says that
the script but also added
five
Ezra not only changed
new
letters,
that
is,
he
invented the final forms.
But
LXX
the final consonants are not so old as the
translation
—at
least as parts of
it.
Frequently where
that translation divides the words or verses differently
from the Hebrew
it
is
a question as to the place of
one of the letters with
foiTUS
had been
as to wliich
final forms,
in use there could
word the
letters
whereas
if
such
have been no doubt
belonged
The Hebrew has
to.
A
good
no HM,
the final letters are a return to the more, archaic type.
example
In the case of D the same process may not have been
<what burden?' which makes no sense. The Greek reads
is
Jer. 23,
ss.
KtTD
CHAPTEB
48
DESCBIPTION OF TEXT OF FIBST CENTURY.
tlie
burden.' Other examples
prophets.'
Hebrew
text reading being given
Hab.
correctly KB^DH pr\«, 'Ye are
are the following, the
V.
first;
2,
1
The prophets
are called watchers in
49
Is. 52, 8:
This mnemonic word was in
and elsewhere.
the third century interpreted as indicating the origin
1 S. 1,
1
Son of Zuph:
«]iri3
1 S. 20, 40 K'Sn
Go, bring:
"fj
LXX In Nazif 1^X33.
LXX Come now, come
of the final letters; and
is
ms Dvn^K
Nah.
B-D^ DK
1, 12
LXX My God
God, command:
commanding
TV\:tO
But the sages
6, 5 "IIK
My
not the alphabetic
tliird.
6. Talmudic Reference to Final Letters.
If at peace:
LXX Ruling waters
ment
in
Ex. 32,
(non)
pK3
are light:
LXX
like the light niK3 'BDCD.
In the land:
LXX
In His land
The
state-
tables of the law were
that the
15,
written on both sides, was interpreted to
yiawn Thy judgments
judgments are
Ps. 16, 3
is
of the second century were also
called D'DIS by those of the
'<T\b».
D'D bvo.
Hos.
accounts for the order in
which they are mentioned, whicli
order.
Ps. 44, 5
it
mean
that
the letters were cut through the stone from one side
to the other.
letters
On
B. Hasda,
this
-f-
309, said if the
were the Assyrian or square character
final
could only have stood by a miracle, having nothing to
Zech.
The
to
11,
n
)KSn «jy
p VT1
LXX
So the poor of the flock
And
the Canaauites shall
shall
know:
know
the flock ]KSn WiyiO
by
B,.
or to Ezra followed naturally from the reference
of the square character to the one or the
other of
The same remark had been made
it.
Levy of the
as well as
1J?T1.
reference of the introduction of the final letters
Moses
support
tlie
third century concerning the letter D
Hebrew y which was a complete
old
circle or triangle
before
—
if
the tables were written in
the
latter script.
7. Conclusion.
Thus
it
appears that after the adoption
been
of the square character there were no divisions in the
The Jewish schoolmasters
forming mnemonic words com-
text of the books other than spaces left between the
which they wished their
frequent various readings in manuscripts in respect of
pupils to remember, and they combined the final letters
word-division, but that from that date onwards the word-
them.
The
reference to the prophets
lias also
accounted for as follows.
were
in the
habit of
posed of special
into the
sets of letters
two words IDS
^D,
that
is,
ytXiO 'from Thy
words, and that b efore the
first
division of the received text
century
a. d.
there were
was retained even where
D
60
it
CHAPTER
was acknowledged
and copied, even
As
it
to
DESOBIPTION OP TEXT OF
be wrong, being always written
whicb led to the use of
final forms,
but
the writing
ciphers for the higher numerals, 1 for 500 and so on;
manuscripts.
or that they were intended to indicate the end of
spelled
tlie
words, in which case there would have been more than
The
and spontaneously out of the use of ligatured and were
retained after the ligatures were discarded. At first
the word.
in
Examples of
NeL
final D:
Job
2, 13
this are Is. 9, 6
DH with a medial
38, i: 40, e:
Chr. 27, i2
1
i3"?
nsiQ^ with a
O: 30
(cf.
is
so written
above
p. 43).
There would no doubt have been three forms of letters,
initial,
medial and
Hebrew
script
final as in
had not
Arabic and Syriac,
if
the
crystallized so early.
The consonant used to represent a vowel sound came to be called tXipob DK or
ilK^pn DM, that is, mater ledionis. The four consonants
8.
The
Vowel-Letters.
80 employed are
îriK
and
seem
tliey
from the time when writing
Moabite Stone the ^D of the
verb and the
1
of the 3rd
pi.
first
to
have been used
began.
On
the
1st pers. sing. pf. of the
and the
^
of the constr.
more
J
defective
possible
is
that
than that of the
insciiptions
were
defectively in order to save expense, wliilst
fully
used from the
haps
it is
In the
the final form being
properly at the end of the ligature, not at the end of
still
It
more
equipped
the final forms would occur sometimes medially and
finally,
is
in writing on leather
fact seems plain that they arose naturally
the medial forms sometimes
51
all written with the scriptio
plena, and 1 and ^
are also used freely in the middle of
a word. In the
Siloam Inscription all four vowel-letters are
used,
has been suggested that they were invented to supply
five.
HEST CENTUBT.
pL are
not read.
if
to the motive
V.
tlie
vowel-letters
that the Samaritan text
in this respect
is
Hence per-
even more fully
than the JewisL
however, as
text,
may have been
as in Arabic.
first
existed in
it
Egypt
in the
end of the third and beginning of the second
century
a c, the vowel-letters were not so plentiful as in the
present text, for the copies used by the Greek
transomit them in many places where they
lators
stand.
Thus
dvOfxirmy,
word
ia
and
Amos
9, 12
they translate
in Ezek. 32, 29
D1«, Syiia:
now
DHK by tw
they read for the same
in Hos. 12, 12
for Dnitr, oxen, they
read Dntr, princes; wliich they could not have
done
if the 1 had been written; and so
frequently.
On
the Jewish coins of the second century
the second century a.d.
thus, CKi,
mtp, Dnin\
all
n. c.
and
four vowel-letters are found,
o^'bufrr.
In the received text
itself some slight advance may
be detected on comparing the older and later portions
in this respect.
Thus
m,
\tf)huf,
B^ttT
are mostly written
D'
62
CHAPTEB
TH
defectively in the earlier books, fully in the later.
is
always so written in Chronicles, Ezra and NehemiaL
32, more defective than on the
Moabite Stone, which has j^mp: elsewhere it is D^n'»"ip
Cf. also ]nip in Josh, 21,
in the received text, 1 Chr.
and
Dt. 32,
13
9, le
first
as wrong: see Hos.
and
is really
EccL
would be explicable from
Kin=K'n
its
The
received
said to be
is
has remained more
text
generally the
cases,
as
when the
defectively
1st pers. sing. pf. of the
2 K. 18, 20 according to
the
it
especially in the Avord
K\"|
2, 12
and
14,
s.
occurs only eleven
Outside the
Thus
K.
17, is
Law
it
Is. 36, s: so
is
n of the
is
and
fern,
it
was found or
mas-
feminine in
and Job
8, 48;
myi
the text was stereotyped exactly as
Kin
the
verb
in respect of vowel-letters as of word-division
fashioned in the
though the tradition makes
in 1
earlier
written than even the Moabite Stone in exceptional
peculiar also in that in
fenu pronoun
30, 33 unnecessarily:
and
Law
written without the \ as in Ps. 140, 13: 1 K.
sing,
rarity of
Torah, in which
But
seems the only instance.
is
may be
it
The
1
and
found also in Babylonian codices of the prophets and
times, KVT being written instead in the other 195 places,
culine,
73, le
elsewhere.
often, except in the
The Pentateuch
den.
In Ps.
M^n seems to stand for Kin, though
reduction to a received text.
Hos.
4, 6: "Mi. 3, 2:
of the word.
cf.
6, 8
which the
in
are identical, and that the apparent
^
an old \ and conversely.
or second century
vowel letter represents another possible pronunciation
3rd pers.
and
1
K^n in the
the
standing in the text wherever they were found, even
8, 12:
letters
6, ei (76),
the vowel-letters were considered inviolable and so left
when regarded
from that phase of the square character
otherwise explained in both passages.
By
9. Anomalous Forms.
53
DESCBIPTION OF TEXT OF FIB8T CENTUET.
V.
first
century, even wlien
it
did not
Is.
conform to the rules of the prevailing orthography of
31, ii Kin
the time.
H\*I
exchange their vowel sounds.
10.
This phenomenon has never been satisfactorily exOriginally both
plained.
Kin
and KNT were written
simply Kn as on the Moabite stone.
that Kin
may
have been of
common
The Dotted Words. When a
or more letters or words, instead of drawing Ids pen
It
is
suggested
through the error, and so spoiling the appearance of
gender, which is
his manuscript,
unlikely, since all the Semitic languages have the
It is
more probable
that Kin^t<\1
is
he generally placed a dot or dots over
two
it
forms.
scribe in writing
or copying a book had miswritten or miscopied one
a survival
to indicate
that
it
was
to
be omitted in reading.
64
CHAPTER
The copyists of the Hebrew manuscripts at the
commencement of the Christian era seem to have followed
a similar practice, for we find a number
of dotted
words in the received text of the Old
Testament.
These points are, however, susceptible of another
ex-
planation, according to which they arose
in the course
of the collation of manuscripts, and indicate
words or
which were found in some copies and not in
others, and so were looked upon with
suspicion and
letters
marked as
letters so
doubtful; or they
marked are
present the
first
to
may
even mean that the
be retained.
If so, they reattempts at Biblical criticism.
There are, in all, fifteen passages so marked in the
Old Testament, ten in the Law, one in the Psalms
and four in the prophets. In printed texts and manuscripts the word Tlpa is placed in the margin against
which one of these occurs,
npa means in later
Hebrew
to place points on a word, and nipa, if pronounced
niqqMh, would mean 'pimctuation': otherwise it is
the passive participle, 'punctuated'.
Or
it
might be
the adjective ndqddh used in Gen. 30, 32 of sheep and
goats in the sense of •speckled.'
11.
punda
Their Antiquity.
As
to the
55
DESCRIPTION OF TEXT OF FIRST CENTURY.
V.
antiquity of these
extraordinaria, those which occur in the pro-
phets are not known to us except from the text
and the marginal notes found on manuscripts.
itself
The
others are all mentioned in the
only one, however, that in
the Mishnah, that
Talmud
Num.
9, lo,
or Midrashim,
being found in
second
before the end of the
is,
there given
century. But the explanation of the point
a thing
time
only seems to show, that it was by that
had been hopelessly
of such antiquity that its meaning
on the synagogue
found
The dotted words are
lost.
rolls,
being with one exception the only signs admitted
vowel-letters.
there in addition to the consonants and
even
Hence, they are older than R. Aqiba, f 135,
was conbefore whose time every hook of the text
and the addition of dots would not
commenthave been permitted. The second century
explanary called Sifre can offer only traditional
sidered sacred
ations of them.
origin
is
The lower
the end of the
limit,
first
century
cannot have been later than that,
probability considerably eariier.
commenting on Num.
says:
'What mean
3, 39
refers
the points?
for
therefore,
a. d.
and are
their
They
in
all
The Midrash Rabba
them
to
Ezra.
Ezra thought
if
It
the
prophet Elijah should come and ask, Wlierefore didst
thou write tliis? I shall answer him, I have placed
dots over
it.
Thou hast vmtten correctly,
The points, however, are
points.'
If he say,
I shall remove the
not so old as Ezra's time.
in the
LXX
An
translation which
upper limit
knows
is
found
nothing of them,
66
CHAPTEB
V.
DESOEIPnON OF TEXT OF FTEBT CENTUKY.
m ^hich
and
the emendations apparently
indicated as
desirable are not needed.
On
the whole, the most
prohable date for the origin
of these dots seems
to be the first century
a.b. or the
latter part of the first
century b. c.
The
SAe
oldest authority to
refer to any of the
points
m
a note on Num. 9,
they mdacate that the
letter
.8
.
are
to be deleted
,o.
according to which
or letters
or transposed.
so
But Blau
marked
thinks
that the restriction of
the force of the dots to
a single
letter is due to the
tendency of feeUng in the
second
century, by which time
it was held that
'the world
might be destroyed by the
insertion or omission of
a
letter in the Torah' (Talmud
Tractate Embim 13a &c)
and that their reference originaUy
extended to words'
Qr even verses.
The
fact that no dotted words
occur in the Hagiographa outside the one in the
Psalms, and only four
the Prophets, points to the
greater care with wliich
the text of the Law was
collated and revised.
m
12. List o/Bissages.
between
me and
thee.'
1.
Gen.
f iâ
'The Lord judge
with two yods and a dot
16,
5.
over the second. The correct
orthography is 7^3 and
the dot would naturally draw
attention to the peculiar
•
Ed. Friedmium
p. 18 b.
But
form.
in the
necessarily on the
century there
letter,
and
is
oldest authorities the
\ and
dot
57
is
not
in a codex of the thirteenth
said to have been
a dot on every
this
applies to all the other passages
as
well as the present. This might
mean that for <thee' we
should read 'her' or 'them',
2. 18, 9. 'And (the angels) said
to him (Abraham)'
V^K nam. This may indicate that V^K
should be
omitted
The person addressed
altogether.
this chapter,
where there
means, -read
is
not expressed in
which belongs to J, except in verso
13
a change of subject. Or perhaps
it
is
)<?
1D«^),'
singular as
But according
v. 10.
to another tradition the dots should
be on the following
.I'M so that the passage
would run. And they said to
him, 'Sarah thy wife,'-and he said,
-Behold, in the tent'
(mterrupting). But the absence of
a dot over the <?
in our printed texts is
probably due to there being
other dots there, so that tlie
presence of only three
dots would be very late indeed
and count
for nothuig.
The manuscript mentioned under
Cf. no. 11.
1
has a
dot on the h also.
3.
19, 33.
when she
'He perceived not when she
arose.'
noipai might
should be written as in
v.
35, nop^).
mean
lay
that
But besides
down nor
the
word
the codex
of 1294 mentioned above,
both RasU, 1040—1106, and
68
CHAPTEB
V.
DESCBIPnON OP TEXT OP FIB8T CENTUBT.
Levi ben Gerson, generally known as Ralbag, who died
a point on every
in 1307, testify to there being
letter.
Sifre does not mention there being a single point only,
59
suppose that both readings
form a doublet, and that
one of the terms should be
struck out.
'And his brethren went to feed their
father's
Shechem'-lMS f^^. In v. 2 nyi is followed
by
a mstead of
as here, but that
5. 37,12.
nor whether
which
it is
"What
dotted.
is
JH' riDipa, that
the word in
is,
noipSI
it
says
is to
iTDipai
33 or that in
is,
Va«
})t^
v.
35
»}? .naatâ
be omitted in both verses.
Both may have been dotted
a
v.
originally
and the note
bv mpJ, 'dots on the two HDIpai' read
as, 'dots
33,
4.
him and
wept'
*And Esau ran
fell
inpt^'l
on
his
to
meet him and embraced
neck and kissed him; and they
has a dot on every
texts omit the one from the
critical
V
point which they have.
planation
is
letter.
Some
present
on account of the dia-
The
old Jewish ex-
that they are a sort of notes of admiration
and draw the reader's attention
guile;
and there
is
m
verse is supposed to
be the meeting-point of two
different sources, which
may spoil the construction; though
nyi is constn.ed
with a (1 S. 16, 11). The old
traditional
on the second noipat'
4.
flock in
to the depth of Esau's
a conjectural emendation
inat^^l,
of the dots given in Sifre
to feed themselves.
The word
is
doubtful.
'and
pVi in generally con-
The
strued with the dative, though not always.
has,
'And Esau ran
him and
inpt9M
fell
and
to
meet
11K12t
hv
Many
Vfi^l.
suppose the order of the
mode
and, embracing, kissed
on his neck and both wept,' transposing
former word altogether.
of the
Iiira
LXX
Hebrew
to be
of expression.
Cf.
manuscripts omit the
ch. 45,
14, 15.
LXX to be original,
due to
Gf.
its
Luke
We
may
and that
being the commoner
15, 20.
Or we may
tJiat
explanation
the brothers
went
This seems to mean that we
should
translate 'to feed on their
father's flock,' or it directs
attention to the other meaning
of nK, 'to feed along
with the flock.' The explanation
is wanting in the
usual traditional respect for
the patriarchs. Or the
point may be that the flock
was their own and not
their father's.
6.
bit him.'
is
Num.
numbered
3, 39.
at
'The Levites which Moses and
Aaron
the
commandment
has a dot on every
letter.
that the 'and Aaron'
The
of the Lord.'
pnKl
intention evidently
is
duo to the constant coupling
of the two names-the
scribe having written
'Moses^
added 'and Aaron' mechanically-and
that it ought to
be omitted as in w. 14, 16
and 40. It is wanting in
the Samaritan Version and
some of
is
the old translations
but
,t
18
found in the
LXX.
That Aaron did take
part with Moses in the census
appears from chap.
1,
1-3
CHAFTEB
60
9, 10.
7.
man
any
'If
V.
DESCKIPTION OF TEXT OF FIRST CENTUBT.
of you or of your posterity
be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be on
shall
a journey afar
Here
the Lord.'
there
is
fifteen
yet shall he keep the passover unto
off,
npni ^^^ and
'a journey afar off' is
a dot on the
This
n.
Mishnah (Tractate Fesachim, 92 b) where
What
'From the threshold
with a dot on the
The
of the
is
over the n
— that
it
says,
The
Temple court and outward,'
this is the
'far'
but has
the technical force of 'outside the sacred precincts.'
is
meant
to
draw attention
it is
intended to indicate that the masculine
pm is
to be read instead of the feminine
common
on the
to
IK,
of
Blau thinks the dot was originally
which itself was originally 1, and was intended
sufficient,
either
by
passover; and
it
pm
itself,
these
would explain
two disqualifications
to prevent one
from eating the
was not necessary that both should
instead of DsV
dropping out of
8. 21,30.
of
Possibly the text originally ran
occur together.
D2h i7n
npm, TIT being
letters
npm ima
when
cf:
v. 13.
ym
it.
'We have
laid
them waste even untoNophah
1,
and elsewhere the
Blau thinks the
13).
'delete \n\OV
1,'
that
Dt. 29, 28
of ly.
'delete
note,
'delete the
is,
'The secret things belong unto
(29).
things which are revealed
ever,' 13^33^1
with eleven dots extending from
Sifre explains
:
'The points
mean
if
So Blau points and omits
li^n^K mn^^,
ye
fulfil
that
in 13'n^K niiT^
to having
11.
the same as the
number
'The
.
.
.'
The
of letters
they would be removed from a dislike
:
them placed over the divine names.
Ps. 27,
to see the
is
y
the
also.'
is,
hidden things and the revealed belong unto us
of dots
Mh
to the
13^
revealed laws I will reveal unto you the hidden
number
1
and that the whole word should be omitted.
belong unto us and to our children for
The
identical letters follow
text
several tenth deal to each lamb.'
Lord our God but those
thtjf IJt
gender.
signify that
was
10.
Per-
The
also read V».
has a dot over the
was read,
of pIB'y,'
the
'And a
15.
omitted (28,
is
to the
v. 13.
absence of any epithet qualifying journey in
haps
29,
jntfyi,'
mean
The Samaritan
first ]VyBf)f
meaning of the point
does not really
Perhaps the point
has vvp but read the remaining words quite
probably corrupt.
9.
1
and another adds that
LXX
in answer to
a far journey? one Rabbi
is
clearly suggesting the deletion of
1,
the T and the reading of B^K: 'with fire unto Medeba.'
differently.
dotted words explained or mentioned in the
the question,
which reacheth unto Medeba': 'which reacheth'=nt5'K
the only one of the
is
61
13.
'(I
had
fainted) unless I
had believed
goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living.'
There
in the
Hebrew, and the word
is
nothing corresponding to 'I had fainted'
'unless,'
t^h)h,
is
dotted
62
CHAPTBB
with
above
points
three
text stands
it
DBSCBIPnON OF TEXT OF FIB8T CENTUBT.
V.
As
and four below.
the
presents an incomplete sentence, being
a protasis without an apodosis, which, however,
not unparalleled.
LXX
The
\h
2 S. 19,
12.
of «^1^, which they attached to the preceding verse.
salem.'
Only the Targum supports the present reading.
explanation.
marginal note (which
HhH
rvsa'jO
Ttpi
Hh»
is
11
The
very late) ntsotel rfyyoho Tips
p ym
is
translated by Baer:
'Pointed above and below except vav which
is
know whether
not
'My
20.
lord the king went out of Jeru-
has a dot on each
K2i^
Perhaps
13. .Is. 44,
it
their witnesses
runs,
motive for not pointing the vav above, except the fear
the whole clause.
verse,
dislike to
fell
it
e.
of the whole
later.
immediately below Kb)b and the dots placed
became attached
to Hh)h below, for this
thus signify that the whole verse
and must be
is
mentioned
in its
the
dots
wrong place
wilt
am
pay a good reward
'And
14.
their witnesses do not see.'
Ezek. 41,
The word
20.
Written twice, ending
the former
is
LXX,
IB.
v.
tliat
the passage
The
LXX omits
the Temple,
tefln,
20 and commenciug
21,
is
and
Several manuscripts and the
wall.'
Syriac and Vulgate versions omit the word.
46,
22.
'These four corners were of one measure.'
The Hebrew word
'cornered,'
cf.
LXX.
translated 'comers'
But
margin.
a. v.
letter except the
1
and
is
it
really
means
has a dot on every
to be omitted, as it is
by
Bead, 'one measure to the four of them,'
the
Talmud (BeHoly One, blessed
or read as at the beginning of the verse.
confident in Thee,
marked with
to the righteous in
inverted 3 stands at the beginning of
13.
v.
dotted. So, for 'the wall of the Temple,'
read simply 'the
the
in
—'David said before the
be He, Lord of the world, I
Thou
is
is
The
transferred.
verse
rachoth 4a)
that
He
Or, perhaps, the last word
only instance of a word being dotted below.
This
word
to the first
interfere with an entire verse.
omits "U1 yVl as being
over
i.
and thinks they were confined
from a
D^n
end,'
they see
:
an error of dittography and
It is probably
points already existent, otherwise there would be no
and at the
no
1MT â non onnyi but non has a dot on each
hot.'
letter.
should be omitted as in the Syriac, so
of confusion with holem. Blau translates riBQ^QI nhyobo
is
stands for n^J or rNS\
'And they are
9.
There
letter.
pointed except below.' This note presupposes the vowel
'at the beginning
I shall
This points to the reading
have a part with them.'
is
had only the
(26, 13)
the world to come, hut I do not
63
The Inverted
3's.
the letter
i
In two passages verses are
inverted.
In Num.
v.
ch.
10 an
35 and another
CHAPTER
64
at the
at the
end of
v. 36.
beginning
DESCHIPTION OF TEXT OF FIEST CBNTUET.
V.
In Pe. 107 an inverted
23—28 and 40
of vv.
texts.
In the marginal note at
(which
is
very late) such a
upside down, or m»13D
3 is
tlie
3
stands
the
best
foot of the
page
in
called naiBH
a,
turned
turned back to the front*
i,
Lev. 11, 42 the
In Deut.
which
1
the Israelite's
6, 4
but probably
late,
written large
Credo
is
the middle
is
modern
in
editions says.
similarly
marked,
the motive being liturgical. Accord-
ing to the Talmud,
pronounces
is
Law, as the note
letter of the
65
Gehenna
is
prepared for him who
The Talmud (Shabbath 115 b) speaks merely of nriQ^D
Soferim uses the word llfi'ty, sftijjpftr, of
i. e. mjiuioL.
unknown meaning. Sifre on Num. 10, 85, se speaks of
the verses as being marked with dots at the beginning
and end. The nuns, therefore, here and in Ps. 107
H in
hn seems to indicate the reading ni,T^n: the other
places are Gn. 1, i: 30, 42: Ex. 34, 7, 14: Lev. 11, so:
13, 33:
Num.
were originally dots and stand for
56, 10:
Mai.
same force as the dots
these two passages the
27, 13,
that
is,
in Ps.
they arc equivalent to brackets
indicate that these verses
proper place.
and have in
*np3,
So
Sifre,
and
by themselves, comes
w. 35 and 36 precede
noipD
14.
to the
v.
Large and Small
m
same
n\n
vh\0.
The
ex-
In the
thing.
Cant.
1, i:
Dan.
6, 20:
currence of large and small
letters.
are referred to in the Talmud.
Large
Some
letters
the
oc-
of these
seem to
have served various purposes, sometimes corresponding
commencement
of books.
In
Delitzach explains, singled out,
i.
e.
peculiar.
Ru.
22:
3, 3:
\ Chr.
Ps. 80,
I6:
Eccl.
7, 1:
Dt. 18,
is:
84, 4: Pr. 1,
i:
29, 27: Is.
Job
12, is: Esth. 1, e: 9,
9, 34:
29:
e,
1, 1.
2, 4
D«"iana with a
letters.
The
traditional
Thus, the small n in Gn.
explanations
2, 4
are
to indicate
is
that all created things are small and perisliing; or
is
remarked that by a transposition of
possible to read
Dm3K3,
'for
indicate
that
Abraham
The other cases
34,26: Lev.
1, 1: 6,
did not
weep
to
excess
are 27, 46: Ex. 23,
2:Nu.25,
11: 31, 24:
it
letters it is
the sake of Abraham,'
of the clioson People; and so the small 3 in 23, 2
SaraL
I
3,
Buxtorf's I'iberiaB gives thirty-one large, and thirty-
Letters.
is
32, 4 llS.n,
6 the large
DKnaa: 23,2 &c.
fanciful.
century
13, so: 14, 17: 27, s:
Instances of minuscules are Gen.
34.
first
v.
small n pointing apparently to the various reading
LXX
Another feature of
but in
:>;
In Dt.
mn''
two small
the consonantal text of the
to our capitals, as at the
the Rock, has a large
are not standing in their
planation of Sabbi, that these two verses form a book
verse indistinctly.
this
Dt. 31,
i9:
i.
is
e.
to
for
32, 25:
27: 32, is:
i
CHAPTER
66
DESCBIPXION OF TEXT OF FIRST CENTURY.
V.
44,14: Jer.14,2: 39,13: Nah.l,a: Ps. 27,
Is.
Job
28, 17: 30, 15:
7, s:
1, 12: 2, 9: 3, 86: 4,
not reproduce
16,
u:
u: Dan.
33, 9: Estli. 9,
6, 20;
but
Nun.
There are
do
A suspended
line,
i
of
Manasseh
is
written
reminding readers that the name should
be Moses and the
i
an early insertion intended to
save Moses from being the grandfather of an idolater,
and
to reflect
Job
38, 13
upon the idolatrous king Manasseh.
and
was meant 3— 'second' being mistaken
middle of the third centmy
be read, which
n^KT
is
that Q'VH^,
for 0''V\ 'poor',
it
The y
of ny'
is
'chiefs',
in better with the parallel
would also make
Ps. 80, 14(13): 'The boar out of the
it.'
DWi
for 3«='two'.
The
explanation— that of Simon ben Laclush of the
fits
suspended.
One
it
denotes
Psalter like the large
1
the
member
In Num.
explanation
i.
e.
is
that
Egypt.
middle letter of the
letters.
and connected with the
25, 12 the
of mhvf
1
is
cut in two, nV'Vip niK,
him (Phinehas) my covenant of
to indicate that the covenant was broken
of Ithamar, after
when
peace,'
tlic
high-
wliicli it
16.
returned to that of Phinehas.
Abbieviations are found on early
Abbreviations.
Jewish inscriptions and also on coins on which B'=n3B?,
numerals
the
denoted
being
alphabet, so that
i^ means,
stands for ^Klt?\ and so on.
n D
Hebrew
n, when
by the
'in
has the 2nd
pi.
LXX
were not written;
DD
in
plural or the converse,
way
the
'in
D01B D3"n3:
the letters
for the
LXX
Hebrew
or they read a singular for a
e. g.
of good men,'
16, 13
&^
It has been suggested'
text used by the
final,
the
of
letters
the second year':
frequently have the 2nd sing. pcrf. where the
and
wood doth waste
in Lev. 11, 42.
be proved by counting the
should
sense.
points to a various reading 1«\ the Nile,
More probably
to Christianity
eating of swine's flesh aud the Crucifixion.
that in the
twice written witli the V
is, D''yBf1 is
suspended, but probably only the y of the second
earliest
later referred
priesthood, between Eli and Abiathar, passed to the line
four.
read in all the versions except the Vulgate,
but in the Hebrew text the
above the
editions
^Jonathan the son of Gershom the son of
so:
is
Lam.
7, 9:
'I will give unto
letter is called TV^hn ni«.
Manasseh,'
all
Pr.16,28:
all these.
15. Suspended Letters and Divided
Jud. 18,
5:
67
in Piov. 2, 20 for D^31t3 ^^^^,
they have
^^D for Q^SÔ:
rpijiovi a.yaB<j.%=
13, 19 niKfl for
HIKn
so on.
There
is
evidence that the proper
written in the text used by the
Ps. 31,
7 (6),
Tanities,
LXX 30,
and as
for
7,
me
'I
name
LXX
hate them
niH'
was
simply \
In
tliat
regard lying
I trust in Jehovah,' we must
This can only
The passage was
I
Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griech. Uebersetz. Proverb.
El
68
CHAPTER
LXX,
read with
as Pa. 5,
the
LXX
25, 37
anger,'
'My
have
for
'
In Jud.
contrasted.
is
Peshitto and Vulgate, 'Thou hateat,'
and the
5,
'the
stands for
mn\
19, 18 for the
house,'
and
^
with which '3H
Hebrew
in Jer.
anger of the Lord,'
treating the
they
niiT nâ
LXX
numbers were indicated
80 that
it
employment of
ab->
seem to occur with
text,
possible to explain
is
Moreover, the fact that the
them on
LXX
that ground.
regarded letters as
forming abbreviations does not prove that they were
meant In
so
Jer.
3, le
have yaxHTo Kvpu &n,
i.
for the
e.
'3
Hebrew
nw
*pK,
How!
they
pK, but the other
is
correct and their interpretation wrong.
That abbreviations were at
the fact
that
variations
least rare,
arising
is
shovm by
from the supposed
and also by the fact that proper names
involving such terminations are correctly transliterated
by the
LXX
'.
explicable thus are
for
horses— 2 Chr.
They have
letters of the alphabet,
The
In any case the employment of abr
'It/w/SodM— nW3T 2 S. 11, 21.
supposition is
concerned with numbers. Only
:— 1 K.
4, 26
(Hehr.
40,000 stalls
5, e)
9, 25, 4,000.
2 S. 10, 18 700 chariots=l Chr. 19,
2 S. 24, 13 seven years of
is,
7,000.
famine=LXX and
1
Chr.
21, 12 three.
2 Chr. 21, 20
and
a son aged 42
22,2:
Jehoram
dies
read 22 as 2 K.
:
aged 40 leaving
that
8, 26,
is,
33
for 3D.
this
way
also
Perhaps in
Ezra II and Neh. VII.
the excessively high numbers in the Penta-
teuch are to be accounted
for,
as well as the variations
between the Hebrew, Greek and Samaritan, for example
in Gen.
17.
Hebrew
5.
Summary.
Such
text of the
the beginning
>
by
likely that
necessary to explain the great corruption existing in
"those parts of the text
Compare
apocopatiou of plural and feminine terminations are
exceptional,
either
it is
as on Jewish coins, or by ciphers, as on Phoenician
coins and Palmyrene inscriptions.
Hebrew
ciphers on the
'My
shorter by one eighth than the Hebrew,
is
or second century.
are no numerical
have
greatest frequency in the book of Jeremiah, in which
the
first
Although there
Moabite Stone or the Siloam Inscription,
as the suffixal pronoun instead
plicable on the supposition of the
breviations in the
of the text in the
and
however, which are most easily ex-
variations,
.breviations belongs to the period before the unification
ii
6,
of a contraction of mri\
The
69
DESOEIPTION OF TEXT OF FIRST CENTURY.
V.
in
all
probability
Old Testament as
of the Christian
era.
it
It
was the
existed at'
was
a Re-
ceived Text obtained by the collation of manuscripts
chapteh
70
and by the
rejection of various readings.
time onwards
marked
all
reading of the majority of manuscripts.
fideUty of
clearer proof could be had of the literal
that the
fact
the
than
the scribes to their manuscripts
No
Yet before that epoch
The Greek version often
existed.
The Book
century
first
of Jubilees
— shows
inferior in extent to those
— of
variations
still
from
existing in
it
New
various readings
But the standard
backed by the
survived.
scribes,
that not one remains.
"not
all
the Klialif
rival
the text and some
viously to intentional alterations of
in the
to such scribal errors as arise
are merely due
course of transcription.
of copies to be
CHAPTER
Abu
far the scribes
ALTEBATION OF OEIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
A.
were
fit
felt
The
between
mn^ and hyi. The most striking variation
fremost
of
is
which
parallel passages, and the one
1.
corrections which
quent occurrence,
themselves bound on grounds of reverence to
apply to the text were extremely
we may be
INTENTIONAL ALTERATION.
to form a text,
they appear to have possessed the all-important qualification of fidelity to the letter.
VI.
all
other copies being destroyed.
they
and yet they allowed all
Some of these are due ob-
year of the Muliammedan era,
Othman caused a number
how
micro-
these defects to stand.
Bekr, and to be circulated tlirough the provinces,
to
tlieir
text,
So too the Koran
transcribed from the copy which had belonged to
As
With
in the face of one another,
existed at first in different recensions in different countries, until, in tlie thirtieth
inconsistencies.
errors,
failed to
second century
quickly superseded
and
numerous
cannot have
scopic acquaintance with the text, they
fly
observe how frequently parallel passages
Testa-
in the
still
contradictions
middle
the
ment manuscripts," and even
80
text at which they arrived contained
and the Samaritan considerably, from the
present text.
copies,
adopting the
been the simple one referred to above, of
that
errors of the original.
differs widely,
of the
From
copies are identical, reproducing even the
no such uniformity
71
ALTEEATION OF OEIQINAIi DOCUMENTS.
v.
slight.
Psalter.
Otherwise
pretty sure that they allowed nothing to
be written for which there was not manuscript authority:
and the principle on which they went seems to have
is
that of the Divine
The proper name
of the
God
composed of the four consonants nin\
f
Book
of Psalms,
272 times:
tJNn'jK
I-XLI,
is
tliis
name
in the
of Israel
was
In the first
tetragramraaton occurs
scarcely used as a proper name.
72
OHAfTEB
TI,
ALTEEATION OF ORIOINAL DOCUMENTS.
whereas in the following Psalma
mn^ occurs only 44
XLII— LXXXIII,
times: D^^^K 200
belonged to a later period than the
;
as if these Psalms'
when
first,
the
name
nw was considered too sacred to be used and D^nl^Kwas
substituted for
and Ps.
40,
The change
is
e.
it.
u-is
is
even
Compare
especially Ps. 14 with Ps. 53
with Ps. 70: Ps. 50,
made where
it
7
with Ex. 20,2.
makes no sense and
it
necessary to restore ni.T to understand
the passage,
In the fourth and fifth Books of Psalms,
g. 50, 7.
to
XC
CL, mn*
to occur.
is again used and D-'H^K
may be said not
This could be explained by supposing these
Psalms to be still later than the second group
and to
belong to a period when the pronunciation
of the tetra-
grammaton had been
lost,
so
that
wliilst
nifT'
was
regularly written, n\T^K or
it,
as
''iin was read instead of
done amongst the Jews at the present day.
B\n!>H does occur in the two last Books
it oc-
curs in citations
is
or compilations, Pss. 108 and 144,
allowed to stand simply because there was no
reason for not allowing
hand
thesis,
it
to
stand.
On
the other
and 70 there was, on the above hypoa reason for changing nVT into D\n^K. Compare
in Pss. 53
outside the Psalter 2 K. 22, 19 with 2 Chr. 34,
27.
The
result is that to this day the correct pronunciation
of
the Divine
D\1^K
is
found in the
is
name
is
unknown.
original, that
is,
it
The change of T])T]-< into
was made by those who
LXX. But
it
is
in question
and
it
not implied that all
the Elohim Psalms once existed as Jehovah Psalms.
Another alteration precisely
was made
in the case of proper
that of the adversary of Jehovah
a common noun meaning
it
was
Baal worship
to
it
and shalt no more
mean 'my
by worsliippers in
rise of the Plioiiiician
the application
of
tlie
name
is
Thou
said.
call
Me
^^J>a.
shalt call
Me
"B'^K
Both
and
''^J?3
God
of Israel.
word even
The prophets
into Bosheth.
i.
2—4 he
is
it,
and preJer.
3, 24:
and even when Baal formed one of
components of a proper name
Ishbaal,
often refused
of the Phoenician deity
ferred to write TWi, Shame, in place of
9, 10,
'B^'K
husband', but the latter was not to be ap-
to the
to use the
Hos.
properly
master or husband, and
lord,
in Israel,
is
Jehovah was forbidden by the prophets. Thus
in Hos. 2, 16 (18)
pUed
names compounded with
—Baal. 'Baal'
But on the
addressing Jehovah.
Baal
parallel to the foregoing
in early times regularly used
is
Where
and
composed or compiled the Psalms
73
e.
The name
man
called
of Saxd's
of Baal,
i.
tlie
tlie
might be changed
surviving son
was
of Jehovah; but in 2 S.
e.
Later
Ishboslieth.
idolatrous connotation of
it
when
the
word ^ya had been
for-
still,
gotten and no objection was seen to Israelitish names
being compounded with
form once more, Eshbaal
it,
(1
we
get back to
Chr.
8, 33: 9, 39).
tlie
original
The same
CHAPTER
74
process
and
3, 8)
is
seen in the case of Mepliibosheth (2 S.
1 Chr. 8,34)
Elyada
(2 S. 5, le
and Jerubbaal (Jud.
too, as
AliTEBATION OF OBIGIHAL DOCUMENTS.
VI.
and
apparently in the case of the
sumption of use.
is
for the
tliere
and
re-
8, 35)
Vya
disuse
In the oldest period (Jud.
the former practice
Here,
21).
name mn\
are the same three phases of use,
curse, is used (Ex. 22, 27: Jud. 9, 27: Is. 8, 21
4, *
1 Chr. 14, 7 cf.
2 S. 11,
6, 32, 8, 35:
Or
excluded and TW2 substituted for
it;
and
also the
LXX
follows
the
Hebrew
/SadX,
is
to
expression to
ij
o/o-xwij.
The vowels
from it
latterly
Perhaps
it
rtiâ
was
of the
them,
name Molech
is
an impossible paraphrase:
where an imprecation
'Thou didst blaspheme
God and
The word translated 'curse' in Job 1,
word elsewhere translated 'bless'
the
haps
20, 10)
5: 2, 5
and
Hebrew,
and some equivalent euphemistic expression
Greek. In some passages on the other hand
S.
invoked on the enemies
is
1
fulfilled.
David
in
is
instigated to
1 Clir. 21,
1
number the people
by Satan:
1 Clir. 17, is
u:
S. 7,
in the well
come' or
'until
known passage Gn.
he come to
Sliiloh,'
12.
1
Chr.
Per-
49, 10 'until Shiloh
the text
may have
been altered.
'bless'.
in the
e. g. 1
alters the coarse expression in 2 S. 7,
17, 11
the king,' for 'blas-
pheme' both the Hebrew and the Greek have
found
passes over the chastising of Solomon of 2
character which
(LXX
is
The expression 'the enemies of is not found
Greek and has been inserted because David's
threat was not
2. Euphemistic Expressions. Here and there are found
K. 21, 10
it
to blas-
[the enemies of] the Lord.'
for the latter device
by the Lord,
in 1
'given
can only mean,
in the
pronounced fiosheth.
e. g.
a. v.
pheme'
In 2 S. 24,
can scarcely be original;
where the
Lord
26, 22,
Melech->King, and
several expressions of a euphemistic
u
2 S. 12,
of David.
and are probably derived
originally
^ô
great occasion to the enemies of the
Another use
be explained by the equivalence of that
are the same as those of
Iê
>J^t^*-^l^
the person addressed.
'Thou hast greatly despised
and
their habit of placing the feminine article before b)f2,
fi
e.
i.
the objection to coupling 'curse' with 'God' or
of between
in the
text
the
With
«).
name Euxine
•King' was met by inserting the expression 'the enemies
third (Glironicles) hy^ is re-admitted.
Here
may be compared
Black Sea and the Arabic «iU^
from you,
is far
admitted into Israelitish names: in the second (2 Sam.)
it is
75
3.
9 is
ppn
The T^qitn Sqferim or
is
'Correction of the Scribes\
an abstract word meaning
'correction'
and not
'}
in
the
1
77p, to
In none of theae does the word 'God' immedialely follow the
word
'curae'.
76
CHAPTER
VI.
•a correction' in the concrete.
ALTERATION OF ORIGINAI/ D0CUMEMT8.
And
means the correction which the
the
D'^TBID
scribes
before
instead of the present, 'And let her not be as one dead,
npfi
the
Christian era applied to the consonantal text,
after
which date the text was regarded as inviolable and un-
In Jewish works on the
alterable.
text,
mention
is
of from eleven to eighteen places in which the
text was altered by the early scribes, without any
These
are called
eighteen words
show that
D^ltlD
]ipfi
had been
it
and were
in all cases effected
Gn.
1.
is
Abraham
'But
18, 22
The
Dn^,
stood yet before Abrahanh'
To
the
by the alteration
Nu.
was
11, 15
originally,
'And
let
me
my
ness caused by Thee.
the second century,
Sifre, the
still
is,
is
12,
12.
The
LXX.
'did revile God'.
This
is
the reading of
Jewish tradition gives the alternative 'did
2 S. 16, 12
may be
'It
can only mean 'upon
Jewish commentary of
text apparently ran,
'And
merely the Jewish
is
of indicating that D^n^K should be read.
upon mine
had the reading 'Thy wretched-
consumed when
of our mother's womb,'
the flesh was half-
iniquity' or
'i'Va,
agree with the
^^3^3.
Lord
will look
Mî
my
'31^3
punish-
my eye,' of which
my tears,' as in the
The
LXX,
a. v. text,
According
is
'upon
'upon
'upon
margin and the Targum.
the correct reading
L^
my
is
all
the
The Hebrew consonants
affiction.'
the Jewish interpretation
us to read
«.
that
ment;' but they were read
Vulgate
let
whom
came out
\nn.
'because his sons
the wretched-
Us not be as one dead, (us) of
it
3, 13
wretchedness,'
A. V.
Num.
.
an
ness.'
3.
.
change would be to exclude
for the
not construed with the dative, but
way
6.
'Thy wretchedness,' that
.
Me' which comes to the same thing, and does
mean
that '^ should be read for mh, for hbp is
not
'But the Lord
stand before one
not see
.... \na
IIE'a
revile
oriental posture of deference.
2.
read
made themselves vile',
is an impossible translation of the Hebrew O'bhpo
For DH^ read
itself an impossible construction.
1 S.
on^K— Dfl^«,
stood yet before the
said originally to have run,
of 1DK
instead
latiya
the high priest
of a single letter or at most of a word.
Lord,'
is,
The motive
'the
scribes.'
That
Syriac (of second century) read, 'And let us not
A. y.
by correction of the
when he cometh
half consumed,
is
be.'
4.
(pÔ) Dn3T n"\
the flesh
of his mother's womb.'
MDK
The
altered.
changes were dictated by a sense of propriety and
reverence and a desire to avoid anthropomorphic expressions,
whom
of
out
made
indication being left to
77
Syriac and
but this requires
to the tradition, however,
'with
His
eye,'
which was
78
CHAPTER
be too anthropomorphic and the
felt to
transposed.
is
1
'Every
said that 'to
change
mbvh
and
were
1
for vhriHb.
man
to his tents,
be
Israel'
'to his
God.'
by merely transposing two
It
The
letters,
Similar expressions occur 1 K. 12,
10, le.
Job
12.
7, 20
am
'I
The motive
for the change
le
would
'^j;
cf.
Pss. 142,
Hos.
13.
4, 7
Thee,' as the
same as
change their gloiy into shame.' 'My
without any special references.
clearly to
tents' seems
be the true reading, though we should ex-
pect the singular, 'to his
7.
Ezek.
8, 17
'Their nose' for
anthropomorphism as also
Hab.
'My
nose'>, to avoid
1, 12
'Art
wilt not die.'
9.
10.
Mai.
Zech.
'Ye have snuffed at
2, 12 (A. V. 8)
'My
eye.'
kept him as the apple of His
is
it,'
for 'at Me.'
'He that toucheth you touches
the apple of his eye,' for
the pronoun
ambiguous: so
eye,'
it
is
In Dt.
32, lo
'He
the reference of
allowed to stand.
'My people have changed their glory
profit,' for 'My glory;' but 'their
Glory' might mean Jehovah, and h^fV reflect on ^ya.
Jer. 2,
11
for that which doth not
i
Cf.
32, 3
DDn probably for 'Bn
would require
text
is
\\bp,
But
'their
miglit
mean
bo interpreted
to
'And yet had condemned Job,'
connecting the Divine
Lam.
15.
me,' for
'is
It will
for i^^bH.
name with
There
for
is
a dislike to
the verb to
condemn &c.
3, 20
(as no. 12)
humbled
Jer. 51, 39.
'My
soul ...
is
for Thee' or 'meditates
same as
nos. 11
and
humbled
in
upon Thee.'
13).
be observed that there are only sixteen
passages though the number eighteen
The discrepancy
is
is
mentioned.
to be accounted for either
by the
occurrence of more than one point for correction in
or by reckoning the parallel passages to no.
no. 3
Ten
Cf. no. 5.
11.
Job
14.
likely the
16. Ps. 106, 20 (the
1, 13
-A^m- 2, 18.
cf under section 2.
in
Thou not from everlasting, O Lord
my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die,' for 'Thou
8.
But most
'condemned God,' 3VK
tent.'
glory'
Glory' may be Jehovah: and 'Shame,'
Baal.
his
t^f-
the further alteration, 'they have changed.'
be a disinclination to admit the existence of poly'to
am
For
reads.
no. 11) 'Therefore will I
theism in ancient Israel.
But
LXX
143, 4 &c. for X^J'
4:
(the
79
a burden to myself,' for 'I
become a burden upon
tents' should
liis
is efifected
and 2 Chr.
^
Cf. no. 10.
2 S. 20,
6.
ALTEBATION OF OEIGINAI; DOCUMENTS.
VI.
6.
are 'corrected' by altering the suflSxal pronoun.
In four cases there
letters in the oldest
identical
TiXX
is
an interchange of
1
and \ which
form of the square character are
As, with two exceptions, nos. 4 and 12, the
ignores the supposed original form of the text the
If
CHAPTER
80
alterations
ALTERATION OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
VI.
must have been made,
if
at
at
all,
an ex-
tremely early period, in the fourth or beginning of the
tliird
century
b. c.
a tradition of the
Yet in two instances, nos. 2 and 3,
unemended form lingered on until
The
'Ittur Soferim.
In the same category with
the n'TBID llpn falls the CTBID lioy.
This word means
and denotes the remoTal by the scribes of
which they considered an insertion of the un-
'subtraction'
a
letter
brought as near perfection as
to
a text was obtained from
passages, from each of
There are only five
which the scribes removed the conjunction
Gen. 18, 5: 24, 55: Num. 31, 2 and Ps. 68, 25
skilfal.
before the word "in«, and in Ps. 36,
•J^BBB'D 'thy judgments,' the text
8 (7)
'and', in
(26)
from
from before
having read originally
The consonantal
existed in the first
to be
text
of the
Hebrew Bible
century and as
compared with a
modem
as
it exists still, is
version.
The
latter is
Hence
based
ori
it
comes about
tliat
the
Hebrew
consonantal text resembles not so mucli a version as
a Manuscript.
of the
it
exhibits
and
a Hebrew Manuscript
like
many
most of human
tlie
imperfections, displaying
found in manu-
ordinary errors and defects
the
all
It is practically
century;
first
achievements
These have been
scripts.
the
it
by selecting what
eacli case,
but simply by adopting the reading of two
in
classified
Failure
Greek
unde7stand the Sense,
to
a.
Wrong
division
Besides the passages mentioned above whore
text or the Tradition departs from the
text, there are
Hebrew
a number of passages where the words
are almost certainly wrongly divided,
error
the following
:
of words.
not
were available, and
these, not
be the best reading in
against one.
1.
ORIGINAL
B. UNINTENTIONAL ALTERATION OP
ERRORS.
SCRIBAL
OF
CLASSIFICATION
DOCUMENTS:
Law
a consideration of the authority of the different manuscripts,
manner
'and afterwards' &c.
to
possible.
is
a late tradition mentioned before, at one
time only three copies of the
seemed
the second century.
4.
source, is
According
81
and where the
cannot have escaped observation, although the
Am.
obtained by the collation of a great number of manuand of older versions, the defects of one
versions do not supply the correction,
'Shall horses
nm
upon the rock?
manuscript or of one version being corrected by the
eliminated, so
others, until errors are almost entirely
with no one
that the text obtained though identical
with oxen?' so
A. v.
supplying 'there': 'with oxen'=D'"lpa3
will
e. g.
6, 12,
one plow there
scripts
which might also mean
August
Miiller)
'in
the
but more likely
morning hours'
it
is
(so
two words run
P
CHAPTER
82
one:
into
translate,
VI.
ALTERATION OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
'Do men plough
sea with
the
oxen?', D' "ipaa.
u
'1
"•SlVn,
is
unparalleled: read "yfpbp Dn^3.
'windows and...' read
'his
windows',
b.
Old Testament
in the
made
to
Ps. 40,
8,
emend
9
of a book
text,
'Then said
it is
I,
text.
behold I come
written of me) to do
(in
Thy
a marginal note referring to the word
In 2
'^ in v.
7
is
S. 1, 18 it is said of the
Saul and Jonathan, 'he bade them teach the children
of Israel the bow'.
Verse 6 states that Saul was
attacked by chariots and horsemen
of horses,'
DVTBn
'^^3,
where '^y3
1 S. 31, 3 Saul is said to have
(literally,
is
In
superfluous).
Wellhausen suggests that verses 6 and 18 stood opposite to
one another in adjacent columns and a scribe
noting the omission of any mention of archers in
>
J
For other examples
By T. K. Abbott.
cf.
Driver
p.
XXX.
v.
6
1
Is. 53, 7
18.
Repetitions.
3 and the
first five
2 Sam.
words of
Omit
v. 3.
omit the
words repeated
five
:
so
(LXX).
—
i4 is
repeated from
'renew their strength'
omit the second,
See also 2
:
8,
is
29—38.
from
last verse of
he opened not his
'so
2
S. 17, 28:
1
Chr. 20,
S. 21, 19 cf. 1
2
6, s:
5.
S. 23, 8
cf.
1
In Josh. 21 verses
Chr.
36,
37
1 Chr. 6,78, 79: according to the tradition also eight
cf.
words are inserted which
b.
8,
K
are omitted from the text but found in the margin,
(A. V.)
'masters
been attacked by archers.
v.
v.
mouth'.
11, 11
lament of David over
of
into
a.
ch. 40.
and
roll it is written '^y.
10
6
1 Chr. 9, 35
Is. 41,
will &c.' it
has been suggested ^ that the parenthetical clause
mentioning that in one
Lev. 20,
In
a volume
Eye.
to the
LXX.
Ex. 30,
but attempts have been
it.
'^ya of which ^hy2 found
4 have been accidentally repeated from
no indisputable example
passages by resort to
difficult
r&p
and rwp got
word
the last
6, 8,
with
Mabginaij NOTES finding their way into the
this source of error there is
into v. 6
Errors due
2.
V.
Ps. 73, 4 (given above p. 44).*
Of
way
its
Jer. IB, 10 "y^hpn n^3
Jer. 22,
wrote, on the margin
83
Omissions.
1.
sliould
be omitted.
Supplied by parallel passages: 1 Clir.
29—31 supplemented by
9,
35—37: see
Josh. 22, 34 'called the altar Ed',
by the
24, 27
2.
V. 8:
supplied from
Syiiac.
Supplied by Versions.
read with
boldly
the
9, 4i a. v.
name
is
LXX
Pr. 10, lob comes from
and Syriac, 'He that rebuketh
a peacemaker:' In Pr. 11,
LXX and Syiiac
insert,
'But a
16
between a and b
woman
that hateth
p
J
CHAPTER
84
rightcousneas
a seat of disgrace.
i?
and read
lark suhstaiice,'
2 S. 17,
Beekest
O'Snn
men do
Hebrew
was a uniform
2 Clir.
2.
the soul of one man.'
Job
*
more than my necessary
food,'
his
first
VD ^^DK ^WDS
^priD:
^pno
and add
half of the verse,
Of words:
K.
6, 2.
Ps. 35,
7
reads,
'They have spread a
Transpose nnt? and
mouth
3.
should go with the
Cf. 1
20 cubits, vnth
ontS'y,
their net tliey have digged.'
pit,
have esteemed the words of
23, 12 'I
n«0 read nOK
ontrj?!
LXX.
the
bride retumeth to her husband: thou shalt seek only
makes the porch of the Temple 120 cubits
3, 4
For
high!
'As a
has,
Egypt long before there was
text in
one in Palestine.
for D^3nj>.
the Greek
as if all returned,'
is
the
for
Hebrew 'The man whom thou
for the
3,
Slothful
'diligent'
'violent' in the next half verse,
85
ALTEBATION OF ORIOINAL DOCDMBNTB.
VI.
v. 8:
Of
verses:
Is. 38, 21
cf,
2 K. 20,
6—a.
and
22
sliould
come next
to
''pna='pTia in the second, 'Neither have 1 caused the
command
hidden the words of Ids mouth
'He buildeth
spider,'
3.
i.
my
of his lips to depart from
e.
in
my
right, I
bosom.'
Job
Most
have
27, 18
house as a moth,' should be 'as a
liis
d.
Tradition notes the omission of
n 46 times and
Ps. 110,
of vowel letters often, also of ten entire words.
c.
Tbambpositions
"p^n.
The
cf.
letters
:
Josh.
1:
2
K.
6, i3
'in
^^1^ for
14, 6: Jer. 9, 7: Ps. 73, 2
"Wp 'conspiracy' should be
one above
read for
in the
it
1
wavers between Vtp
'holiness' trip
',
3 and
mna
and
holy attire' and 'on holy mountains.'
2 S.
&c
and
13, 37: 2
where 1
is
for n:
and
1
K.
16, 6:
written for
'
*1
is
The
H and
Vflp
and two where n
n.
mna,
Tradition*
written instead of
Jer. 31, 40: Pr. 19, 19:
"1;
1,
1,
two places
is
written
are interchanged in 154, 3 and 3 in
11 words.
:
A
'
so that
'33.
LXX.
3
1,
mentions four places where
vv. 13, 14.
1 S. 14, 50, 51
is
Of
tradition mentions sixty-two Buch cases of
transposition of
Is. 8, 12,
1.
Similar letters mistaken for one another.
most common are T and
be C'SSy.
V)f should
cases of omission and insertion are due to
homcBoteleuton or homceoarchton.
has slipped from one line into the
Abner
is
called Abiner and
Tliis is very curious,
It is one of
many
and
it is
Other examples are Josh. 9,4
p
they had been ambassadors,'
ITBS'I,
n'tSS''1
'made as though
'took provisions':
found
indications that there
>
Jr.
They are givea
in
Okhlah ve Oklilah, no.
123.
86
CHAPTER
Dt. 14,
HKin
13
'the glede,'
Lev. 11,
for
u
HKin
K.
11,
vulture': 2 Chr. 22, lo "Qini for nSKni (2
Errors due
3.
Adoram
for
1
of ^y and h».
kV should be
E.
Ex. 21,
viz.,
K. 8,
3
Chr. 11,
1
1
Hadoram
8
Lev. 11,
8:
21
Sam.
20: 1
:
20,
2, le:
2.
'31K
IS.
25, so:
63,9: Ps. 100,
10: Is. 9, 2:
3:
Cf. also Is.
2.
Thus
in
2 S.
Syr.
2 S. 23,
2 Chr. 22,
Ezek. 43,
are',
would also sound alike in reading.
The
due to
^^TM in certain cases.
1)6
Zedekiah,
cf. v.
in
'
In Jer.
27,
3 and ch. 28,
5. Errors due to Carelessness
1
2 S. 22,
niiT
7
and
Jehoiakim should
36,2 'Anah the daughter of Zibeon': daughter should be
son
:
Sam.
so
Nu.
26, 8
LXX
'And
Syr.
and
v.
the sons of Pallu; Eliab'
is
simply
it
first 'three'
should be 'thirty' (as
Books of Samuel
for
is
public
edification,
Conclusion.
Old Testament
{^nd defects of
it
in
the first century
bom Yashni and Abiah.'
Vashni means and the second':
the first-born was Joel, 1 S.
'
8, 2.
much
of
had
text
of the
tlic
merits
an unpointed manuscript of that period.
attempt was made then or subsequently to clear
of even
manifest corruptions
and inconsistencies.
of letters which did not form words
were retained and read somehow.
first-
more errors
but very
The received Jewish
Even combinations
'And the sons of Samuel; the
exhibits
probably due to their being not
carelessness: the scribe wrote on as in the preceding
6, 13(28)
LXX.
cause than any other part of the Old
This
verses without looking al%id. So in 1 Chr. 3, 22 and often.
1 Chr.
text: the
the narrative.
No
24.
tlie
has also to be corrected by the
much used
6.
Gen.
]3].
has happened here.
read privately on account of the intrinsic interest
1.
or Ignorance.
likely
has to be translated as a preposition.
6 '3
13
this
so
K^pK
and the interchange of
7,
the
text of the
without any apparent motive, as
in Ps. 18,
and Vulg. have
18, 19
Testament.
yWK
was most
generally ^TMVt
tiling
The number
old.'
it
in Syriac).
Ps.
4. Failure of Memory. This would explain the use
is
text
the
'Ishboshcth' has fallen out of
3, 7
LXX
years
From
perhaps the same
Is. 21, i«
of different but synonymous words in parallel passages
and
'Saul was
1
fifty J ['one year old'
139,18:
'and not we ourselves' should be 'and His we
mn' and
1 S. 13,
has dropped out.
12, 18: also the coustant iutcrchauge
13, 15: 41, 4: Pr. 19, 7: 26, 2: Ezr. 4,
49,5:
100,
2 Chr. 10,
'the
i).
Tradition mentions fifteen places where
1^,
2,s: 2 8.16,18: 2
Job
Ear.
to the
87
ALTEEATION Or OBIGINAL DOCUMENTS.
VI.
Tlie small changes
which are said to have been made by the scribes do
not seem to have been regarded as approaching nearer
to the original form, but rather as a concession to the
88
CHAPTEB Vn.
spirit of the times.
From
FBOQBESS OF HI8T0BT.
the second century onwards,
the consonantal text was regarded as sacred
might stand or
in
letter
the
fall
or commentary on the Mishnah, was completed.
—the world
The
result
that
is
sonantal text of the second century
is
consonantal text of the present day.
the
the reduction of
History of
con-
precisely the
The forms
\
tlie
almost a blank.
of
at the end of
the character became modernized and great changes
in appearance
the
in
way
of
the introduction
were made, but no
letter
of additional
signs
was added and no
letter
was taken away.
But
even this huge compilation was preserved orally and
by the omission or insertion of a
Torah.
89
consonantal
alterable
;
The
it to writing long forbidden.
Hebrew Text during tliis period is
The text itself as written remained
tlie fifth
century substantially unchanged
from wliat
—a
was
it
in the first
This was considered
text.
and to preserve
the
it
lioly
bare
and un-
numbers of the words,
79866, and even of the letters, variously put at from
350,000 to 600,000, occurring in the Law, were counted
CHAPTER vn.
sometime during the early centuries, so that notliing
PHOGBESS OF HISTORY OF TEXT DURING FIRST SEVEN
might be
.
Ml
1.
part of the
I
!
the Text
Hebrew Text
was
The consonantal
Oral.
of the
added, and the other books were
similarly dealt with.
CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.
study of
lost or
Old Testament was
Read as
2. The text not always
actly as they found
them on
one motive or anotlicr
Christian century, and
it
reading and read something
unchanged ever
During the
has remained substantially
the text was studied and minutely
all
such study being carried on
first six
centuries
commented upon;
orally.
The Mishnah
which was completed in the year 190 by R. Jehuda
the Holy was not then written down but was preserved
solely
fifth
by memory and
tradition.
By
the end of the
century the other part of the Talmud, the Gremara,
Tlie scribes
did not always read the words of the Scriptures ex-
practically fixed in the first or at latest in the second
since.
Written.
at a very early date
tlie
tlicy
— in
else.
motives.
At Jast
it
grew up
its
root
after the rein
gri
or qri,
of which the
read.
impt. of the
It has to
subjective
into the system of marginal
readings found in modern printed texts and
pass, pc, qri,
From
This practice began
fact very soon
from Babylon, and had
turn
written page.
changf^d a word in the
plural
is
known
qaryan.
qre
Aramaic qra meaning
as
is
to
be noted that we have not yet reached
90
CHAPTEB
PROGRESS OF HISTORY.
VII.
period when these readings were reduced to writing.
tlie
When
and were passed on from generation
tradition.
It
is
to generation
we have now
by
may have been based on
In so far as
to do.
since
i
value only inferior to that of the text.
But
e. 'ilK.
i.
Apparently for
was not
it
The discontinuance
uttered.
of Israel was recognised, as
as being not one
to us,
God
modern printed books,
name became
unnecessary.
but without the authority of these in
:
fact,
period wherever this proper
they stand in
from what
The motive
24, 11
was written
is
that of the
for this proceeding
name
is
DC?n riM 3pM, wliich
name' (as the
a. v.,
may be found
may mean
is
from aap)
or, better,
cf.
it,
TiXX
for
b. c.
that translatioa has Kvpios
was read
of the
text
New
Testa-
LXX.
was departed from
more
refined ex-
But
in the great majority of cases
grammar
a.
Even
mn^ was
Kvpioi
in order to substitute a
1 S. 6,
II.
or logic.
A word was
Jud. 20,
13:
b.
^
3:
Ruth
16, 23: 18, 2o: 2
3, 5, I7
K.
19,31, 37: Jer.
(see chap. "VI no. 2).
Or, a word was omitted in reading: 2 S. 13, 33:
IB, 21: 2
Ru.
Thus:
frequently read which was not written:
2 S. 8,
31, 38: 50, 29:
translation, that
before the middle of the third century
no longer pronounced;
nin\
it
Instances are Dt. 28, so: 2 K.
of
'pronounced the
TI for
proper
pression for a coarser.
18, 27:
from ipi in the sense
the original of the post-Biblical
— any
the reading departed from the written text on grounds
Gn. 30,28. This expression
before the commencement of the
is,
in reading,
of
either 'blasphemed the
name', as Jewish tradition explains
Dtyn
in Lev.
come down
national deities,
derived from this usage through the
is
Very frequently the written
Here the expression used
death.
of to dqfine accurately, name,
>^
ment
name n^T.
where the punishment for the irreverent use
the Divine
is
it
differently
recognised by
name occurred
by the Jews
a word being read
soon as the
where that word immediately pre-
ceded or followed, D^1^K. The
critic.
'•ilK or,
its
Hence, from a very early
a present day
earliest case of
is
heaven and earth
in
the same category with the conjectural emendations of
The
He
among many
but the only
errata and corrigenda in
As
reverence.
the earliest prophets whose writings have
in so far
name
of
to the growth of religion as
as they have no such foundation, they rather resemble
tiie
this very reason there
hesitation about writing the
use may have been due
much as to a sense of
God
various readings found
ancient manuscripts, they have a real manuscript
in
it,
was no longer any
with these qris in their oral and un-
written state that
they
for
that occurred, they had existed for centuries
91
3, 12.
K.
5, 18:
Jer. 38, le: 39, 12: 61,3: Ezek.48, le:
92
CHAPTEB Vn.
c.
The
One
d.
a word were transposed as
letters of
sixty-two passages,
letter
JosL
e.
is
6, 13
1
above
(see
was substituted
especially the case with
of this
DIVISION OF
Ps. 16, 10
another; this
for
for K-'aS Mic.
in
1
p. 84).
'"^j;
Is. 3, 8:
T-TOn
for
ymn
13.
Above
i
all,
nothing was placed on the sacred page beyond
the bare text as
it
existed in the first century.
Words were
in the writing.
divided differently in the reading and
Examples have been given above under
CHAPTER
the Division of "Words, p. 43.
•
^Jy for
All this study was oral: nothing was written down.
is
and \ Tlie cardinal instance
Kin for M'n in the Pentateuch.
1, is:
'niD3 for 'fioa Dt. 32,
:
93
THE TEXT.
Means
3.
Besides fixing how
to Preserve the Text.
DIVISION OF
VIIL
THE TEXT.
the text was to be read the scribes of this period also
took measures for the preservation of the
this
At
For
text.
purpose they counted the number of verses and
make mental
lists
found Josh.
13, 26:
In the
began to
also
The middle
Jud. 10,
Law
4^
8:
1
Sam.
28, 24:
IK.
is
for
8, 7:
middle letter the large
1
in Lev. 11,
42.
The
abnormally
number
is
Jer. 6,
The
— with
niKOn for riKon Jer.
DMp
as
5, 25:
nyi
for
Verses.
for
p
Mic.
10,
3, 2:
a book to the last; and
The
was no necessity
division.
division of the text into verses
seems
practice of accompanying the public reading of
Law
in
Exile, Neb.
much
the regulation
Dp Hos.
Old
between the individual
verses, there
Hebrew
with a translation into the spoken
Aramaic began immediately
7.
more or fewer than
of vowel-letters,
the
when a word was written
scribes also noted
text of the
to have originated in the requirements of interpretation.
The
middle verse of the Old Testament, in the traditional
order of the books,
first letter of
any further marks of
1.
the middle of the words between trn and ÔTi in Lev.
10, 16: the
ously from the
and there were as yet no
22, 6:
Lev.
left
the
as each book was written on a separate leather roll
verses of books will be
the middle verse
in
words: except for these the letters ran on continu-
of words which were written in some
abnormal manner.
Is. 33, 21.
They
letter.
only breaks
the
Testament were the spaces
even of letters in the various books and noted which
was the middle verse or
first
u:
8, s.
The
after the return
reader should not read
1'
How
of the text should be read before the translator
gave his paraphrase. In the Mishnah
"lan
from the
question would at once arise.
less
it is
said: 'The
than three verses of the
DIVISION OF
CHAPTER Vm.
94
Law.
On
95
present day. In Palestine tbe custom was to get through
Also he should not read more than one verse
at a time to the interpreter.
THE TEXT.
the whole
the other hand, in
Law
once in three or tliree-and-a-half years:
the prophets he should read three verses at a time,
in the Babylonian synagogues once every year.
yet only
this
if
the tliree verses are
not three sections.'
rolls
of different length.
in the synagogue
1)
It
is
is
now
A
at this point.
list
of these various verse-divisions
given by Baer on Hos.
was not more
1, 2.
That the verse-separation
clearly indicated than that of the words
proved by the frequency with which the versions
and especially the
in that respect,
LXX
Hos.
depart from the
4, 11: Is. 1, 12
2. Sections of the Law.
It
is
Hebrew
text
&c.
MSS
made between
and printed
54 long sections, although
fall
sections
texts
wc
find
it
was not
until after
Law became
at Gn.
6, 9; 12,
1
universal
The
divisions
&c.
The Law was
The
also
divided into two other kinds of
sections probably for convenience of reference merely,
like
2)
our chapters, namely
379 shorter paragi-aphs, the division being indicated
by a space equal
to about six or seven letters.
kind of section was called
closed,
preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath
Law
there
ilQino,
tliat
is,
This
stopped or
because the next began on the same
line.
stated in Acts (15, 21)
that 'Moses of old time hath in every city them that
day.'
In
is
found in twenty-eight passages in the middle of the
<t
is
into sections
divided into
reading of the
called MpDB.
present verses to indicate that some divided the verse
is
became divided
the fourteenth centuiy that the practice of the annual
of verse-division was a space like that which was em-
This space
Law
the
has always been forbidden. The earUest indication
ployed to separate words.
early
These arc known to the Mishnah
though no distinction
and another hegan,
and the placing of any such mark
Law
called pardshahs.
The word for a verse in the Talmud is piDB.
But while verses existed and were recognised even
in Mishnic times, they long remained without any mark
to indicate where one verse ended
purpose the
For
practice of reading regularly through the
seems to have commenced immediately
3)
290 longer paragraphs with a space of about
eighteen or nineteen
letters
between each, or
indicated by the next section beginning on a
new
else
line,
whence they are called nnins, open.
after the
return from the Captivity, and has continued until the
Thirteen of the 54 sections coincide as to their
DIVISION OF
CHAPTER Vm.
96
thirteen of the stopped sections,
commencement with
open sections.'
sections called
The Palestinian division was into 154
thirty-five with
sedMnm, D^no (Job
i. e.
10, 22)
The Haftdrahs. After the reading
doms.
This method
of' writing,
Job and
the two
Wis-
however, seems not to
have been taken over from the Hebrew manuscripts,
Law
of the
in
In the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, certain
poetical passages, and also
were written
in
some catalogues of names,
a peculiar manner, even in Talmudic
Such are the Song of Moses
times.
Deborah, Jud.
in
Ex. 15, of
of David, 2 S. 22, and others.
Tliese
passage from the prophets
the Synagogues a suitable
From Maccabaean times 64
songs are written 'a half-brick upon a brick and a
called
brick upon a half brick' (Megillah 16 b), the lines con-
was read (Luke 4, 17).
passages have been selected
n-iDCn,
dimissio.
The
for this purpose,
prophetical
books were also
but the places of division
divided into paragraphs,
is:
wrong division are Hag. 1,
are doubtful. Cases of
Is'.
56,
4
•
9.
The
tl,e
Psalms,
and Passages.
of
tlie
LXX
In
all
m
Hen^th^ ar7h^«ted
in printed texts by,
tne
version of
the .rlxo^
these are written <rro.x^v,
the
to the members of
intended to correspond
same
the
written
parallelism. Other books
'.
being
Hebrew
wayj^
(stopped) B
and one o
one of the 64) e»» (open
(open) 000 (Hopped and
there is
i,ê 5]) or wlere
^"*
^ Zl^'^^^:^^^^^^^
at the end of the
:;;fa» inSuro^ly
unauthorized. ineoTiu
j^ *i,n Law,
»
Taw but not the
outside the
and
Baer'B text has the B
ZL°e""e
text.
old texts.
sisting of
5,
two and of three parts of a verse alternately,
those which consist of three parts having only one
word on
either side, that
is,
the songs are written in
three columns representing the bricks in the wall of
'
!
Poetical Books
manuscripts
xnost important
•
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles,
97
but to have been of indigenous growth.
rubrics.
annual pencopes corThese 54 or 154 sections or
of the Koran; but they
respond exactly to the 30 ajeA
in Ex. 6, 28.
sometimes destroy the sense as
3.
THE TEXT.
a house.
Sometimes they are written
in
two cohimns
as Dt. 32, or 'a half brick upon a half brick, and a
brick upon a brick.'
Esth.
So
also
tlie
lists Josli.
12 and
9.
That the Psalms
as a whole were not written in this
way, but continuously like the prose books, appears
from the variations of the versions from
and from one another,
the verses and the
5.
in
tlio
Hebrew
respect of the division of
number of the
lines (65,8: 90,2,
Nwnber, Order and Names of
Palestinian Jews reckoned the
the Books.
Number
ii).
The
of their sacred
G
98
CHAPTER VIU.
DIVISION or
books at twenty-four
:
the total given in Josephus, ob-
tained by joining Rutli to Judges, and Lamentations to
Jeremiah, was due to an
effort after forced
conformity
THE TEXT.
concludes the fourth book, though
which
is
the original.
Perhaps
has been questioned
it
was based upon the
it
fivefold
division of the Law; but
if Ps. 106, 48
quotation, there are no longer five
books.
.
with the number of letters in the Hebrew alpliabet.
Until about the third century
formed a
scroll
by
each book generally
a. d.
so that the question of the
itself,
order of the books had not arisen.
Bible the
Law
after
opening phrase.
its
is
Numbers, 13103
is
more
likely.
each one book.
and
counted as
Thus Genesis
is
named
HNl^Mâ:
according to Jerome "UTI, which
or,
The
first is
is 1
called ^KlOt? nBD, not noD,
Tlie present practice
S. 28, 24.
of reckoning two books of
Greek
books, each one
Samuel, Kings and Chronicles form
middle verse
its
five
In the Hebrew
Samuel &c. arose with the
language, for private use.
Ezra and Nehemiah.
The same
either to the
middle
It
to be noted
possibiUty of having the scriptures
in a single book
arose, and with it the question
of the Obdeb of the
various writings. The change
from roll to book form
probably took place about tlie third
century a. d.
In the Tahnud the books are arranged
and classified
as follows: Tlie whole
Books are called Kipon
XXIV
(=A1 Koran) and are divided into
I. The Law or mm:
five books,
being
always from the time of
roll,
3, 12.
The Psalms would
tlie final
redaction be written
Mic.
but the division into
It had already been
made by
five
books
is
to four lines
II.
ancient
the time of Chronicles
for 1 Chr. 16, 35, 86 quote Ps. 106 with the doxology which
The Pbophets
a.
three parts, vie.;—
with a space equal
between each.
or Q'K^2i: sub-divided into
FoBMEB(DîlBf«i): four books; Joshua,
Judges,
Samuel and Kings:
b.
that the
Prophets constitute a single book, the
verse
upon one
is
a
leather rolls gave place to
parchment books
of leaves sewn together and bound
into volumes, the
also of
unknown
or to tradition.
XII Minor
true
of Ezra in-
cludes Nehemiah, the latter being
Talmud
is
The Hebrew book
is
When
translation, perhaps being due to the exceeding
bulkiness of the rolls containing these books in that
99
ni
Lattee (D'iTinN)
four books Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Isaiah and the Twelve Minor
Prophets.
:
;
The Hagiogbapha orDOina:
Psahns,
eleven books; Ruth,
Job,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song,
Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra
(including
Nehemiah) and Chronicles.
The Song, Ruth, Lam.
Five Rolls.
Eccl. Esth. are called
the
CHAPTEE Vm.
100
The
order
and
It places Is. before Jer.
different.
grapha the order
Cant.,
'Masaoretic'
or
traditional
THE VOCALIZATION Or THE TEXT.
Lam.,
Eccl.,
of tliese
is
slightly
CHAPTER
Hagio-
Chron., Pss., Job, Prov., Ruth,
Dan.,
Estli.,
classifications
is
Ezra-Neh.
THE VOCALIZATION OF THE TEXT.
The Antiquity of the Points. About tlie time of
it was the universal belief, both of
Jews and Christians, that the vowel and other signs
then and now found in Hebrew MSS. and printed texts
1.
the Reformation
especially valuable
is
from a chronological point of view.
That the
latter
begins the Hagiographa with Chronicles explains
how
they came to find the middle verse of the Hagiographa
in Ps. 130,
Spanish
generally
received them orally aud that Ezra and the
as a rule, follow the Massoretic order
In German
Hagiographa.
the
of
were of equal value and of almost equal antiquity with
the consonants. The Jewish tradition was that Moses
3.
MSS,
is: Pss.,
MSS
the
order
this
antiquity of these points
in printed texts.
The Names are
D^BBty; or
from
WDT, liTyt?';
The theory
later than Ezra,
broached by Elias Levita, 1468—1 549, who inducted
Law
The same
is
done
in the
Talmud, was
in
modem
Christian divines into the knowledge of Hebrew.
or Lamentations,
gave
Koran
rise to the
five rolls in the order of the occasione
on -which they
— 1629,
of the theory that
Passover, Pentecost, 9th of Ab, Tabernacles
language and
and Puiim.
Capellus, b.
-L.
times
This
famous controversy in the seventeenth
century on the inspiration of the points.
often.
The
much
first
Buxtorf, 1564
•
inspiration.
opening sentences, as in the
books of the
are publicly read:
tlie
later even than the
case of the
and
the Jewish
and
in the
called i\ytK.
all
with Christians
or, lastly,
from some word
is
And
that the vowel points were very
or from the
nature of the composition, as '^BÔ, D^Snn;
which
of
was a necessary corollary
from the doctrine of plenary
given from the contents as D^S^D,
the. author, as
five
was the opinion held by almost
doctors of the Middle Ages.
that adopted
is
men
the Great Synagogue reduced them to writing, and
Prov., Job, Song, Ruth, Lam., Eccl.,
Est, • Dan., Ezra-Neh., Chr. The latter
IX.
Either
preferable to that of the
modem, and
Yersions, ancient or
is
in the
101
had written a
the points
d.
elder
were coeval with the
had always been
Sedan 1579
The
treatise in support
in
use.
Ludovicus
1668, took up the position
102
CHAPTER
that they had been invented by the Rabbis of Tiberias,
600 years
after
Christ, with
a view to preserve
language which was fast ceasing to be spoken.
a
'
i
younger Buxtorf defended the position of the
views of Capellus were denounced
produce 'pessimas
as
elder.
to
likely
The
et periculosas consequentias.'
French Protestants opposed him as depriving them
many
of their arguments against the Vulgate, so that
he had to print his treatise
now
ever, is
it is
in
Holland.
His view, how-
universally admitted to be correct.
And
mostly agreed that both the vowel and accentual
sigaB were adopted into the text about the
At
of
same
time.
2.
We
Tlie Ujiper Limit.
LXX
translation
have seen that when the
was made, the Hebrew text did not
possess even vowel letters to the same extent as
it
had no vowel sign to guide
says that he
him and implies that he had no accentual
signs either
i\
;
translators for rendering, e. g.
and he excuses the
Moon shall be
Is. 24, 23 nonn rw\y\ naaSn mem, 'The
confounded and the Sun ashamed,' km TOKô-trat ^ irAwôs
Koi
rd Tiixoi,
7r£<r«Tat
ambiguitate decepti,'
by saying that they were
i.e.
being ensnared by the same source of error
shades
26, 14 'Dead men shall never live, nor
For the second
The word
may mean either.
an unvowelled Hebrew
Targums
also point to
Lastly the Talmud knows nothing of specific
vowel or accentual signs. Thus, it mentions five words
WfO &c.)
of which the connection was doubtful (Gn. 4, 7
original.
proving the non-existence of accentual signs.
Christian century, and at neither of these dates did
by the end of the sixth century the Hebrew
the text possess any system of vowel-signs beyond the
still
four vowel letters.
when
the time
from
it
in tlie
was made
The same
true of the text at
the Syriac (Peshitto) Version was
made
second century. Jerome's Latin Version
directly from the
between the years
393
Jerome speaks indeed
these he
is
first
means not
Hebrew and was published
and 405: he died
of accents
in
420,
(accentus) but
by
signs but modifications of sound
Is.
D'KDI which, unvowelled,
is
earlier
is
arise.'
clause they have 'nor physicians arise.'
or second
did when that text was unified in the
'verhi
misled by the absence of vowel-
Another curious instance of the translators
points.
The
wliat date did this take place?
He
merely.
LXX
The
I
The
103
IX.
an unpointed consonantal
text.
Tliis
So that
text
yields
was
an
upper limit for the date of the insertion of the vowel
and other
signs;
sible to get.
It
and further on
is
this side it is
impos-
necessary to begin from the other
end and work backwards.
3.
Lower Limit.
Tlie
authority
upon
The
earliest
and greatest
the vowel points and accents
ben Asher who belonged
is
Aaron
to the school of Tiberias
and
104
CHAPTER
flourished about the
He
IX.
beginning of the tenth century.
He
died sometime before the year 989.
•writer of
a codex with
notes on the same.
the day of
it
So
the author of the system,
it
its
origin
century.
but from
Such a date
J»
text of
far,
was so ancient
of the Text,
itself,
Even
favoured, not merely by
Ben
and other
history
tlie
but also by that of the cognate
in the case
Greek MSS. the ac-
of
be found in those of the sixth
In the case of Syriac there are two vowel
century.
One
systems.
Asher came of a distinguished family of Massoretes, or
students
is
cents only begin to
in his time
was completely unknown to him.
text
languages.
however, from his being
for the insertion of the vowel
signs in the text
of the
subsequent copies and
all
editions seek to reproduce.
that
itself is lost
became the standard
the Old Testament, wliich
taken to be some time about the end of the seventh
was the
present points and with
This codex
writing
its
all the
105
consists
of these
of the
Greek
five
vowels written veiy small and placed over or under
who had occupied themselves
the consonant after which they are to be read:
the
with that pursuit some 120 years before his time, and
other consists of dots placed in varying relative po-
who would have handed down the
if it had been known to them.
sitions.
origin of the points
the East Syrians
Sepher Yezirah, the earliest Kabbalistic work extant,
of
the eighth or ninth century,
'
existed,
became
they then
if
signs
does not refer to them, proving that these
innovation,
4. The Probable Date.
it
is
The earliest date,
is known to have
the year 600.
known not
Hence
the
of the
vowel and accentual signs into the text
As Hebrew
a spoken language, the necessity
guides to the
felt
of having
correct pronunciation.
some
It is
the use of such signs began to be taken
The system adopted would
would no way interfere with the consonants.
is
liturgical
And
generally
J..
not
it
Such a
liad,
and the Jews seem to
over from them.
The Syriac accentual
system the Syriac already
have taken
adoption of
is
require to be one which
therefore,
existed
was about
to have existed
date
less of
century.
Arabic school books very often have the vowel points.
the beginning of the ninth century; and the latest date
at which
and
of the
system are found among
fifth
advantage of in teaching in the schools, just as modern
indeed, they existed.
at which the pointed text
as
likely that
at any rate at that time regarded as an
if,
less
this latter
would be more and more keenly
which woidd be ex-
pected to take account of vowel signs
signs were
Traces of
system was perfected about the same time.
much
later a precisely similar step
had
to
be
CHAPTEE
106
The
taken in Arabic.
IX.
Koran
received text of the
wliich was fixed by Othman about the year 30
i.
e.
for
correct recital than
its
For whereas
in
Hebrew
tlie
Hebrew
were only
points
critical
to distinguish
other were introduced by
who
ruled from 75
—95
Vf,
a. h.,
Abul Aswad who died
to the
father
(100-175
of
Arabic there
these signs from
Al Hajj&j governor
Koran
in tlie year 69 a.h.
diacritical
Dia-
each
of Irak
and a system of coloured
dots for vowel signs for use in the
Arabic system of
in
to twenty-eight sounds.
signs
fifteen
Scriptures.
only one consonantal sign re-
presented two distinct sounds, the
to
a. h.
650-1 A. D. depended fur more upon oral tradition
is
ascribed
The present
and vowel signs
is
ascribed
Arabic grammar Khalil ibn
Ahmed
In the best MSS. of the Koran the bare
A.H.).
consonants are written in black ink and the uninspired
diacritical
and vowel points generally
in red.
As
in
the East Syriac system, these signs for the most part
are
made up
of dots
5. Various Systems.
same
was
plan.
and
lines.
The Jewish
It is not to
scribes adopted the
be supposed that one system
valid eveiywhere at once.
favoui-ed a system peculiar to
Probably every
itself,
locality
and every school-
master may have invented one for the use of his own
school.
Of
all
these different systems, two have sur-
lo
Ck*
p. lOT]
107
which we are accustomed, and
vived, the Palestinian to
the Babylonian.
«3»
Di«T
113
DilJw
mfi?
Kapii]
-6=1
iiii
mianp
a'»np*i
D'lp n-'fi^
p siJna
"fl?
"fl?
ba^nm
p s^Bip neaiS
rn a-'^pio [win]
tck dm
mn^
iroaip w^n by
oiij'in
ni'ianp
n'»3''ai[p
rv" TiiSo'ii
"fl?
p
no riD Knain bJ JTân r\^ 'p"« "^3 ppî «5>aT p»n
«nnbw «ri^bK n-'ain ni? p kiaip «^p noaJB a'^npi
ba rpi «na n'^ îm wann rr>i ri3'»iri «n"if» b-'apS
bri |'iri'»byT «ann nî i^bia iifiin nî
«^5 bri sain
n^'jipo^T
ri3'»'Hr' Mr^bia by K-iaa bJn «nxn rfi k'^ddj
niwnp «ny isi la o«i <ir p waip n''n5 snaifib wna
p
by
JT^n^ 01511 n'>'6"<n
no
rio
KnaiB
by
«ain n^
«15] rf
•'ibn'i
pn'»by'i
Kain nî
ri:''n3n
rf Tiaoii
n^ priK
'<S'
Kri^bia by
I'ia
ba pa-rjaniti baa
o-'riS
'}i5'>nnb'
p sriianpi
siaf pttn
ba nî
rfi] k^ddj brI
snainb' «:n3 pipo^'T
o5y o^p
-fl?
liâ-ipi
o'lp
«ann
kS MOT bai
is
not
Palestinian, or whether
fore
it
OP A PAOI FROM A PBAOHHTABT TBIOLOTT HI.
(IM POIIUIIOM or SB. OSAMIZIB, LBIMIO.)
TBrgam
Lerltioai
Ui.
t— 17,
it
was replaced by
Babylonian
the
was
was not
the latter.
in general
use be-
To commence
with,
both would be merely local varieties whicli spread.
The
existence of any other system beside the familiar
Palestinian was
The MSS.
not suspected until the year 1840.
of the
Old Testament showing
this
system are few in number, but one of them
dex Babylonicus of 916, the oldest of
MSS.
of which the date
all
It
is given.
is
other
the Co-
known Hebrew
was found in the
Crimea by Firkowitzsch, a Karaite Jew.
Seeing that
in general use
able to call
its
it
is
not certain whether this system was
among
it
the Babylonian Jews,
it is
prefer-
the superlinear system, since almost all
signs stand over the consonants
— the
reverse of the
Palestinian as far as the vowel-signs go at any rate.'
It
is
peculiar in having no separate sign for e (seghol),
using a or
TRANSSCRIPTION
whether
certain
merely employed locally alongside of the generally used
ni'in a'^npi
vm [b^ Ma'iri
KnaS [bH «ns»i
waip
"flr
ppri
p saaip rriwip
i^bia T>riir rfi
ba «iyna KlsapriKb
«a-ipi
n""!!
n-îan
It
ânp Knw'^S bJn
i
instead.
centual system for
all
It has, moreover, only
one ac-
the books, in wliich respect
it
again presents a contrast to the Western system, since
the latter makes a distinction like that drawn in the
with Superlinekr Functuition.
A
specimen page of
this
system
of the text of the book of Job.
is
prefixed to Baer's edition
108
CHAPTER
X.
THE PALESTINIAN SYSTEM.
Greek Church between the notation of
Psalms and
tlie
century that this punctuation was introduced into the
'
of the Gospel, or between the chant and
the recitative
in the Latin Church.
VarioKS Recensions.
6.
Neither was there at
text, it
Ben
Aslier was R. Moses
Naphtali his contemporary.
to Babylon, as
Ben Asher
since the time
a codex which, however,
unless
we are
in the year 922.
Baer
the pointing.
Asher's
is
No
to have
gives
in
his
Version,
lost—
sliglit
lists
of their
and mostly confined
doubt these two recensions,
two systems of punctuation, are the
relics of
as
well
first
of all in the trans-
names and other words
later,
as,
Plautus (Poenulus Act V).
to a knowledge
*
of
spoken language,
Arabic.
to
in
Origen
in the
self
much
But one
of the best
what Hebrew sounded
is
obtained from
like
CHAPTER
X.
make himThe information
lost considerably in variety, ricliness
It
seems as
The Living Language. The
the living language very
diflFerent
systems of
2)ronounce the consonants
Towel-points and accents were attempts to stereotype
was
by the
and
flexibility
the punctuated text were to
if
much what
the mechanical
enunciation of Arabic by a European scholar
it
a
For, as Jias been said, jf Samuel were to rise
understood at the present day.
of sound.
Since
as
time of the introduction of the punctuation, the language
had
the language as
means
hearing modern
to be gained from ancient sources shows that,
greater variety.
1.
LXX
and Jerome.
again from the grave he would be able to
like the
a
less
Transliterations of Punic are also found especially in
been written by him
edition
language,
tlie
was more of a spoken and
may be found
literation of proper
also wrote
Hence arose an Eastern and Western
They are
divergences.
in earlier times
to believe the colophon of a St. Peters-
burg MS. which claims
Recension.
Ben
like
it
Information as to the pronunciation of the language
Ben Naphtali belonged
He
when
of a dead language.
ben David ben
to Tiberias.
could not but be that considerable changes had
taken place, in the way of degeneration in
first
one universally accepted recension any more
than one
universal system of vocalization. Another
authority
equal to
109
it
had been handed down by
not, however, until the
is
to that of
who can
an educated
Arab.
tradition.
2.
end of the seventh
The Consonants.
As
in
Arabic,
the
Hebrew
punctuation makes use of a dot to distinguish between
i
110
CHAPTER
X.
THE PALESIINIAN SYSTEM.
two possible phonetic values of the same
is
the case with the letters
n and
», but
the
n B 3
T
j
dot placed over the
or right to distinguish between
V
of erroneous pointing are Eccl.
This
sign.
3 and the
letters
is
to the left
a time there'
(titf):
sounds s and sh
properly speaking, the only diacritical
point employed in punctuated Hebrew, in the
sense in which
one speaks of diacritical points in
Aiabic.
tlie
Vf
others.
It is difficult to
was denoted by the
of the English
s.
letter
know what
Mt,
The Arabic
sound of the Hebrew
but
When
D.
it
it
sibboleth
and
it is
for, 'there
a time'
set
be
'and
IBîl,
the
tliat
nearly certain that the
German
pears to bear so
fane Jjw, and
and
two Arabic letters
to
Greek
n must
ch.
also
have had
how one
distinct senses, as
to break through ^yi.
double value of
the latter
x,
root ap-
^^n=to pro-
to be pierced Jji.: Din to devote
to be stiU c^J^-
6
by the
many
represent each
also
J?,
n answers
these two values and this explains
desired to distin-
shibboleth this is effected
for 1«»31 should
£, the former resembling the
the Scotch and
Eastern
guish between the sounds s and sh as
in Jud. 12,
between
and
was probably that
is
and quite certain
n,
quality of sound
sin has the strong
where
however was not the only Hebrew character which
two phonetic values,
not heard of any earlier than the
is
>litfy\
bore two distinct sounds:
There is
no evidence, however, that the use of
this point is, as
in Arabic, any older than the rest.
It was unknown
Jerome and
26,
3, 17,
we must read 'He has
they shall forget.'
is,
to
Ezek. 39,
(DB^),
Ill
V\T] to plough
:
^^
vi^, and
There would be no doubt as to the
tlie
D but
for the fact that the versions
I
contrast, not of
and
which could not have been
represented in the unpointed text, but by that
of tv
and
fc>
it,
especially the
D.
There
no such doubt about
is
y.
This answers to
the Arabic
examples are :—Jer. 5, 7, where MSS. vary between yafNI,
'and I satisfied them,' which is the better supported
represent the former by a breathing, that
reading, and JfMi<\ 'and I laid them under an
oath,'
Gomorrah
which
is
perhaps preferable: Jer.
making' and
Ôfc^D, 'well-skilled,'
c
and ^, the fonner a peculiarly Semitic
sound, the latter gh or the Continental
but
the latter by
:
y.
r.
The
is,
On
Examples
I
For the p
cf.
it,
the other hand nDJ/=A/x;8/Jt>
50, 9 h'OVfli 'orphan-
others.
LXX
omit
ruy=roCa=Gaza, moy=ro/io/)po—
10V=7o/io/).
1
and
Greek
versions.
It is not often that a various reading
depends on
the placing of the diacritical point of this
letter,
j
were unable to transliterate
Vf,
Alhambra=î-»^l and commonly.
CHAPTER
112
~- Orari
:
lilMj;
X.
= Oftas = Uzziah
in^yt?^
:
= Ho-aiaj =
n B
Isaiah.
n
between b 3 and Ih 3 and so
used in Syriac.
point
is
D 3 T
that
3,
The same
on.
In Ginsburg's text
regularly
3
point
tlie
d. e.
is
placed in one of the letters
doubles the hard sound.
it
double the soft
to
If
it
be de-
sound the letter must be
TWXh livvoth. A peculiar feature of
Hebrew is that the gutturals and resh arc not
doubled whilst in Arabic any letter whatever may bo
pointed
is
This
doubled.
Perhaps
&c.
3
3
written twice,
is
absence of the
marked by Saphe, 3
3 1
sired
Further a point was used to distinguish between
the hard and soft sounds of
When
point.
113
is
perhaps owing to the punctuation
having been applied so
owing to this double pronunciation that two verses
commencing with fi are found in Pss. 25 and 34.' The
late.
Tliere
is
no reason why
it is
TiXX
or
transliterates 3
by
<c
or
x.
B
l»y
In Baer's edition of the text any
0.
'^
or
</>.
n by
these letters should not be doubled, and tliey are so
in
t
letter following
dageshed or 'hardened,' without
its jjeing
also employs d. f. in the case of a
word as
onV ^3K^
meant that the
the
is
name 136W
done, however,
LXX
lo-o-oxap
to
43, 26:
always in the case of
and such a form as ISSn
Ezra
8, 18: cf.
Lev. 23,
this also.
17,
may
mark
K as a consonant; but there
the
1N'3^1
equal the Arabic hamzah and merely
16, 4
^W fl'U:
is
Job
Jer. 39, 12:
no doubt
39, 9 (Baer).
In Arabic as in other languages n before b
Dine
4.
these twelve Bounds which the
:
J
this are Is. 35,
1
the converse Ezek. 33, 26 nsyin
The
Biblical
Gen.
thougli in these cases
the point
nounced m. Traces of
Arabic teshdU, but Syriac has no corresponding
Yet p is tbe only one of
Arabs cannot make.
1
but Gi nsburg condemns
about Ezek.
this seems clearly
is perhaps a double writing of the S:
intended in 2 Chr. 5, i3. Dagesh Porte answers exactly
to the
;
being doubled even in the present text:
express the doubling of a consonant. It never seems
consonant
to have been customary to write a doubled
This
word beginning with
There are a few remnant cases o7~gutturals or T
Dagesh Forte. The same point was employed
twice.
as ]"in=A/)/>ai':
the lengthening of the
the same letter with which the last ended, as Gn. 31, 64
point should actually be inserted.
3.
J13"lV=-"PP"/8(ii/,
preceding vowel for compensation being dropped. Baer
a guttural with simple shevd receives this point (Ps.
as due
61, 4 noHD). Ginsbur g cond emns t his practice
to misunderstanding the rule describing the
LXX,
the transliterations of the
moy— Fo/iop/io:
Vowels.
Hebrew
Vowel
is
pro-
DWiyv Nu. 3,49
\n''Vfy.
letters are freely
used in post-
to represent even short vowels.
A case
CHAPTER
114
of this in the
X.
Old Testament may be Ps.
B, i
The shevd would often have no audible sound, as
when the following letter was a liquid. Even in Arabic
ni!?^m for
gutturalêre
niVni— D^^^l?n. Cf. Is. 33, i. Before a
must be an a sound, otherwise the guttural cannot be
final
pronounced or can only be pronounced with
eveiTby "an'Arab.
Hence
the jjaWia/t
insertedbefore the final n,
the short vowels are
jtvdr.
difficulty,
furtive which
before y
these p would perhaps
they point
it
may have been
their time its true sound
as
it is in
guttural
i
many
with metheg,
But by
lost in
dialects of modern Arabic.
and u became
e
and
o.
i
have been in Hebrew. The
l<rpar,X, pTW l<r<iaK but W'OT
have read
said to
pt<
(22, 29)
erets arets:
In Syriac y before
LXX
^KIE^'V,
may
lisrael
Wi^biyom
as
Fs. 51,
it
2, it
^K"1B'''3,
heyisrad
sounds a as M133 bai/ho
resembles the guttural's sound
Elsewhere
|>1«
cf. Is.
)f^».
it is e.
differed in quality
24,
in certain
Ben Naplitali is
for Ben Asher's
we say
lose half its force if
19.
erets,
This would be avoided by giving
long a the same thin sound which
transliterate h»'W\
Itpt^'W-
BenAsher
from the non-pausal, but only quantitatively. Jeremiah's
the sound exactly.
it
e. g.
i
The pausal vowels can hardly have
Hebrew,
Before a
So
thus jatvdr sounds
sounds e as
i it
as 1KB, tno'odh.
This rule reproduces
has the sound of K.
sounds
before a guttural
the guttural character of p, for
as a guttural in certain cases.
it
before y with
any long vowel except a. To
language.
have been added in an earlier stage of the
The punctuators saw
often lost:
Neither had shevd a uniform sound:
notes the following modifications;
is
and n when preceded by
J?
115
positions where
it
has in Arabic
it
actually
is
the long of
$eghol.
Summary. Thus while the punctuation has the
5.
appearance of being a merely mechanical classification
leijisrael.
The
shortest vowel sounds
hatephs and shevd.
The
though an exception
is
of vowel sounds, which might be applied to any language,
are represented by the
last is not used with gutturals,
,
Ginsburg condemns
this also.
applied in the Old Testament to the
BO hard
had one
and
fast as it seems.
fixed value
tlie
Aramaic
system
is
not
For, (1) no vowel point
but each was modified by the
adjacent consonants as in the Arabic kelb and qalb:
instead
e. g. ^V^T}.
is
portions as well as to the Hebrew,
Dôny Gen. 2,25: Some of the
instead of kamets
oldest MSS. employ hateph qamets
hateph pathah
hatuph, as in Baer's text. Baer places
identical
of simple shevd under the first of two
consonants,
and
1
(9)
the punctuators pointed certain letters, especially
HI
CHAPTER
116
THE PALESTINIAN SYSTEM,
X.
the gutturals differently from others and
through their own rules
come
in order to
(3)
broke
closer to the
actual sound of the language as known to them.
whereas in Arabic there are only
six vowels,
Still
have
Hebrew
made an attempt
the punctuators
to express
As
there were
its
word
The former
is
the prologue
tlie
rest of Job.
In the Psalms the
as in English
conform
intro-
on the
and
titles,
text,
wliich
nected.
words as n^D are joined
be explained by the fact
first
to
what precedes. This
is
to
for
The
accents,
But
the
sense,
verse in wliich
the cantillation of the
in the Psalms.
practically done in
modern
accents
of the
for us
lies
in their
Music must to some extent
and hence the accents answer to
of the
closely con-
cases
Massoretes was regarding the
frequently
as
less
in doubtful
a verse.
On
tlie
other
show a complete disregard
when they
join
the titles
to
the
begiimings of the Psalms or n^D to the end of the
place musical notes or combinations of notes, and
titles
is
connection of the words in
that the accents are in the
were designed with a view to
books in the synagogue where the
towards the beginning of the
and as
were regarded as being
hand the accents
and
reading or
in ordinary
language the accent would
Thus they frequently show
similarly such
it,
need not be supposed that
showing what words were combined together,
what the opinion
as if forming a part of
it
living
to the sense,
whether forming a verse by themselves or only a part
of a verse, are joined on to the beginning of the
Psalm
is
our punctuation and form a sort of running commentary
ductory of each speaker: the latter, to Psalms, Proverbs and
In the
But the value
applied to the
and epilogue, and the verse
But
last.
interpunctional power.
prose books and also to portio ns of the book of Job,
as
tone syllable of the
spoken Arabic.
recitation in public,
invented two accentual systems, a prose
system and a poetical.
it is tlie
was the place of the tone
this
naturally be retracted
a further aid towards the correct
enunciation of the language and
sung or recited in public, and the tone
in speaking.
every possible sound by an appropriate sign.
~6. The Accents.
But here again
as
on the second
5
be modified according to their consonants, in
to
syllable.
word
regularly on the last syllable of the word, or, at least,
three
long and three short, and two diphthongs and these
117
7.
were included
i)
Biculiar
it
occurs.
Pointings.
The Massoretes
did
not
always point the text in the most obvious manner, but
their musical values have
been lost
allowed themselves to be influenced by subjective con-
second place, mark
the tone
siderations.
in the
The
best example of
tliis
is
the plirase
118
CHAPTER
which would naturally be read
'36 nK"l
face
In Ex.
of.'
shall see
Me
trine of the
God
X.
however,
33, 20,
and
and
live;'
it
is
Old Testament that the
ceptional passage
is
Ex. 24,
10.
th e verb
e.
i.
42, 3 D^n^K 'iB nN"3K1 where
to read ntJ"l»V
niKi*?
as
nwjV
'n
'iD
'T\
ODTIK Tliar^S.
It
mean
plirase
he
is
shall
'before'
&c.'
this
16
'3D
what errors there
n»y,
""iDTK
t\''i'i\
riK
The
'Who knoweth
point
is
as
it
They received what
to
them by oral tradition and
are, date
from before their time.
:
Is. 59, 3 1^t<33 ni^jJial
7, 6
1^T.-=1"^T ^r
or pual and frequently.
is
it
THE SIA&SOKAH.
1.
Definition
of the
"IDD,
it
Nu.
31, 5
(16),
and means what
^
is
more properly written
its
beginnings
is
signifying
in
in the
derived from the root
'to
handed down,
ditional text of Scripture.
had
The woid ^lassorah
Term.
Mishnah, Massoreth (nilDD)
goeth
untranslatable
stands because '3^^ has been pointed '3D^:
XI.
an-
the spirit of
&c. for 'whether
18
cf.
were, however, not themselves re-
CHAPTER
Other examples of pointings due to dogmatic pre-
upward,' rhyi} for nbyij: Jer. 34,
bo
29.
(rrjIDD or n"]lDD) or, as it is
a man which goeth upward'
pointed singular,
it is
a choice of readings as Ps.
'and
nNn31,
was regarded.
3, 21,
Thus
there
In several places the pointing seems intended to
offer
other proof of the reverence with wluch the consonantal
suppositions are Eccl.
49,
though even here perhaps w6
Bhould read, 'and we shall see &c.'
text
and
erroneous.
his peoples'
is
VDj; is plural, so that 'DJ? shoidd
peoples,' but
had been handed down
iii
in the
it
and the whold
well as îth,
1, 22, 'n
'my
sponsible for their punctuation.
reading
12
not the correct one.
is
found in 1 S.
appear
1,
8
'Ask
nhHtlf, 'ask it in Sheol.'
was gathered to
The punctuators
not certain however whether
is
as
Gen. 26,
woidd have been simpler
31, 11, Is.
'he
no doubt that
plural too,
appear beforeT'erg. Ps.
niNnn^: so Dt. 16,
e.
i.
the Massoretic reading
does
it
Dt
in
e. g.
is
DNiVk ot
is
But the Massoretes always do
phrase even,
this
in the phrase
Accordingly, when the
of,'
Is. 7, 11
'make deep, ask' nb^V, pausal form of em-
Frequently, no doubt the pointing
an ex-
Is. 6, 5:
lit.
phatic imperative, should be
pointed as a Niphal and
is
'iS(nK) taken='before',
depth'
residt of seeing
genitive to the plirase 'to see the face
its equivalent,
should read 'before the calf:
thfl
'No mart
an established doc*
death: Gn. 32, 3i: Jud. 13, 22:
is
'to see
said
is
it
119
hand down,'
tradere,
in this case the tra-
The Massorah
as a whole
very early times. R.
Aqiba
(-j-
120
CHAPTEE
135) called
c.
THE JUSSOHAH.
XI.
a 'hedge about the Law' (Aboth III,
it
The
13: rr^rh a;p IVJIDO).!
textual
occupied on the codex with reference to the
MasBorah has been
M. parva
described as 'a mass of grammatical, lexicographical
and concordantial
concerning the
notices'
or Buxtorf's Concordance and noting the
number
ally expressed
of
by a
.K
text.
number
are placed in the side margin of
These notes were afterwards collected
and
and
classified,
them appended
of
lists
in the top
and bottom margins, above and below the text
one of them occuned:
but
very
rarely
attempts
to
of
the columns.
nymous
expressions;
The
and detached remaiks gener-
single letter, giving the
occurrences, which
It
Fiirst's
consists of brief
times a particular expression occurs. It mentions syno-
this
the
is
in
which
Those
M. magna.
which were too long for insertion on the page
distinguish between the different senses in which any
lists
given expression
is
does in the case of the
were either prefixed at the beginning or added at the
word
occui-s only in Ps. 22, 17
and
end of MSS., generally at the end, whence they are
'^l5^
which
The Massorah on
used, as
it
Is. 38, is.
the latter passage remarks that '^K3
used in different senses in the two passages. It has
is
been compared
Testament,
if
some of
in
made
its
parts to Alford's
there, instead of chapter
and
Greek
verse, a few
It has to be borne in
much
not one but many.
As
mind
tliat
tlie
Massorah
is
there was an Eastern and a
Western recension of the
text, so there
notes in the course of his work and these were
and a Western Massorah.
And
as every standard codex
details
from the other, so the
cited.
varied in some
of the labours of g eneratio ns of scholars.
lists
of occurrences
upon
it
Otherwise
the work could never have been accomplished, as
it
upon other
or concordance.
is
In the Massorah are distinguished the M. parva, the
magna and
the
M.
finalis,
according to the place
is
for niDKD.
of particular
codices.
Hence
frequently in conflict with
the
was an Eastern
expressions based
lists
or rubrics based
Massorah as a whole
itself.
The whole
Massorah magna or parva on any passage
is
of the
never
found in any one MS. but some in one and some in
another.
nioD Ezek. 20, 37
sliglit
would vary from other
was accomplished, without the aid of grammar, lexicon
>
It is pretty
finalis.
distinction without a difference.
preserved so that the Massorah represents the result
JU.
M.
called (inaccurately) the
A
Each copyist or teacher
words of the context were
r
text.
one would get by turning up
gives the result
121
To
collate all
obtain
tlie
known MSS.
whole of
it it is
necessary to
CUAPTKB
122
One
2. Tlie Qris and Sevirs.
the Massorah
is its
the only part of
it
all
TEE MASSOBAII.
of the
wluch
is
Eastern text reading, and the versions frequently agree
all
with them as against the Western text, pointing to
2.
Those
The whole
haps just because the )n^3D represent various readings,
its
qri
is
Kthihh in the
text,
a
authority,
extent the qris
found in the
mere corrections of the
Many
text,
of
was supposed to be cormpt.
two;
class of qris wliich profess
to
is
who looked
later redactors
Tliey were unofficial qris not
and so disregarded.
And
they
»*7
for 'b
said
to
(Baer has
np
is
mention only
vb)
and
12, 5
49, 13
above.
end. Jacob ben
it is
In fact Baer never gives the T2D
margin of the text but only
Cliaiyim,
Bomberg's
two hundred, and Ginsburg
where
and
a certain
more.
fifty
But
lias
in the notes at the
editor,
knew about
collected a
hundred
much
the whole subject has been
neglected.
The majority
of the
qris
are
undoubtedly mere
but which
emendations of the text answering to the errata and
reason to believe are genuine various readings.
corrigenda of a modern printed book, only with the
pc
disadvantage of not having been placed there by the
These are the
is in
text,
qris called )''T3D, plural of the pass,
of 130 to opine,
TSD
tlie
fixed.
official lists,
1 S. 2, 16
in the
be nothing more than
such conjectural emendations of the
there
is
which most versions read. Per-
11DKM for ê«'^, which Baer omits altogether, as also
tliQ
them are no doubt
There
"IJ?
Halm's Text, Lcipsic 1893,
Gn.
generally wrong,
is
have met the same fate at the hands of modern Editors.
based upon MS;
and so represent true various readings,
impossible to determine.
it
are
TSD
upon the text as
any book were
or nibrics according to
the
they were neglected by
root or particle or letter in question.
To what
13
given
qris occurring in
lists
Gn. 49,
Each
1.
of the qris were collected from the whole
text and arranged in
in
the
\ilVi h))
collected together and added at the end of the book.
3.
Thus
their being true various readings.
placed over the word in the text to draw attention to
the margin.
represents
itself
(which has no name) being
asterisk
T3D
that the
said to be
is
In the Massorah
the qris.
the margin opposite to
small circle or
culiarity
This
All printed texts are sup-
the qris are found in three forms.
in
of
found as a whole in
is
123
main features
presei-vation of ^the qris.
printed texts and codices.
posed to show
XI.
tliink.
What
another designated a
one MS. denotes as a
author.
np and
O^CIT,
vice versa, so
that the terms seem to be interchangeable.
One
pe-
note
jL.
in
Such are the four
'OlOfO''
qri perpetua,
nin\
Kin,
which have no corresponding maiginal
present
texts.
Frequently the Kthibh
re-
\
124
CHAPTER XU
THR MASSOBAH.
presents an archaic form which the Massoretes did not
such as ^31^D Jud.
recognise,
(rightly pointed)
pausal forms.
correct as
:
Jud.
9, 8.
9, lo
qn
are
qris
which a word
in
letter,
Is. 32, ii
These are not exclusively
Sometimes the
Amos
(Baer):
texts
ately.
until very recently, later editors having copied
2, 7,
There,
is
JO
texts have
The
such qri:
it in
the
turn.
down
handed down
to
in
older than the Massoretes,
criticism,
when
on,
subjective
in
end of each book separ-
is
written plmxe because this was the
found Gen. 49,
is
s:
in
In most
it.
— 61.
'Be strong'
The note
is
ending with ill-omened words.
3.
Other Birts of the Massorah.
alongside of the qris attention
is
diawn
nw\
"woy
nn,
The Law was
In the margin
to the
manner
>
1
19.
a note of the
Called
is,
the
Christian
of course, an in-
was begun by Athias
introduced by the word ptn,
by a repetition of the
faithfully following one.
v.
(2 S. 10, 12).
the supposed correct reading to the margin.
and
It
Tlie last verses of Is., Mai., Lam.,
Massoretes were not collating many MSS. but sted-
is
texts
are given also but this
•
sidered to be the wrong reading in the text and relegate
fastly
Cf.
fulfill-
of sections, open and shut, verses, qris and so
contained
in 1659
For the
DVan,
Dt. 31, 28 and elsewhere.
novation of Christian printers.
the text
it is
"13^1.
the conclusion of each book
chapters
but the regular course was to leave what was con-
1, 21
direction for the arrangement of the text on the
At
and doctrinal considerations were taken account of
in altering the reading of the text, and MSS. varying
from the received text were sparingly taken advantage
Sometimes copyists inserted the qri
technical
has no mate because leviathan has none: Gen.
number
They show
ages.
:
The
Occasional attempts were made to explain the
"Ct^^l
page
who
black and white what had been
them from previous
in Baer's text at the
:
ing of the creation; otherwise
codices and earliest printed
an early stage of textual
of.
'
A
much
way or whether
prolonged in pause or not.
form, sometimes rather far-fetched, as Gen.
TVtf.
qris are
only put
all
9, 5.
is
terms are pointed and translated at the end of printed
induhitably
Venice Bible of 1521, the word for 'sheep' 1 S. 17, 84,
iTtr, was misprinted n?.
Instead of correcting the text
a qri nv was put in the margin and remained there
nyptfi as
as with a redundant vowel-
or defectively, or in any peculiar
the vowel
In the
8, s nptrj,
is written,
125
D<p-ib.
ni,-'p,
last
and Eccl. are followed
but one, from a dislike to
The
sign
is
ppn^
i.
e.
nVnp.
usually copied by professional scribes.
CTo boe
p. laej
CHAPTER Xn.
126
and readers,
the other books by ordinary teachers
whose object was to copy as much as possible
given time and so earn more.
among
those for
were very
whom Gehenna
in
a
They are mentioned
is
prepared, but some
it
faitliful scribes.
CHAPTER Xn.
MANtJSCHIPTS
1.
Manuscripts.
of the O. T.
is
The
AND PHINTED TEXTS.
oldest dated
MS.
of any part
the St. Petersburg Codex of the Pro-
phets, of 916,
and
oldest of any,
though Ginsburg believes a Brit. Mus.
MS.
it
is
generally believed to be the
of the Pentateuch (Orient. 4445) to be "at least
half a century earlier."
The
latter cojisists of 186 folios,
55 of which, however, have been added by a later
hand, and are dated 1540
a. d.
Each page contains
The lines
three columns generally of 21 lines each.
are unequal as the dilatable letters (DdSim) had not
yet
come
into use.
added by a
later
The Massorah magna has been
band
in the upper
generally two lines at the top and
and lower margins,
foui*
at the foot of
the page, and the Massorah parva by the same hand,
in the side margins
and between the columns.
PAGE OF HEBREW MS.
The
punctuation and accentuation are on the Palestinian
A PAQI or HEBREW Ma OF ABOUT TBI BEaiMRIHa Of TBI
(BBITISB MUSEUM, OB. 4445.)
Gxodui
xix.
24—H.
17,
with the
10th OINTDRT, A.Dl
Maworah MiRnn and
Parva.
MANUSritlPTS AND PRINTED TEXTS.
127
System, whereas those of the St. Petersburg Codex are
on the Babylonian. It shows a few variations from the
textus receptus, viz.;
—
In the division of
(1)
sections,
departs
it
tlie
from
space and the word t^lD
at the end.
(2)
Originally
marking the
later
hand
last
put in the margin opposite.
n projecting a
1
there
was no verse-division beyond
of each verse with silluq, but a
is
joined to the top bar as in
distinguished
little to
in length.
the
The
by the crossbar of the
The
left.
final
nun
^
]
approaches
is,
The Beghadhkephath
letters
tlie
on the other
hand, short and hardly distinguishable from a
(4)
in
of the consonants are peculiarly formed.
They are
form of
WTIO are indicated
word
limb of the n
left
the n.
116
in
inserted soph pasuq.
lias
Some
(3)
The
is
triennial pericopes or 154
list
text
coincide witli those
Tlicy are separated by a vacant
of the received text.
a
received
tlie
The annual pericopes
instances.
The
text into open and closed
when without
».
dagesh,
and n when without mapink, are generally marked
witli
raphe.
(B)
Qamets
its primitive
(6)
Metheg
is
a horizontal bar with a dot below
form.
is
very rarely and irregularly used, being
omitted even before vocal sheva.
[To f«oa
128
p.
13B1
CHAPTER Xn.
The
St.
about 225
Petersburg Codex of 916
Hebrew MS.
:
Jer., Ezek.,
Is.,
;
consisting of
a. d.,
each of two columns of 21
folios,
the oldest dated
prophets
ft
lines, is
It contains the
and the XII.
latter
generally
It
has two lines of the Massora magna in the bottom
margin and the Massora parva between the columns.
It has
the
same peculiar n
ceding; but
verses.
that
it
^
has already the
it
But the
and
sojih
final
]
as the pre-
pasuq between the
distinguishing feature of this
MS.
L
is
exhibits the superlinear or Babylonian system
of punctuation.
In the
the books varies:
even
lists
Is.
at the end, the order of
Jer.
and Ezek. having no
fixed sequence.
Most MSS. contain
or the Hagiographa.
the Old Testament
is,
only the
The
Law
oldest
or the Prophets
MS.
like the last,
of the whole of
one of the Eirko-
witzsch collection, and belongs to the year 1010
But Wickes
A. D.
disputes the date.
The MSS.
of the Massoretic Text contain various
readings like any other MSS., though the
M.
T. itself
can scarcely be said to have various readings. Instances
of variations which are
not mere scribal errors and
wliich affect the consonants are such as
3 for a as in
Is.
2, 6
e. g.
the prep.
n^'3 '(they make agreements)
with or like the children (of strangers)': Ps. 102,
4
'My
days are consumed in smoke or like smoke': Jer. 18,4
-WW
••
»4>»fw«r«<riij''"»™'yyjLi A yiyy**'*'
THE
ST.
PETERSBURG CODEX.
MANUSCRIPTS AND PRINTED TEXTS.
'in clay'
and
129
but practically they are con-
'as clay':
fined to the pointing.
But
the majority of various readings are mere scribal
arising from homoeoteleuton.
errors, chiefly omissions,
Thus, one
Ex. 8
Gn.
MS.
omits nine words in Gn. 19,
10 and
omits vv.
11,
20,
and
in
another omits ten words in
31, 52 (from 'this heap' to 'this heap'),
other omissions and insertions.
In
has twenty-two variations from the
1
with
many
Chr. 11 one
MT.
MS.
including four
omissions from homopoteleuton, another has seventeen,
another
and another twenty-eight. The number
tliirteen
of omissions from homoaoteleuton
that there are such in the
MT.
makes
probable
it
Errors due to
itself.
mistaking one letter for another of similar form are
more frequent
in
Hebrew MSS. than
in
Latin or
Greek.
Printed Editions.
2.
The
earliest
editions
of the
printed text were, naturally, the work of Jewish hands.
The
I.
first
portion of the
Old Testament
to
be
printed was the Psalter wliich appeared in the year
1477, at what place
in
Hebrew with
is
unknown.
The
text is printed
the commentary of Kimchi in Rabbinic.
Text and commentary alternate generally at every
verse.
The
The end
first
of a verse
is
marked by soph pasuq.
few Psalms are vowelled; but the
difficulty
seems to have been too great, and the pointing
I
is dis-
CHAPTER XU.
130
MANUSCIUPTS AND PllINXED TEXTS.
continued, Yowel-letters being used instead, as in later
Hebrew.
even
The
verses
repeated.
text displays
being
omitted,
The Massoretic
many
errors,
and
letters
British
Museum.
IL In 1482
It
and words
the
is in
the
was twice re-issued 1478—80.
first edition
of the Pentateuch was
printed with points at Bologna, and possibly the Five
by the Targum of Onkelos and the commentary of
Bashi.
III.
In 1485-6 the
first
(unpointed) edition of the
Lombardy, with the commentaries
of Raslii
and Kimchi.
IV. In 1486-7 the Hagiograplia was printed (with
vowel points but not accents), with commentaries, at
Naples.
and
In nos.
HE
and
IV
mn"'
and
WT\ht< are spelled
D-lVw.
V. The second edition of the Pentateuch, printed at
Faro
having been the text used
There was no further
that date.
i
those published
all
up
to
issue of a text for six-
teen years, owing to the distress resulting from the
persecution of the Jews, and their expulsion from Spain
in 1492.
The fourth
edition of the whole of the
Testament was printed at Pesaro
The
that
is
first
Christian
contained
edition
the
in
Old
in 1511-17.
of
Hebrew Text
the
Complutensian
Polyglot,
published under the inspiration of Cardinal Ximenes
Prophets, former and later, was pi'inted at Soncino in
rrffV
These Six Editions were
The former was accompanied
Bolls at the same time.
last is interesting as
by Luther.
qris are mostly read in the
Copies of this Psalter are rare: one
text.
The
words and
131
in Portugal in 1487,
out a commentary:
it
is tlie first
text printed with-
has vowels but no accents.
with points and accents but no commentary, was finished
The whole
text
was
printed a second time at Naples 1491-3; and a third
time in the Brescia Bible of 1494.
the idea from Origen, printed at the
University founded by him at Alcala,
esse
Complutum;
Martyr.
sit vel ne, nil
'quae dicitur
mihi curae,' says Peter
In the Old Testament the Hebrew Text
accompanied by the
LXX, Vulgate
is
or Jerome, in three
columns on one page, the Hebrew and (jreek being
placed on either side of the Vulgate, 'duos hinc et
inde latrones,
sive
medium autem Jesum, hoc
Latinam ecclesiam
collocantes.'
Onkelos
is
Romanam
est,
Ximenes allowed
the pre-eminent value of the Hebrew.
VI. The Editio Princeps of the whole Old Testament,
at Soncino, 14th February 1488.
who adopted
The Targum
of
also inserted.
Before commencing this great undertaking, Ximenes
had
to cast all
his
own
types.
Hence the
defective
character of the pointing, which seems to have been
always running short of
hateplis, so that these
had
I'
to
be
I
CHAPTEE xn.
1 32
The accentuation is conMaqqeph is not used
represented by short vowels.
fined to athnah, with soph pasuq.
nor are the dilatable
up with
short lines being filled
letters,
Mthuppach
yods.
used
is
letters so as to guide readers to the
and there
word
is
on
Latin equivalent.
its
lettered
words are placed
As
mark
to
servile
root Every Hebrew
a corresponding letter
is
a further aid the roots of
The
in the margin.
yet numbered, but otherwise the text
verses were not
is
divided and
arranged after the model of the Vulgate; thus for the
first
time discarding the Massoretic sections in favour
of the
Christian
some idea of the immense
menes had
is given,
The
chapters.
following
di£Bculties with
will
give
which Xi-
to contend: only the irregular putictuation
j
nay*
ni?' >ni'
This labour
ntro*
of fifteen years
"ps'
was
"leêis
minrip
'?^^<>
finished on 10th July
1517: Ximenes died on 8th November of the same
year, at the age of 81.
The value
severance
is
of this
monument
present a new text and,
lain in the pointing,
LXX
there
of
practically nothing.
is
human
if it liad, its
which here
is
skill
and per-
The Hebrew
most
did not
value would have
defective.
In the
no doubt that at least a few liturgical
passages were forced into conformity with the Vulgate.
To
fao« p. 133]
MANUSCEIPTS AND FEINTED TEXTS.
n c-ori?
.•5-n
tao
^ -1
3'>p^
*'-c-
o'isa-
SI-*
^'
Nor do
<n<^cp>
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KOI
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KX
,tln»)
on
>3n
p>nD) on^)
P13I)
tx
ont)
vc-7*
in
r'X
O-X^
tni
00>11 •D»J
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'I"
oft
ocx
p
ecoo^Cll
'-viftt
PT
.
l^fl
T30
(Jwijiî
D»J'3K~I2
"•'•'"
It
<»'(m3 01CD3VC
vie*
B'-^^BBTO
3t:i3»
5 WBrtn
P^
7
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eô0r9i
Jft
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ji__.^
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VO
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oy
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p'»pj n»3ia
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OTlJ^ •»pi Of
nito
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pcya pi?
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b;
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f>a<
T
ifpi
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snrj
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p-»0 IJPB ftJl>>. I^DIC
or o'lij 3»Mbi
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m
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inêo
eevp)
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13«T
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nar?)-
o-TTR
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r*** •''TfiVtna i^nV
rfjy
pa '.''v,
l«.
:pp
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=^f 'n?'»««y3F-5»T»J"?nPDimin-|trroîn|?3
••^ws
V»x* Brn>Bl
|l
'1^
^'w
goc6
'>5'»
i»cni
pit
-J'Do «
1-)*
("TO -PPS
TOCO'J
iKxo
The
fA
OP?
Dii
fl:.
Bomberg
>
niT'-w
°^ 7.
and
'>'" ">i V«"j
o«i vn-tc til
J";; -Kl-;
B»3
~r">iB3
'BccB pa
jm
p'lrntB
-I.
Vn.
Ip
-.1,
•
'
ni
jc*
^
Mb
P> tni to rti
«
«ft«e «»,.««
.?rt
-w .VI
onl ^1
„.f
r^
„„.„ ^,
r»
'i
3i?»» nil) -B
criip
of
division
Ezra and Neheniiah,
Hebrew
is
first
p'j6 or" p-'jh
Text, and for the
marlced
first
time
IC»
Dirti
B<rx
Before this only the points were inserted in the text,
r)B|
Thus
to find
the consonants for liim-
in Is. 44, i4 Lutlier,
who used
the Brescia
i«e
?Dn)n3 tp« too
Bible, naturally did not observe the small
W
wMMliiav")
>«•,
vipB ?pp)n
no pf |f nn -.
*""
L7.^r, ".^T^*?,*^** "
two
n,-.B„,
\
and translating accordingly.
U,
consonants,
Tn mivo
taking
],
Tlie
0-x«
.9*
31
•"
l»X-B
It"*'
KPtBrMl.!)...).
•!
^*" >»'
pel*
*' '*
tn ptW
""
1ISI.1
'""^
ift
"'U»
mW?
!«XBII
lUTPl i«3 ,lirt» XP) I (|.),'i%IIP I1«1TC»
» p« p >!>•» e'puu |"W 00 pp -vipi
not the sense.
Felix Pratensis), nor to
na Rvf (Ml C1I3 o;<>fui plBvi Bta on}) iK
xB ô- P«i)n WB «»BM 0'*^^ uin i)lij t'**
('"s* Iftx- ore IBB IBB u< XI) Bv mj .itnM on>n p>)M ftu hfti
>o«» ijB o-xs
I)
OTPBS n-"
ir- h"c) ^» bi«b at eipn
''
pi i", .npi
'""
if
edition
it
of
This Bible however ap-
pealed neither to Jews (being edited by a
*!
V*.'*'"'^'"''
'•"^'''^
•J.
„^ j^ „„,„ ^,
i'P
Br
ixf>
«. »?,7«.
to
I-
pvx
n-nw3
P'-i
-.•!.'
Tlie
1516-17 also gives many various readings affecting the
n«p
P r>
into
and the reader had
•xs
1516-17.
in
the consonants of the qris are given in the margin.
for a
.-3.
Ezra
of
here in a purely
-'^'if'-
wn'fnp
•ft ;j>)
l»«
Venice
at
f
«» T^
i-Mii
the text with all
Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, each into two books,
.)
self.
-»•
is,
the commentaries of the lâbhis was printed by Daniel
U7-I
"•»
Rabbinic Bible, that
inSy
'•
»
first
the points, the Massorahs, Targums, Midrashim and
^:^cl) ixi
°;.? ISf,,^
"*»
of
paper.
o:"l»
»imfr.i
p ,xii
,-n,
made
rockets, which would indicate that they were
|ti.ii
nil
O'tt CJS xft
m»
Biot» K'»
'
pnnBI T.B0i t<t
•*" <'« o'i>«i«
i'ti>
>'*
Btii
B-n. BT-*
these texts were based
year 1749 they were sold to a person who manufactured
•,
*""
T*
>«t
n-;3-i
OriJ
-np!;
rirrt
?1i)»
-v^pyi
15
,^
0^>n
<fice>
«> -ocf U1C p" o?l
O* M' p^3 P?l
•i:
MSS. on which
the
to have been of any great antiquity; for in tlie
se^m
>ia ii<j
«XC'J »T» (01
rftTirio 03 ixt'X c-^
:')•!
•It* 3tTO
lYOB
;-rt)i cp i>nB 00
o-ppj
r
0*3
Q"3CIB>
TC' CUI
»i;
«;
o4"di'
o>«e
pi
*>" ' "ir*"!
it
'•
an 0-wnt^
^wn
1
-i
o.-oh
1P9J3 rp:u
O'pprp
•'X*0?
-
,
r
tan yac
im*l
O'liau
:
•»
VO
o'-njj)
flj.
,.t— .!<",
CV3
'
*:
371'
'i
n p sew cue oh
eio'V|iiDP)B.i-.i
"T> |3'
s^?
|ij
-om
133
'B'l
i«*c|
IBB
tlie
Chiistiaus,
Cliristiaii,
who could not
j>Jsp
fr)>
read the Babbinic commentaries.
.
What
""" "•» •"" ^«'- •'» 6""' .««. .in »x-i Tn» oMn a. P«
P11Ji)lllP^.n^MflB WB> Mvnl »
.-tn olc pnvi .ti^na omIbI v^
is
called the 'editio princeps' of the Rabbinic
'•'"• '"
» vom
"'*' "'*•' ^*«'
-^
'•« p^" ^"^ ="-
OKI hip 7u B«i anBi «oa tv pn^
RABBINIC BIBLE
""^
•«'>•
bib sijo oipB
(Jud.
6,
""
0>?
'3>
no
12-16).
=•='
luj
3û^
-w% ^» «.
-.
pn ** tuj r» m-o
I
Bible with Massorah
the
first
is
Bomberg's second
edited by Jacob ben Chaiyiui, a
edition,
Jew
and
of Tunis,
134
CHAPTEB Xn.
This forms the standard edition of the Masso-
1524-5.
Another edition printed by Bomberg was published
1525-8. It followed partly Felix Pratensis and partly
retic Text.
This edition departs from ancient rule> and distin-
open
guishes
letters
B and
and closed sections by inserting the
and closing the line in both cases.
time, but in the Massoretic
first
J. b.
It
was much used by the Reformers,
said to have notes in the hand-
is
writing of Luthei-.
each, for
summary
Chaiyim.
and Ginsburg's copy
D,
Samuel and Kings are treated as two books
the
135
MANUSCIilPTS AND FEINTED TEXTS.
The
given
Biblia Sacra of Arias Montanus
polyglot.
The Hebrew
5(57-71
1
is
a
accompanied by Aramaic
is
at the ends of the books they are each treated as one.
and Greek with
In the
beautifully printed in large clear type, widely spaced,
arrangement of the page the Hebrew and
Aramaic form the two central columns, with the Massorah
magna above and below and
the
tween, wliilst all around
two commentaries.
lists
lie
with the dilatable
Massorah parva be-
the
time in the text,
at the side margin.
end of Chronicles.
tlie
first
and the numbers
letters,
chapters are indicated by
The
long for insertion on the page are given at
too
Ijatin translations of all three.
Hebrew
tlie
verses being
and D
of
of the
letters inserted for
The Massoretic
rigidly observed nor the C
It is
numbered
sections are not
Jacob ben Chaiyim
which may not be departed from without good authority.
Every page begins and ends with the beginning
or end of a sentence. There are no qris or other notes
Ginsburg notes the following points
on the page.
This
is
the only authorised Massoretic recension,
:
of the qris given in the margin are
with
(2)
p,
it
thus distinguishing
first
Massoralu
readings
Jacob
b.
first
marked
Buxtorf's Rabbinic Bible appeared 1618-19.
them from various readings
takes account of the Y"VX;
shows various
consonants
(1) the
now
used.
from
MSS.
Chaiyim was able
(3)
outside
it
The Paris Polyglot by Le Jay was published
also
London
to collect only
may have good
authority
1-
for departing from his readings.
1
See
p.
96 note.
appeared 1654-57 the
known as Brian Walton's.
He was an English clergyman who was deprived of
his benefices in 1641, having made himself obnoxious
of the
a comparatively small part of the existing Massorah,
so that subsequent editors
last there
In emulation of the
1629-44.
Polyglot, generally
to the Puritan party.
however
well to
Tlie
work owes
to the generosity of the
whom
it
was
its
existence
government of Crom-
originally dedicated,
though this
136
CHAPTEB XU.
MANU8CEIPT8 AJfD PRINTED TEXTS.
137
dedication was on, the Restoration, torn out and one
in the margin.
to Charles 11 substituted.
Vulgate and have been variously ascribed to Lanfranc,
was the second work
Tliis
published by subscription in England,
£ 10.
It
is
in six
volumes
and
folio,
is
tlie
price being
The Aramaic paraphrases are
has,
archbishop of Canterbury,
notable as giving
the Ethiopic and Persian Versions for the
-j-
LXX,
so far as they go.
tlie
Summary
at
1744.
Van
The Mantua
edition inserted the
all
number
the books:
placed the numbers of
But
of
until
by
1517 there were no breaks in
printed texts other than the Massoretic sections.
was
in
the polyglot Bibles, in which the
It
Greek and
Latin Versions were printed alongside of the Hebrew,
that these were
chapters.
Polyglot.
first
discarded in favour of the Christian
This was
first
The numbers
done in the Complutensian
of the chapters were
still,
how-
:
Ilie Chapters.
is
He
A. d.
reference for the
in it is
The Editions which make the widest use of the Massorah are those of Baer and Ginsburg. The former
wants Ex. Deut. Baer unfortunately died in 1897.
Text
to facilitate
so inscribed on ancient codices by their owners or
later scribes.
Norzi (1626).
3.
majority of cases
have made use of
the chapters in the margin, and they were sometimes
embodied the Massoretic commentary of Solomon de
—
tlie
to
R. Solomon ben Israel about
purposes of controversy.
the end of
der Hooght, often re-edited.
chapters in the summaries to
is
His motive was
1330.
Hebrew
Massoretic sections coincide
tlie
Jew known
first
the latter division
books, but only iu the case of the Law.
1705.
The
they do.
edition of Atliias 1661 first inserted the Christian
chapters in the Massoretic
Hugo de Sancto
Tliere should, however,
with the Christian chapters, as in
the page.
The
in the thirteenth century.
page, except where
Targum, Samaritan and Arabic,
There are no Massoretic notes on
Syriac,
tlie
1089: Stephen Langton,
properly be no such breaks as these on the
It
besides the Vulgate, Latin translations of the
Hebrew,
f
1228; and, with most probability, to
Caro
first time.
also veiy complete.
These chapters had their origin in
confined to the margin.
ever,
In
modem
editions the
Hebrew
and
divided into chapters which correspond very
nearly to those found in the English Version, each
chapter being divided into verses which are numbered
insert the
numbers
into the
The
first to
break np
body of the text seems
to have been Arias Moiitamis in his edition with inter-
1
linear
Latin
edition of the
translation,
Hebrew
Antwerp
1571.
The
first
text by itself in which the text
138
MANUSCHIPTS AND PRINTED TEXTS.
CHAPTER XU.
up was that of 1673-4 (printed
•was thus brolên
like
139
Instead of the simple ptn found at the end of in-
some
editions give a
more extended
the last by Plantin) and the practice was adopted
dividual books,
even by Jewish Editors.
formula at the close of the whole Bible and elsewhere,
Modern
editions
mark the
verse-numbers in the margin in Arabic numerals, except the fives which
letters n,
and so
^
are indicated by the
on, only 15 is
of the
Hebrew
denoted by IB
stead of n^ because the latter are the
first
such as;
two
p»v »h ppinon pmnai ptn
in-
letters
The two
letters following, kindly
fessor Robertson, give
name mn\
supplied by Pro-
some of the interpretations put
upon these words:
One example of the coloa book may serve for all. That to
4. Clausulae Massoreticae.
phon at the end
of
Van
the Psalms in the edition of
by Judah d'Allemand
der Hooght published
1822 runs as follows:
in
Friday, 29th Nov. 1872.
Dear Dr.
pm
ontryi
ni«D
y^von
liD'Di
vom
My
d^b^k
n'-^nn
"ibot
^piou
dc?
ot^y nye^n vitdi
'D.TBa
iniriBî
rsm
of Psalms
is
2527; and
400 + 10+70 + 6
300 + 20
and
The number
+ 700 +
= 2527];
its sidars,
+ 2=19].
and
of the verses of the
Book
sign is Ps. 26, 8 [1 + 2 +
+ 10 + 400 + 500 + 100 + 6 +
its
2
its
middle [verse] Ps.
78, 36;
19; and their sign Ps. 103, 5 [2 + 9 + 6
Whether
it is
yourself, but he gives
At
strong!"
Jew
gives a simple enough
explanation of the formula at the end of the Hebrew
Bible.
"Be
Biggs,
— be
is the
it
you must judge for
with great confidence.
a book of
the
Law
aistom for the Hazzan
to
in
say
person who has just read (any members of the
synagogue
ptnnil
it
the end of the reading of
the synagogue,
to the
correct or not
may
he called to read if they are able),
strong '=weU
plPl
ptn,
done.
"be
strengthen ourselves."
ptn
The congregation responds
strong,
be
strong
and we
shall
CHAPTEE XH.
140
At
•
the
end of the whole Bible the formula
panded by
the
the addition of the
meaning of which
'and the printer
(lit.
my
to the
Jhlmudic
is
words you pointed
Rahbi says
is
exout,
simply this:
engraver) will receive no damage;'
pjV being thus Hoph. of pl3,
name
MANTJSCEIPT8
which gives
the verb
its
mater lectionis
treatise rp^>3, the
being used to indicate the want of the qibbuts, as so often
in
Hebrew —
late
Does
it
satisfy
as a passive;
but interprets
text of the Scripture.
He
it
to
mean the revised
regards ptV as fut. Hoph.
of pp^ and cor\fidintly says that the whole phrase "simply
states that the editor has thoroughly revised the
Hebrew
text so that it would not allow of any more corrections."
This he wrote after seeing what you kindly wrote me,
and
I
after hearing of
Dr. Eppstein^s interpretation.
feel better satisfied with
than with either of the
you?
141
AND PEINTED TEXTS.
your Rabbi's interpretation
others.
Buxtorf gives
to ppints
in Rabbinic, the meaning printer.
yours very sincerely
I remain
Jas. Robertson.
My
dear Sir
Most truly yours
II.
Ellas Riggs.
Constantinople, April 2, 1873.
Rev.
J(V8.
Robertson.
My
Dear Brother,
It is curious
what a variety
of interpretations can be put upon the words at
of
the
Hebrew
Bible.
Dr. Eppstein of Smyrna read
a
passive
and
the close
interpreted
instructed in the law.
it
the
word ppinon as
as meaning the person
Respecting ptV he was in
doubt.
Mr. Reichhardt of Alexandria
also
regards ppirron
1
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS.
(The references are
to the pages,
of the
and the order of the books
Hebrew
5
1
pages 36. 65
21
125
65
125
52
114
103
95
95
52
4
7,19
12
25
4
6
7
9
12 18
14 2
16 5
18 5
9
21
37 2,
43 26
45 14,
12
•
15
47 28
48 7
48 8
10
13(4«»)
19,20
29
56
80
57
38
76
43
96
16
1-19
17
4
2
8
42
81 52
65
S8
80
119
65
43
90
54
65
129
82
88
86
86
118
58
86
31
88 20
aa
2
7
55
26
8
27 46
11
80 28
32
31
4
2
27
59
113
58
96
39
125
75
123
44
119
Exodns
20
24
....
4 2
e 28
57, 58
22
18 33, 85
i
,.
that
GeueBis
GeneBis
1
is
Bible).
21
72
83
75
22 27
23 19
24 7
27
80
82
65
10
10
6
15
7,
26
22
118
23
83
49
65
118
65
65
4,
25
34
97
4
14
s^
INDEX OF SCHXPTUBE TEXTS.
144
Deuteronomy
LevitioiiB
1
1
6
2
8
7
63
65
92
92
32, 86
86
65
lO 16
a
14
21
80
42
18 33
SO 10
88 17
24 11
26 30
39
65
61
118
65
125
97
65
78
52, 93
85
27
28
81 11
27
28
65,66,92
65
83
lis
90
86
1
29 22
88
1—43
4,6
83
10
13
18
2
43
Nnmbera
55, 59
49
113
55,56,60
63,64
76
9
10
10 35,36
11 15
US 12
78
65
65
4,37
60
26
65
67
86
32
65
18 30
14 17
21 14
80
84 22,84
25
11
86
12
8
35
87
88
29
81
5
13
15
2
....
61
81
80
119
65
5,16
24
Deuteronomy
4
65
14 13
16 16
18 13
32, 86
118
85
29
6
87 4
88 30
91
e 13
9 4
84,92
85
10 13
37
97
92
31
32, 52
83
83
12
e— 24
18 26
21
32
36, 37 (a. V.)
22 34
24
•
.
.
.
83
27
Judges
Ch. 6
6 14
6 32
8 14
8,
20
8
6
.
•.
22
25
30
18
13
8
1
20
.
91
81 19
.
86
43
Oh.88
22 7
•
10 25
12
18
1
14 50, 51
16 11
17 34
20
•
.
.
2
24 9
26 22
28 24
81
3
16
Oh.
2—4
8
4
7
6
2
16
4
3,4
7
12, 14
6
8
3
17
11
18
14
21
18 14
18 33
87
16 21
16 12
Samnel
48
H8
3
86
17
3
28
18 20
12
Ch.28
23 8
18,19
29
35
24
1
6
6
18
17 15
21 10
1
1
6
6
125
69
8
7
18
10
91
85
.
.
91
77
86
69
85
83
31
53
37
78
86
52
53
12 16
6
74
75
Kings
6
2
8
7 41
8 48
74
92
&
ch.
2 Kings
8
11
1
14 6
18 6
17 24
18 20
26
91
91
27
91
19 31,37
84
83
20
91
22
8
25
91
86
69
86
84
85
27, 29
53
25
28
6
,
1
13
22
83
75
91
10 12
18
23
.
82
37,82
73
87
74
43
74
18
6
22
2 Samnel
1
11 (*w)
6
123
87
84
59
124
86
48
43
75
92, 98
82
5
74
91
I
1
77
97
5
124
75
92
110
118
43
66
68
10
27
10
12
13
16
18
19
8 13
6 11
8 2
9 1
•
63
78
83
97
86
32
32
31
83
87
32
32
75
69
19 20
86, 128
74
35(i*»)
9
2 Samnel
Samnel
8 16
40
Joshna
8 39
145
INDEX OP SOEIPTUEE TEXTS.
6—8
85
20
9
19
72
K
1
146
INDEX OF BCREPTUBE TEXTS.
laaiah
1 12
2 6
8 8
6
7
8
e
15
23
5
11
1
8
12
21
2
6
IB and le
18 2
81 11
24
26
80
16
19
23
14
8
33
82
83
84
8B
86
88
11
21
4
1
5
11
13
21,22
40
41
44
31
1
9
14
24
49
5
62
68
66
8
69
68
66
7
9
10
3
9
24
Jeremiali
94,118
128
93
43
21
118
119
21(6i»),24,25
2
78
68
73
110
92
92
68
11
8 19
24
6
7
25
6
7
11
2
21
4
37
29
26
26
20
113
120
51
113
1
15
2
12
Ill
9 12
20
82
83
80
41
14
2
86
16 10
82
17
18
1
21
12
S
48
8 18
21
4
1,3
43, 50
8
22
39
87
115
103
103
22
62
124
92
41
lis
53
25
120
85
83
83
63
66, 133
43
86
5,
6
7
128
86
82
115
47
22 14
29
23 33
26 26
11
68
86
91
86
118
27
37
27
1
81 38
40
84
18
86 11
86 18
61
91
16
12
13
18
91,113
86
43
9
no
29
1
91
11
3
91
89
78
96
41
11
9
8
8
17
.
•
22
43
78
Zeohariali
11
11
1
13
78
23
48
Halachi
78
65
125
3 22
24
2
94
73
52
79
94
48
6,52
73
52
92
44
12 12
51
4
6
7
11
6
5
8 12
10
16
10 14
11
Joel
43
1 12
PaalmB
45
114
I
6
1
7
6
2 13
6 12
8 8;
9 12
.
.
79
•
119
9 and 10
10 10
....
124
51
Hicaii
1
8
15
2
83
52,92
12
98
16
18
3
10
7
11,12
22 17
26 and 84
27 5
66
48
3
12
Habakkak
1 12
8
1
31
7
36
36
87
40
78
49
61,64
32
.
.
7
7
.
.
•
67
85
80
12
8,9
14—18
42 and 43
42 3
48
44
46
60
5
5
2
61
2
68
66
•
.
13
3
6,7,12
Nahnm
1
12,45
43
72
48
93
86
32
120
12, 112
•
14
81
9, 5
68
5 .
.
Amoa
Ezekiel
2
96
Hosea
8
49
83
65
119
86
125
91
21
44
Oh.48
60
87
63
22
23
88
89
63
43
42 9
48 13
46 22
48 16
84
75
29
9
Haggai
9
16
43
45
84
66
9
147
INDEX OF 80IUPTUBB TEXTS.
7
82
72
45
118
44
44
48
21
72
116
72
148
68
43
112
16
4
8
26
97
80
72
32
84
44
53
66
6S
65
45,97
86
70
71
3
78
2
4
16
14
80
16
84
00
4
100
108
106
3
2,
11
4
7
20
47, 48
107 23—28, 40
108
110
3
HI
118
114 and lie
lie
lie
183
4
180
139
140
142
148
144
148
147
3
16
13
4
4
128
44
79
98, 99
64
72
85
12
12
45
45
12
43
100
86
53
79
79
72
12
19
7
10 19
26
28
80
86
85
86
2
17
15
66
66
12
81 10—30
74
5: 2, 5, 9
5
66
79
66
96
86
66
20
9 34
10
18
16
10
22
15
14
24
28 12
27
31
32
88
88
.
84
84
.
1
62
79
66
43, 50
12
43
3
9
66
113
43, 60
86
13, 15
9
41
4
6
1
of
65
1
1
65
3
66
6,12,17
91
S 20
10 10
67
83
11
16
19
le 13
83
18
67
28
67
66
8
9
9
6,
7,
12
6
48
66
79
66
43
66
126
12:
8 20
4
36
3
14
22
12
13
8
9
Ch.
e
6
13
53
til
i'>r,
7«,
125
31
86
32,52
83
S2
83
79
7 20
Esther
«)
2S,
29
9
9
Oh.
U
2
2
2
4
2
C9
32
86
2«
43
113
7
12
8
18
2
13
7
11
7
8
21
17
3
8
5
42
8
22
18
U
31
13,
14
7
16
35,
«G
17 10
11,13
20
69
83
75
69
21
5
1
12
24
15
12
32
3
4
!I3
4
1 1,
^3,
...
18
50
.-.0
IH
.
**
75
19 18
2 Chronicles
fiit
15
83
86
32
74
"8
11
27
Nehemi&h
Ch. 7
*i
83
73
30, 37
<>>, <'<•
Ezra
Ch.
4
20
Daniel
e 20
-3
74
3!)
116
»:
33
34
.35—44
fir.
....
.
.
!tO
6-10
11
1—4
1
H
:
i
12
18 28
Rnth
8
1
Ill
118
8 2U—38
10
Songs
Lamentations
1
12
8
Song
45
Proverbs
6
7
17
21
8
20, 21
18
11
30
40
3
16
Job
1
7
1 Chronicles.
Ecclesiastes
ProTerbs
PaalipB
06
ei
60
149
INDEX OF SCRIPTURE TEXTS
INDEX OF 8CEIPTUBE TEXTS.
5
13
:tl
9
25
31
10
l(i
29
(ir,
22
31
74
H(l
43
-^1
112
69
78
86
78
69
87
86
18
12 16
21 20
1 Chronicles
85
Hi
32
34
6
10
3U
C
27
:
22, 2
.
.
!'
•
J3
72
APPENDIX
RECENT FINDS IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE
PERriAFa the most interesting discovery of recent years has
been that of a papyrus with a pre-Masoretic text of the Ten
Commandments and the Shenm', a full account of which,
together with facsimile, text and translation, will be found in
the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archeeology for
January iy03> by Mr. Stanley A. Cook, and another, by Mr.
F. C. Burkitt, in the Jewish Qiuxrterlij Review for April of the
'
'
game year.
Mr. Cook ascribes the papyrus, chiefly on the
ground of the presence of final letters in it, to the beginning of
the second century.
In his opinion, the writing is an early
form of the Hebrew in the transitional stage from the ancestral
Aramaic to the settled " square character " of the Kefr Bir'im
Mr. Burkitt, on the twofold
and Palmyra inscriptions.'
ground that the text of the fragment is in agreement with that
of the LXX, and that the script which comes nearest to it is a
Kabataean inscription of the year 65 a.d., assigns the fragment
to about the same date
the middle of the first century.
Another find of equal interest was that of a seal bearing
the inscription in old Hebrew characters To Shama' servant
of Jeroboam." Photographs of it will be found in a Note to
the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund
for 1904, page 287 S, by S. A. Cook, as well as in the Mittheilungen und Nachrichten des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins for
A
1904, page 1 ff, in an article by Professor E. Kautzsch.
remarkable coincidence in connection with this seal is that a
'
—
'
'
'
'
<
'
EECENT FINDS IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE
154
similar seal was already known * bearing the inscription, To
Shama' servant of the king,' thus making it practically certain
that the two seals belong to the time of one of the Israelite
'
They
kings of that name.
of
are, therefore, the oldest
specimens
Hebrew known.
Two more
boundary stones, similar to those mentioned on
have been found at Gezer {P.E.F. 1899), as well as two
Assyrian tablets of the middle of the seventh century B.C.
{P.E.F. 1904, p. 229 1905, p. 206).
In the spring of 1902 Dr. Sellin, of Vienna, began excavating
the mound of Ta'annek, the site of the ancient Taanach, on
behalf of the Austrian Government, and was fortunate in
discovering four cuneiform tablets similar to that found at Tell
el Hesy (p. 3), only two of which were in good preservation
p
18,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
:
Ben/.inger, J.,
:
Vienna, 1904). Although he had finished the examination
tell in 1903 and the huts for the workmen had been
removed. Dr. Sellin could not rest satisfied that nothing had
He therefore returned to Taanach in the
been overlooked.
summer of 1904 and caused the soil excavated to be carefully
He was rewarded by the discovery of several more
sifted.
tablets.
' barracks
had been removed to Tell el Mutewhere Dr. Schumacher had commenced operations on
behalf of the German Government in the spring of 1903, and
Tell el Mutesellim is
continued till the autumn of 1905.
Dr. Sellin's
'
Khan
tion of the
The
LejjQn (Megiddo).
ground revealed the
the inscription
'
Einleitung in die heilige Schrift,' Budapest, 1894.
Studien zum althebriiischen Buchwesen,' Pt. I., Strassburg,
1902.
'
Buhl,
'Canon and Text' (Eng. Trans, by J. Macpherson),
Edinburgh, 1892.
F.,
BUTIN, RoMAlN, 'The Ten Nequdoth of the Torah,' Baltimore,
1906.
BuxTORt", Johannes
(father), 'Tiberias sive
Commentarius
Masorethicus,' Basel, 1620.
'
sellim,
close to
lRil4.
I'Kcritnre dans I'Aiitiquit^,'
Paris, 1892.
:
50
Hebraiache Archiiologie,' Leipzig,
Blau, Ludwio, 'MasoretischeUntersuchungen,' Strassburg, 1 89 1
(}r.N.D.P.V., 1903, p. 3 P.E.F., 1904, p. 388 ff. : 'Denkschrif ten
der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaf ten in Wien,' Band
of the
'
Berger, PniMPrE, 'Histoire de
seal
but a few feet deeper, was found a
On
fine seal
the
Punctorum
Origine,'
Cappeli.us, Ludovicus, 'Arcanum Punctationis Revelatum,'
Leyden, 1624.
CIJWOLSON, D. A.,
spot,
with an old Hebrew
legend, ^D^*'» Vincent,
same
(son), 'Tractatus de
&c., Basel, 1648.
preliminary examina-
mentioned above, bearing
DJ'^T 12y yOVO.
BnxTORP, Johannes
'
Corpus Inscriptionum Hebraicarnm,'
St.
Petersburg, 1882.
Drivhr,
S.
R.,
'Notes on the
Hebrew Text of Samuel,'
Oxford, 1890.
Revue Dihlique, 1903, p. 605.
EoERsnEiM, Alfred, History of the Jewish Nation,' London,
'
1896.
156
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Etheridoe,
J.
W., 'Jerusalem and Tiberias' (post-Biblical
Hebrew Literature!, London, 1856.
Frankel, Zaciiarias, Ueber palastinische und alexandrinische
Strack,
•
Geioer, Abraham, 'Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der
J.,
'
.
.
Hebrew
Bible,'
The Note-Line
in the
'
The Tell-El-Amarna
York,
'The Psalms
1883.
von
Tell-el-Amarna,'
Letters,' Berlin,
London
'
Bibliotheca Kabbinica,' Leipzig, 1880.
Br.ACK,
'
Encyclopedia
'
Biblica,'
London,
Imperial Bible Dictionary,' London, 18GG
Testament,' Scriptures,'
'
Collections'
triennial cycle], Cambridge, 1898.
Hamburg and
189'J-
1903.
Fairoairn,
Three
New
encyclop.*:dias
CnEYNE AND
in
iind
IS'JC.
Woi.F, CiiRiSTOriioRUs, Bibliothcca Uebraea,'
Leipzig, 1715-33.
F. G., ''Our Bible and the Ancient
Manuscripts'
G.,
Vetus Testa-
Berlin, 1896.
Hebrew Scriptures,' Edin-
London, 1898.
Kino, E.
in
Leipzig, 1873.
WlNCKLKR, Hugo, 'Die Thontafeln
WUnsche, Aug.,
burgh, 1903.
Kenyon,
Prolegomena Critica
'
.
London, 1897.
The Massorah,' London, 1880-85.
Kennedy,
'
'Einleitung in den Talmud,' Leipzig, 1894.
Bibel,
Breslau, 1857.
GiNfiBURO, C. D., 'Introduction to the
'
L.,
Taylor, Isaac, 'The Alphabet,' London,
M.A., The Massoretic Notes contained in the
edition of the Hebrew Scriptures, published by the
British and Foreign Bible Society,' London, 1905.
S.,
Hermann
mentum Hebraicum,'
'
Schriftforschung," Breslau,- 1854.
Geden, a.
157
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[on the
'
('
Old
Writing,' by D. H. Weir).
Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible,' Edin., 18118-1904 ('Text
of the Old Testament,' by H. L. Strack).
'
KoNio, Edward, Einleitungin das alte Testament,
'Bonn, 1893.
LoiSY, A., Histoire critique du Texte et des
Versions de la
'
HERiÔO,
'
Realencyclopiidie
fiir
protestantisclie
Theologie,'
'
Leipzig, 1896
«f.
Bible,' Paris, 1892-95.
'Jewish Encyclopaedia,'
NowACK,
W., 'Lehrbuch der hebraischeii
Freiburg and Leipzig, 1894.
De
Archaologie,'
Vigoureux,
'
RouGJi, Emanuel, 'M^moire sur I'origine
^gyptienne de
'
'
others), Edinburgh, 1890.
Schwab, Moise, 'Jerusalem Talmud' (French Trans
1871
)
Paris
London, 1901-6.
ff.
HEBREW TEXTS
I'alphabet ph^nicien,' Paris, 1874.
SchOrer, Emil, 'Geschichtedes judischen Volkes
imZeitalter
Jesu Christi' (Eng. Trans by John Macpherson
and
New York and
Dictionnaire de la Bible,' Paris, 1891
'
Dikduke ha-Te'amim of Ahron ben Asher,' edited by Baer
and Strack, Leipzig, 1879.
MasBoreth ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita,' with Englixh translation and notes by C. D. Uinsburg, London, lH('i7.
Midrash hag-Oadol
:
-ttO.
bridge. 1902.
Genesis,' edited
by
S, Scliecliter,
Cam-
158
'
Das Buch
Oclila Weochla,' edited
On
by Frensdorff, Hanoyer,
January
Papyrus, by S. A. Cook,
Decalogue
the
1864.
'Alisbnah,'
with
Latin
translation
by
.
Guil.
Surenhusiua,
HeSw Illuminated MSS. of
Xth
Amsterdam, 1698-1703.
by Jacob Schlossberg, Vienna, 1862.
edited by M. Friedmann (first part), Vienna,
'
Sifra,' edited
•
Sifre,'
PERIODICALS
Good Words,
'
The Moabite
1870, p. 673,
Alphabets and
,
I
p.
33
Stone,"
by D. H.
On
;
'
The
Triennial Cycle,'
v.,
p. 420,
and
by Blau, January 1904.
Studien,'
On the Decalogue Papyrus, by
'
Fund :
Inscription at
Kefr Eenna, by Clermont-
(ianneau, October, 1901.
the Siloam Inscription, 1881, p. 198.
Excavations at Taanoch and Megiddo, 1904,
the
388
;
;
1903,
1,
p.
1905, p. 78
Proceedings of the Sociely if Biblical A rchaology :
E. J. Pilcher on the Date of the Siloam Inscription,
xix., p.
165
;
The
Introduction of
MSS., and an Account
table of
of the O.T., with a
and 1905, No;
at
14.
3.3,
XX., p. 213.
the Siloam Inscription,
by Ad. Neubauer.
3.
Schuand by Ben-
Tell el Muteselhm, by
and 1906, No. 3
;
:
by Socm, xxu.,
p. 01.
nwrgenliindischen Gesdlschaft:
Zcitschrifl der dtutschen
by P.
Geschichte der hebriiiachen Accente,
'Zur
1901, p. 167.
F. C. Burkitt, April 1903.
Journal of Theological Stutlirn, v., p. 203, The Influence of the
Triennial Cycle upon the Psalter,' by E. G. King.
On
On
'
Palastina-Vereiiis
Zeilschrift des deutschen
On
'E. a. King, on the Influence of the Triennial Cycle upon
the Psalter,' by I. Abrahams, April 1904.
Hebrew Mosaic
p. 1,
zinger, 1904, p. 65.
1.
Palestine Exploralion
MSS.
Facsimiles,'
the Excavations
macher, 1904,
'Neue Masoretische
iii.,
dcs .hulschen
Mitlheilungen und Nachrichten
P"';f.'"'«"-j;;'-;f J
Sellm, 1902, Id, 1/,
On the Excavations at Taanach, by
Weir.
Jewinh Quarterly lievicin
Dr. A. Buchler on
vi.,
EcchûMca,
the Square
of the Earliest
Stone.'
'The Moabite
et
Characters in Biblical
'Babylonian Talmud,' edited (with German translation) by
Lazarus Goldschmidt, Berlin, 1896-1906.
xxxi., p. 454,
Lowy.
1864.
Studia Biblica
p. 226.
Apocryphal Character of the
'
Soferim,' edited by Joel Miiller, Vienna, 1878.
Academy,
and
the Bible of the IXth
by M. Gaster, xxn.,
Centuries,'
The
Scoilish Rerin.,, ix.. p. 215.
Moabite Stone,' by Albert
>,
•ft
'
159
BIBLIOQRAPUV
BIBLIOOBAPHY
Kahle,
INDEX
Aaron ben
Asher, 103,
104<
Araq
al
Ameer
inscription, 18
Athbath, 11
108,114,115
Auspicious endingdesiderated,
Abbreviations, 67
125
Abul Aswad, 106
Accents, 116, 117, 130
(•
Acrostics, 12
Baal, Lebanon
Aden
Babylon,
inscriptions, lU
Alexander the Great, 15, 21)
Alphabet, 1, 2, 11
Amorite remains, 3, 4, 154
Antiochus Epiphanes, 36, 37
Aqiba Rabbi, 55, 119
Aquila,
13, 109, 115,
117
script, 20, 34, 50, 51, 100,
Ben Asher,
see
Aaron
Naphtali, 108, 114
33
Aramaic language,
Bene Hezir, 18
Bomberg, 133, 135
Books lost, 37, 38
suppressed, 36-38
110-113, 116
Buxtorfs, the, 101, 102
6,
3,
25, 44,
Cappei-lus, 101, 102
93
script, 14-17, 19, 20,27, 28,
30, 31, 46,
inscriptions,
2,
14
Carpentras inscription, 15
153
Chapters, 132, 135
43
Ciphers, numerical, 69
Assyrian, 17, 20, 26, 154
Assyrians,
Babylonian codices, 53
cuneiform, 2, 20
Bar Cochba, 20
Sira, 31
3(5
Arabic language,
Arabs,
inscription, 7
17, 19, 26, 34, 36,
ff.
Clausula Massoretica, 125
Clement of Alexandria, 25
95
Coins, 24, 33, 42, 51, 67
Complutensian, 131 f.
Gezer inscriptions,
Greek accents, 105
Coptic TorahB, 84
Cufic,
alphabet,
Cuneiform, 2,
Cutheans, 27
3, 8,
15, 154
I
of letters,
Guttural
70,
100,
Demotic, 25
Dilatable letters, 126, 135
119, 128, 130
51
Egyptian, Aramaic, 15, 16, 31
Elamitic Torahs, 34
Eleazar ben Hyrcanus, 47
new
3,
Ligatures, 16, 18,
48, 49, 153
2, 25,
8,
26
Hexapla, the, 35
Hezekiah's aqueduct, 9
Hieratic, 25
Hieroglyphic, 25
Hiram, 7
Palmyrene,
Interpreters, 93
93
Ezra, 23, 26-28, 33, 47, 48, 55
Felix Pkatenbis, 133
Final letters, 11, 16, 18, 19, 42,
47-50, 153
Jacob ben Chaiyim,
Maccabees, 20
Parallel passages, 31-33
Manuscripts, 38-40, 57, 81, 107,
125 ff.
Peshitto,
Josephus, 22, 28, 29
Jubilees, Book of, 70
Persiii,
1.5,
30
'M\
Massorah, 118-126, 133, 134
Mater hctiouh, 50
Mathiah ben Harash, 47
Median Torahs, 34
Meir, Rabbi, 38, 39
Philadelphus, 28, 30
Mesha, 8
Midrash Rabba, 55
Mishnah, 23, 55, 60,
Plautus, 109
Muhammed,
Philistines, 3
Phoenicia, 2, 3, 17
Phoenician script, 7-11, l.S-15,
20, 24, 42, 46
Pliny, 2
88, 89, 93
42, 50, 52, 69
123, 133
James, Tomb of St., 18
Jehuda,Eabbi, 23, 64,88
Jerome, 39, 41, 47, 102, 109,
110
'
Jewish,' 23, 30
Jose, Babbi, 26
97, 125
153
Papyri, 15,46, 153
Misprint in MT., 124
ff.
Exile, the, 17, 20, 24, 26, 28,
16, 43,
Lucan Pharsalia, 2
Moabite Stone, 8-10,
Ethiopic, 12, 13
Page, how arranged,
4a 50
15
Papyrus, 22, 25
17
script, 16, 20, 25-34,
Herodotus,
70, 106
4
Lion-weights,
34, 49, 154
f.
ben Jacob, 25
Eleazar of Modin, 23
Elias Levita, 101
EpiphaniuB, 24
Errors in Text, 31, 32,80
1l
letters, 13, 113, 114
old script, 11, 13, 20, 25-
Egypt, 2-4, 12, 15, 17, 21,22,
Orthography, anomalous, 117-
Othman, Khalif,
Lac'uish,
Hajjaj Al, 106
Hasda Rabbi, 27, 49
Hebrew language, 9,
DeinetriuB, librarian, 28
1
Origen, 35, 109, 131
106
Greeks, 21
Deetsion, 24
Oebenidb, 31
Order of books, 98-100, 128
19, 153
Ahmed, 106
versions, 31, 35
triennial, 95, 127
Editio princtptt 133
Birim,
Ehalil ibn
Kimchi, 129, 130
Koran, the, 33, 35,
11, 13, 14
inscriptions, 10
Cycles, annual, 95
29, 37,
2,
Eefr
154
18,
language, 33, 34
33
1G3
index
INDEX
162
Polyglot Bibles, 131-137
Porphyry, 25
16, 20,
Pre-Israelite civilisations, 3, 4
Psalms, alphabetic, 11
number
6
of,
titles, 116,
Names
of letters, 12
Nineveh, 8
Norzi,
Solomon de, 136
in MT., 69
Numbers
Puncta,
53,
45
117
extraordinaria
42,
ff.
XJri perpetiia, 123
Qris, 130, 133, 134
Odenathus, 16
Oral tradition, 88
ff.
Rabdinic Bible,
First,
133
164
INDEX
Ralbag, 68
Rashi, 57, 130
Syriac, 20, 27, 50, 106, 106, 114
Renan, 19
Tacitus, 2
Talmud, 27, 33, 34 etpauim
Targum Onkelos, 130
Romans,
21,
34
Samaritan Chronicle, 47
Pentateuch, 20, 29, 30, 42,
69, 61,
Tyre,
Samuel, &c., one book, 98, 133
Saqqarah stele, 15
Scribes, 70, 71, 75 ff, 87,
89 £f.
Sepher Jezirah, 104
tablets, 3, 4,
INDEX
fall of, 14
Various
M, 13
NnpO*? DM, 50
129, 134
nW«, 26
!?,
Vowel
Dn'?», 130
0,
60
letters,
ff,
10, 16, 19, 42,
113, 130
3, 15,
9,
10, 16,
20, 23, 25, 42, 51, 69
Simon ben Lachish, 66
Solomon ben Israel, 137
Stichoi, 96
Superlinear punctuation, 107
WniTiNa,
1,
direction of, 11, 14
Zenobia, 16
Zimridi, 4
131, 132
16, 17,
17, 19,
Thyo,
46
46
41,
42
ff,
r\V1=^bV^ 73
4-6
XlMlNES, Cardinal,
32
17,
46, 50,
128
Vespasian, 38, 39
127, 129
Sif re, 55, 56, 59
3, 12, 16, 17, 31, 32,
readings, 38, 39, 128,
points, 10, IG, 42, 101
Sheva, 115
Syria, 2, 17, 21
Amarna
21
Tendency readings, 118
70
28
Samaritans, 27-29
Bcript,
Siloam inscription,
Tell el
T
15, 17,
n,
13, 17, 127,
X
miDD,
32
jTiatnn,
mtasn,
P.
128
26, 27
127, 128
17, 18,
n, 10,
17, 18, 31, divided,
D,
14,31,49,110
inUD,
122
OmD, 96,
32
13, 17, 111,
127
Q-in, D'Diann, 21
f,
134
127
rV?D, 116, 117
y, 10,
13, 49,
HI
66
13,17
^ 10,13,18,31,
TTW,
suspended, 66
;
11p3, 64
66,67
t,
119
3, 13, final, 16, 18, 19, 32, 46,
96
12, 14,
43
ii4,=mn\67
miT not read, 90
mrP and Wrh)^ m
suspended,
~
qy, 20
onsiD "nqy,
130
;
'
80
3, 12, 17, 18, 19, 32, 46
Pss„ 72
KPOS, 94
»i
INDEX
16l>
nvr^S,
Vf-iS, 95,
X, 14, 17,
46
p, 14, 17, 114
^P,
-),
89
17,
32
127
Vn,
23, 24
110
Vf, 14,
niS'ttr,
A
17,
64
32
DnS)1D lipn, 75fE
J

History of the Hebrew Alphabet

Transcription

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