ing. And who can be sure whether is not another? So, on the contrary side WN for poor may be the ancient orthography preserved here. The suffix is found so often instead of that cannot think it a mistake in transcribing, but rather a part of the ancient language: which is confirmed by the constant use of it in the kindred languages. I see not why and may not b have been indifferently used. is found again 1 Chron. xx, 8. As signifies a young woman 21 times in the Pentateuch, and but once, Deut. xxii, 19, where also some MSS. have WI, I take the former to be the true reading, and apprehend it to signify in the Pentateuch a young person of either sex, as girl did in old English. In the other books it never signifies a female without the feminine termination. NT is female in near 200 places in the Pentateuch, and never in any other book: And NT is but about 11 times in the Pentateuch: therefore I conceive that the former is right throughout those 5 books; which is the only probable reason of its being found so often in them, and only in them as a feminine; still it might be pronounced differently when male and when female.

These differences between the Pentateuch and the other books prove that they are not of the same age, and since the Samaritan hath always and 7, I conclude it hath been altered by an injudicious critic; of which there seem to be several other marks. Tis as true a Hebrew root as and occurs several times; and is derived from it.

You might have added Ps. lix, 10, that DUN should be , for so Syriac translates it here and so it is v. 18.

Пlagayevóμevos is not a proper translation of NY", but agrees with 17p which the Syriac hath Gen. 1, 16. However, if both read 8 it seems not preferable to which Samaritan hath, for by verse 18 the conference was not personal, but his brethren went to him after sending the message.

I see no need of altering Genes. xiv, 10, into. The vulgate translation Rex Sodomorum et Gomorrhæ terga verterunt is tree Latin: but the Samaritan, Septuagint, and Syriac This therefore, if any, is the proper change.

מלד Tepeat

2 is collectively taken Genes. 1, 10, 11, as Is. ix, 9, 9, xx, 6, and elsewhere, and as is taken in Gen. but two verses before. There is no necessity of changing into "82, Exod. xxiii, But the Samarit., Septuag., Vulgate have the latter. The Syriac and Chaldee agree with the present text.

20.

may stand very well Gen. xvi, 15, because that particle sometimes receives suffixes in the form of a Plural. is in Is. xxxvii, as well as 2 Kings xix, and no one version hath 2 in either place; nor doth it. seem in any respect preferable.

I suspect Ton Ps. xvi, 10, to be an old form of the singular number. Mr. Comings in his answer to Mr. Kennicott hath cited like instances from Gen. xxvii, 29; Numbers xxiv, 9; Deuter. xxiii, 14, 15 N and N always assume in the singular number before a suffix. Nouns in regimine sometimes do it, as s and there are other footsteps of this ancient usage.

Most of the remarks which you have made in these sheets are already made in print. And I do not perceive the use of repeating them for the purpose which you have in view unbelievers will not say that the transcribers of the Hebrew Bible have made no mistakes; and we shall get no good by telling every body how many they have made; much less by laboring to prove them more than they are: when in the places to which infidels make objections we can make no other fair answer, than by alleging that the text hath suffered, it will be useful to show the probabi lity of a corruption. But furnishing them, especially in small pieces written in our own tongue, with more instances of corruption, though casual only, and still worse if designed ones, than we need, will only tempt them to say, and others to imagine, that almost every thing in the Old Testament-is uncertain. And it will contribute to this, if we say, what I think we have no ground, to say, that the Hebrew transcribers were less careful than others.

Schulten's Institutiones ad Fundamenta Linguæ Hebrææ 4to. L B. 1756. is an excellent book for explaining such forms of words as seem to be irregular and to want correction: though he scarce allows any to want correction and so carries the matter too far. January 13, 1757.

Dr. Gregory Sharpe, in a Dissertation printed a few years ago, hath made it probable that the Masoritick number of letters in the Old Testament is too small by above 350,000.

into שנה but ארבע must be changed into ארבעים Not only

שנים

The court seems to have resided at Jesreel. The principal persons of that place, who had the King's children under their care, might have fled with them to Samaria. This Le Clerc observes, and adds that, if any change be made, the least is from

.ישראל

to

Houbigant, though fond of emendations, makes none Numb. xxxv, 4, but translates v. 5, Ye shall measure on the outside of the city. For a line of 1000 cubits each way from the city would produce a suburb of 2000 cubits square.

Codex Alexandrinus hath Absalom 1 Kings ii, 28. You will do well to compute by the lowest talent. Genes. iv, 8 may be translated, "And Cain sold it, &c." as Exodus xix, 25.

Houbigant thinks there is something wanting, 1 Kings viii, 65, to be supplied, from 2 Chron. vii, 9, 10. You would do well to compare these texts.

The Vatican and Alexandrine copies are too much alike to be two versions. And one version cannot be made from 2 Hebrew copies. Things have been afterwards added in one Greek copy, or omitted in the other from various reasons.

The best way to attain this design would be only to show the mistakes of transcribers, in passages against which objections, otherwise unanswerable, have been made, not to produce without need, especially to every reader of pamphlets, yet more instances of mistakes than have been commonly imagined.

It should be shown, if it can, from what Hebrew words the translation σῶμα δὲ κατηρτίσω may be derived. For σώμα Grotius thought should be read axouσux, and Bos conjectures more probably aria, especially as a precedes.'

Omissions should not without some justifiable cause be imputed to unjustifiable causes.

The whole of this quotation is found in the same words or nearly the same in different parts of the Old Testament; and therefore St. Paul truly saith, it is written; and he doth not say it is written all in the same place: and different texts are joined without any marks of distinction in other parts of the New Testament and in Clem. Rom. and the succeeding fathers, and sometimes without strict accuracy in words. And therefore I rather conceive an addition to have been made from the Apostle to some copies of the Greek of the Psalms, and thence taken into the Latin version, than that so much is lost out of the Hebrew and other versions of Ps. xiv.

The Greek and Latin versions might easily have their addition to the end of Psalm xiii from Ps. vii, 17, or ix, 2.

Words originally written in the margin by design might be inserted into the text by negligence or mistake.

The book of Jasher might for aught we know be written before that of Joshua. And therefore the authority of the Greek against this quotation seems not greater than that of the Hebrew and all other versions for it.

Repetitions are common in Scripture. And the Greek translator or his transcriber might omit Joshua xiii, S3, to save trouble, as unnecessary, the substance of it having been already in v. 14. Probably Saul's age is dropt out of 1 Sam. xiii, 1. There

See a better conjecture in Doddridge, vi. p. 87. Note by Mr. Pilkington.

is a fragment of a Greek version which puts 30. The LXX. might omit it because they knew not what to make of it.

There are strange omissions in the Vatican copy in and about 1 Kings viii, xii, xiii. But it hath these very two verses against which you object, 2 Chron. vi, 1, 2. And in different senses God did and did not dwell in his temple. Probably Solomon had in his view Lev. xvi, 2.

In 1 Kings xxii, 46, 49 every verse tells us something which we are not told elsewhere. And v. 49 hath the appearance of disagreeing with 2 Chrou. xx, 35, &c. There is a marginal note to reconcile them. But N is never joined with 15 but always with N, except in two or three places where also a negative is implied.

ולא אבה for ולו אבה Houbig. would read

I have already said what occurred to me on this part. Only I would observe further on p. 50 in regard to the word ever wrote this, undoubtedly understood Hebrew.

that, who

Some transcriber of the Greek version might leave out what would at once shorten the story and free it from difficulties. Cler. supposes that 8 and Houb. that

התפאר be written for

should

The Chaldee as well as Vulg. understood the Hebrew word to mean the dung; and so UTD signifies. The Syriac probably read some word which he derived from the Syr. and Chaldee.

There is a remarkable similitude between the last part of v. 22, and the first part of v. 23; perhaps the one is a corruption of the other, or perhaps both corrupt. The Alexandrine copy hath only one. Nis only in Hiphil, and signifies to make void or break off, and, in the only two places where it occurs, may naturally signify a breach, i. e. of friendship; though in the first with good cause. All Hebrew idioms, which by long use are naturalised amongst us, and commonly understood, may as well be preserved now in a translation of the Bible, as if they had originally belonged to our language.

על פני

seems properly translated, before my face, just as by v. 10. The former phrase intimates that God would.. see and avenge their transgression in this point. They were not only forbidden to have Gods in preference or opposition, but in conjunction or subordination to Jehovah.

Soul hath acquired nearly the sanie latitude with D'UJUM DYY W may be the substance of the upper air or blue sky; or only the sky, or Heaven itself, as Day that self same day; Exodus xii, 41. Dy is never rendered σux by the LXX. And therefore it seems improper to explain σua by it in the New Testament, where the body of Sin is a figurative organised body, otherwise called the Old Man; and the body of death, the fallen mortal

corrupt nature, from the influences of which we want to be de-i livered.

I have not been able to look upon your papers till this day. As soon as I have leisure I shall proceed to the rest.

February 8, 1757.

The phrase," And it came to pass," in the translation of the Bible, I think is sufficiently naturalised, and gives in most places a kind of dignity to the narration, which would be missed if it were: left out.

This observation about the relatives rather tends to depreciate than illustrate Scripture language, and is I think too strongly expressed. Scripture and profane writers seem to be nearly on a level in this respect. Porter may be collectively for porters, as horse and ass in the same verse for horses and asses.

But probably v. 11, "should be as Cler. and Houbig. have conjectured, and be translated, "And the Porters called;"or possibly, it may mean, that one of them called, or that they all called with one united voice

Shall he go up, is right. For so they said, 1 Sam. iv, 7. God is come into the camp.

Heal them-perhaps the inhabitants of the towns mentioned in the same verse.

Their cities-perhaps to which his disciples belonged.

In Matth. v, 11, 12, is an ellipsis of the nominative to the verb persecute, which is to be supplied here and elsewhere by men.

I have not time now to consider what you say of the Women in Matthew xxviii and Mark xvi, and have not your Harinony here.

Relatives are frequently omitted in Latin and Greek.

The title of Psalm iii is when he fled 2, and it appears by the beginning of v. 7, 8, that the danger was not over.

I see not the need of putting had in Genesis ii, 8, &c.

Ps. vi. 10 is in the Bible translated as you propose, but needs not, as v. 8, 9 show. He was in distress, prayed, and was satisfied that his prayer would be effectual.

In Psalm xxi, 1

shows it not to be a petition. Ps. lxxix, 10 is translated should in the Bible.

Here also I think in most, if not all, places, the present tense is as well or better than the future: but particularly Matthew xviii, 1; where I take the Kingdom of Heaven to mean the Gospel state. Conjugation and tenses are by no means always determined by the points; and commentators have made to serve their turns more irregularities and exceptions than they ought: and some of them may be corruptions in the text.-And it must