2. Thk Co.vdition of the Text.— The history of the Text of a literary product needs above all to be considered, in order that a basis may thus be laid for all further investigation. In the case of the Book of .ludges this rule is all the more to be obser\'ed Iwcause of the very complicated history of its text.
[(•) The Heb. text, as one finds it, notably in the editio Baeriana libri Jusute et iuiliruin (1891), in the excellent Biblin liebraka of Ch. D. Ginsburg (1804), and in the well-known collections of various reatlings by Kennicott and de Bossi, is, of course, in substantial agreement with the Turgum, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate.*
• Kcllx I'erlee {Anatrktm fur Ttxtkritik de4 A T, \faVS miKiJCaU Uie followinif emendations on the text of Judt:i'> ; '.f (p. M) n}'n;:':.n 'privy,' cf. 'poetlcum' of Vulit. ; .•!»>• (p. 3.1) Mry\ ; 6>(p. 91)M. Ijimhert'i conjectural D'lV? ^rh 'to Ave doon' (but «ee KSnlit'" ■'^.vnfa.c, J3:«ini): 11" (p. 61) •(<7!?1. but it U more natural to nipiKxe that in 'BTJi (cf. Hoe 12', Jcr 2") the Iwas not distinctly written, and that " has thus arisen ; 12" (p. 83) from D" which was meant for 'J3; may have arisen ;'3' ; 13" (p. SS) ny (of. KOnlir's Syntax. | SSi k); 20««' (p. M) 'lyDO Is supposed to have been written for 311'CC.
(A) But the Greek version of the Book of Judges is an extraordinarily manifold one. This is already shown by the number and the nature of the variants which the Alexandrian (A) and the Vatican (B) MSS of the LXX present in this book. For instance, in 1"" A reatls rbv x"-""^"'-'^'"' ('J5^J?C) and iroXe^ijcreffai (sie) iv aim} (i2), but B ha.i Toit Xavavalom and xpis airrovi. Further, in 1' A reads xai iroXf/xi}<ru (to represent the plur. i:p^J) iv tijj Xavavait^ ('Jj^^^n), but B has Kal wapaTa^^iifieda vpbi Tous xa'arafoos. In l*"" the respective readings con- front one another, ^xdrafe (A ; cf. the plur. \:Vi of MT) and Ixotfiav (B). In 1" ]m of the MT is re- produced in A by wevBepii, but in B by yafi^p&s, which last is the reading also of Jos. Ant. v. ii. 3. But the difi'erences in the Greek translation of the Book of Judges are above all brought to view bj' de lagarde, who, in his SeptuagintaStiidicn (Bd. i. 18U'2, p. Ifi'. ) places side by side all the most important variants occurring in the tirst five chapters of Jg. His judgment is completely sub- stantiated by the thorough investigations of G. Moore in his Commentary on the Book of Judges, 1S95, pp. xliv-xlvi. Budde [Kurzer Ilandcomin. z. Jiirhterbuch, 1897, p. xvi) has simply reproduced Moore's results. For instance, in 1' the MT as well as AB have 'seventy,' but l.(ucian) i^Sopv- KOvraduo{soJos. Ant. V. ii. 2, Svolv Kal i^SofjLrjKovTa).* But, e.g., in 8'" both AB and L oiler the same reading, 15,000, as the MT, and only Josephus (Ant. V. vi. 5) has piupiot Kal dKraKitrxi^ioi. Hence, in spite of the scepticism of A. Mez {ilic Bibel tics Josejihits, 1895, p. 57) it is quite pos.sible that n- was read as n' (10= 15 is found for the lirst time in Origen ; cf. Konig, Einleit. p. 90, note 1). Keganl- ing the two main branches of the Greek version of Jg, Moore has said very judiciously, 'It would probably be going too far to affirm that they are independent ; the author of the younger of them may have known and used the older' {Judges, p. xliv).
((■) Further, A. Mez {die Bibel de.i Joiephtui, 1895, pp. 11-18, 5(5-61, 80 f.) has shown, in regard to Jg, that ' the text of Josephus belongs to the most valuable relics of the history of the text of theOT.' Fur in the case of Jg, Josephus follows the Lucianic text (L) not in the same high degree of dependence iv in the Books of Samuel (with four exceptions). In Jg the bond connecting the text of Josephus and that of Lucian is weaker and in many nassages even broken. For instance, in 1" the MT has n:^'C \nr[ ';'p, L has 'Iajf3d,3 toO Kfivalov, but Jos. {Anf. V. ii. 3) 'I^^pou Tov ilaoiai'tT-ou droyovoi, Muivitos yap fiv yapippht (see above for the reading of B). Again, e.g., the expression i'3)'\ in 1" is reproduced not only in AL, but also in B by iK\ripovbpritrev (Itahi, h'reditavit), but Jos. V. ii. 4 otVcrs rightly ffXoi. Finally, e.g., the king D-.n;';n j^-3 (Jg 3») is called in L yioivavptaaiiuS, in AB (by an easily intelligible omission of the n, cf. Konig, LehrgeUiude, ii. 460) \ov<jap<ja6dip., and in Jos. V. iii. 2 ^ouaapciBov, etc. What right Mez has to say in reference to this, ' L ist corrigirt,' we cannot see. Still this in- vesti'iation hits confirmed the present writer's view {Einleit. V. 114 IT.) that the traditional Mius-soretic text is the relatively best source from which to ascertain the words of the Old Testament. This judgment is also entirely substantiated by the in- vestigation into the text of Samuel which Liihr lia.s carried out in the ' Kurzgef. Exeg. Hdbch.' <m Siimuel, 1898, pp. Ixix IV.
3. The Contents and Akrani-.emknt ok thk Book. — (n) The liook begins with (a) the euumera-
• Cf. the same variation of "U and 72 in the number of Uif nations (lChl»»: U -(^ »1 ■^ 26 = TO ; \nit.\n \X\r Clrinmt Reco^/u II. it we rtnd 72); also in the nunilter of tlie disclplrs. Lk 1"!. where t'odd. HI), etc., have I.j)«uta«iT« Iv^ Mom»vrr, lb.- niMiilHT of the Greek translators of the OT came to lic rrdu.-*..) from 72 to 70.