(c) Material differences: (a) many passages are altered or supplemented from parallel passages. For instance, nvysx x5 of Gn 182 is replaced ‘in the Samaritan by mnvs xb 1d ashit, after vv.28 31%, The servant of Moses is called in the MT sometimes ywin (Nu 13° 16, Dt 32#), and sometimes y(1)vim (Ex 17% 138. 243 ete.), but the Samaritan writes the latter form even in the three passages in which the change of Hoshea into Jehoshua is recorded, so that we read in Nu 13! ‘and Moses called Jehoshua, the son of Nun, Jehoshua’! Again, in Gn 11"-°6 the formula is regularly added, ‘and all the years of . . . were... years, and he died,’ which is derived from the parallel genealogy (5°). In 17’ ‘on the eighth day’ is read in harmony with the parallel passage. After 30° we find a long addition, which is borrowed from 31%. Specially striking is the following series of passages: Ex 6° (cf. 147) 738 (cf, vv.15-18) 79 (cf, vv.25-°8) 819 (ef, vv.16-29) 95-19 102 113 (cf, 42%) 18° (cf, Dt 1°18) 2017 (ef, Dt 272. pon 2021 (cf. Dt 526. 28 1818-22 ort) 3971, Nu 4i4 10” 1216 13% Q013 Q1 11 2 9723 372, Dt a7 518 107, The remarkable circumstance about all these passages is that in every instance where it is recorded that Moses said or did something, this is always pre- ceded by a statement in so many words that it was a Divine command that he should act so, and, wherever a Divine command is recorded, this is re- peated in the same terms when we are told that Moses fulfilled it. This is a carrying to the ex-
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treme of that pleonastic form of expression which may be observed also in certain portions of the Jewish-Hebrew Pentateuch (cf. Konig, Stilistik, That the above passages
etc. pp. 169, 172, 176).
in the Samaritan Pentateuch are of secondary origin is sufficiently evident from the circumstance that its text there has not the support of a single ancient witness.—(@) There are differences due to a religious or other like interest. The statement in Gn 2%’n -yavia nya ody bon, ‘and God declared all his work finished (see Konig, Syntax, § 950) on the seventh day’ was not understood, and so the seventh was changed into the sivth day (Sam. beyim eshshishsht). The number -430 years, during which the Hebrews sojourned in-Egypt, according to the MT of Ex 12, appeared to be too large, and hence the expression 3y33 s0N3 ‘in the land of Canaan’ was inserted before the words ‘in the land of Egypt.’ (By the way, the MT of Ex 12” is shown’ by Ezk 4°" to have been the text in existence at the time of the prophet, for the 390+40 years of Ezk 4°* are nothing else than a reflexion of the 430 years of the Egyptian bondage of Israel). Again, the plural predicate with which nex ‘God’ is coupled in Gn 20! 315 357 and Ex 228, is changed into a singular, in order to avoid the appearance of polytheism (Kohn, de Samari- tano Pentateucho, p. 22).—Another group is formed by the following passages.—The statement in Ex 24" yin ‘and they beheld (sc. God),’ is replaced by nx and they cleaved to (God),’ the idea being that the Deity must have been strictly invisible. The conception of God was thus transcendentalized. In obedience to the same motive, so-called inter- mediary beings are introduced between God and man, o7dx (‘God’) being replaced by abs axbp (‘an angel of God’) in Nu 22” 234, and mm by mm axdp in vv.526, Conversely, 78207 (‘the angel’) is once, Gn 4816, changed into 25pn (‘the king’), in order to avoid attributing to the angel what God Himself had accomplished, namely, the deliverance of Jacob. The Samaritans showed themselves in other instances as well very jealous for the char- acter of God. From this motive they changed the words ‘take all the heads of the people and hang them up’ (Nu 25*-) into ‘command that they slay the men who attached themselves to Baal-peor,’ the command as it runs in the MT appearing to involve an injustice on the part of God. To the same category belongs the substitu- tion of ‘hero (123) of war’ for ‘man (vs) of war,’ as a designation of God in Ex 15°.—Yet another group of differences have for their aim the securing of the zesthetic purity of the Law. The Samaritans, for instance, have not only taken into the text those marginal readings which the Jewish Mas- soretes adopted for esthetic reasons (Dt 28*°), but have replaced the term 1w29 ‘his secrets’ (25"!) by vwa ‘his flesh.—Finally, it was upon national grounds that the name Sy (‘Ebal) was exchanged for p11 (Gerizim) in Dt 274. It has been shown, notably by Verschuir (in No. ili. of his Disserta- tiones philologice-exegetice, 1773), that the con- text demands the building of the altar nowhere but upon Mt. ‘Ebal. God is presented especially as witness to the oath and as avenger of any breach of it (29%: 14-19), and accordingly we look both for the building of the altar as a symbol of the Divine presence, and for the offering of sacri- fice by the people, upon ¢iat mountain from which the curse was proclaimed (27"). After the Sam- aritans, moved probably by 27" where Gerizim is named as the mount of blessing, had built their temple upon this mountain to the south of Shechem, they would be led naturally enough to introduce the name Gerizim in y.*4.. The Jews, on the other hand, had no interest to substitute the name ‘Ebal for the name Gerizim, for the point that concerned them was not whether Gerizim or ‘Ebal was to have the preference, but whether the hegemony belonged to Gerizim or to Zion (Jn 4”),