Being carried out on the same lines as the revised NT, we find in the present work the same improvements in the arrangement of the English text: the grouping by paragraphs, the indication by spaces of a change of subject, the clearer mark- ing of quotations, the system of parallelism adopted for poetical books and passages, and the like. As in the NT, the direction of Convocation is obeyed, that no change of reading be admitted into the English text if not approved, at the final revision, by a majority of at least two-thirds of the Revisers present. Hence it may often be the case that a particular reading in the margin is one which a majority—though not the requisite majority—of the Revisers would have wished to see inserted in the text. It is permissible to conjecture that an example may be found at the outset in Gn 12, where ‘the spirit of God moved upon’ is left undisturbed, but the margin offers the alternative rendering ‘was brooding upon’ (cf. Dt 324). As in the case of the NT also, another rule of Convocation is not observed—that, namely, which directed that the revision should extend to ‘the headings of pages and chapters.’ Both classes of headings have been omitted altogether; with the twofold advantage that space is gained, and the province of the commentator is not encroached upon.
In passing to the more important subject of the merits of the revised translation itself, the first question that will occur to many minds is, whether the changes made are proportionately as numerous asin the NT. Is there, in particular, so frequent an infringement of the rule laid down by the Com- mittee of Convocation ‘to introduce as few altera- tions as possible into the text of the AV, consist- ently with faithfulness’? The prevalent opinion is that there is not. But to give a decisive answer is less easy than might be supposed ; partly from the extent of the ground to be covered, and partly from the fact that the language of the OT is in general less familiar to most persons than that of the NT.* Thus in Jon 46 we had ‘to deliver him from his grief’—a vigorous and appropriate ex- pression at the time, although it may well be asked how many modern readers are acquainted with the old meaning of ‘grief.’ Instead of this, we now have ‘to deliver him from his evil case’—a rendering which, while closer to the
*A writer in the Church Quarterly Review (Oct. 1885, pp. 190, 191) reckons that there are about 830 changes in Judges, 684 in Pss 1-41, 835 in Hosea, and 1889 in Job, ‘the most difficult book in the OT.’ In the Edinburgh Review of the same date, p, 483, similar results are obtained. The reviewer notes 2094 changes in the entire Book of Psalms, 1278 in Jer., 1550 in Ezekiel. On an average of nine books, the changes marked ‘important’ number about one-sixth of the whole. But it is
obvious that opinions might differ widely as to what changes were important,
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
VERSIONS (ENGLISH) 265
Hebrew,* lacks the spirit and force of the other. Objection has been taken, again, to the substi- tution of ‘my provocation’ for ‘grief’? in 18 1%, where Hannah pleads: ‘Out of the abundance of my complaint and grief [but is this the meaning of the Heb. oy3 2] have I spoken hitherto.’
The OT Revisers made it a principle not to depart from the Massoretic Text save in ‘exceptional cases.’ One such case occurs in Jeg 18%, where are described the idolatries of the tribe of Dan, and the participation in them of Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son—as we now read—of Moses. The AV in place of Moses has Manasseh. The explanation is simple. To save the great lawgiver from the reproach of having an idolatrous descendant, the Massoretes suggested a corruption of the text in the passage in question, by writing a ‘suspended N’ over and between the M and 8 in Moses, thus converting it, so far as the consonants are concerned, into Manasses.{+ The Revisers have rightly restored Moses, which is also the reading of the Vulgate.
To take another example. In Ps 24° the AV reads: ‘This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob’; with the marginal variant, ‘O God of Jacob.’ All attempts to make sense of the former reading being, to say the least, far-fetched, the Revisers have wisely placed in their text that supplied by the margin ; in which they have the support of the LXX, the Vulgate, and the Syriac.
The advantage gained by forsaking the received text for the ancient versions being in these and some other instancest indisputable, it is perhaps to be regretted that the Revisers did not use the term ‘exceptional’ with a greater latitude of meaning. ‘T'o have done so might have saved them at times from the necessity of encumbering their margin with variants (as in the case of Pss 2 and 2216), only perplexing the reader, and leaving him to reconcile conflicting renderings as best he can.
A word must be said in passing on the treatment of archaisms by the OT Revisers. The principle they lay down in their Preface appears at_first sight to be a sound and consistent one. ‘Where an archaic word or expression was liable to be misunderstood, or at least was not perfectly in- telligible,’ they have changed it for another. Where, ‘although obsolete,’ it ‘was not unin- telligible,’ they have suffered it to stand. Thus, to take their own illustration, ‘to ear’ (1S 8!) and ‘earing’ (Gn 455) are replaced by ‘to plow’ and ‘plowing,’ as being now not only obsolete, but misleading. On the other hand, ‘bolled’ is re- tained in Ex 9* (‘the flax was bolled’), as the word is still occasionally met with in country parts, and has no English equivalent to express its meaning—that of ‘podded for seed.’ But, as often happens, a principle, good in itself, is here found to work imperfectly in practice ; the reason in this case being, that words and phrases intel- ligible to one class of readers are unintelligible to another, and hence it is difficult to know where to draw theline. The result is at best a compromise. ‘Artillery’ is gone from 18 20%; but ‘bravery,’ in the sense of adornments or beauty,§ is re- tained in Is 318. Cain is now a ‘wanderer,’ not a ‘vagabond’; the inlets of the shore, where Asher abode, are ‘creeks,’ not ‘breaches’; the question of Achish (18 27!) is made clear by the simple change of ‘road’ to ‘raid.’ But we still meet with ‘ occurrent’ for ‘occurrence’ (1 K 5%), ‘chap-