hours {TT.'^n mru "imii tnx in n^a QT^n itiix,
Sanhedrin, 96 a), in order that his burial might be hasty and without royal honors, and that now these ten de- grees went backwards. Hence the present reading, which was effected by the trifling alteration of ~b^n into ^^l^, i. e. " the shadow," the prophet is made to say to the king, " Has once gone forward ten degrees" (i. e. at the death of Ahaz) ; " shall it now go backward ten de- grees ?" Thus the Midrashic exposition of Isa. xxxviii, 8, it may be supposed, gave rise to the textual reading of 2 Kings XX, 9. For the influence of the Halachic and Hagadic exegesis on the Masorah and the various readings, we must refer to Krochmal, More Nehoche Ha- Jeman (Lemberg, 1851), p. 169 sq. See Keri asd Ke-
THIB; NetHINIM.
2. The Greek Versions. — That the Septuagint is per- vaded by the Halachic and Hagadic exegesis may al- most be seen on every page of this version. A few ex- amples must suffice. Thus, e. g., the Septuagint render- ing of iTin by ^woyovoviTOJv, in Lev. xi, 47, is only to be explained when it is borne in mind that, according totheHalachah,theprohibitionrespectingnslL3(Exod.
xxii, 30, etc.) does not simply refer to animals torn by wild beasts, but to every animal which is sickly and maimed, though belonging to the clean animals allowed to be eaten in Lev. xi ; and that one of the sure tests whether an animal is healthy, and hence eatable, is when it beajs young ones; barrenness is an infallible sign of its sickly condition (comp. Chulin, 24 with 58 ; Salomon ben-Adereth, Respond, xcviii; Torath Coha- nim, 124) — hence the Septuagint rendering, " Between those which bear j'oung ones and [for this reason] may be eaten, and those which bear young ones and may not be eaten," because they belong to the animals proscribed. Again, the rendering of Josh, xiii, 22, DSJ^S t".N1 . . . n"in3 . . . 15'lrt, bj' Kai Tov BaXaiifi . . . cnriKruvav . . , iv pom), which has caused such perplexity to com- mentators and given rise to diverse emendations (e. g. TTpovofjLy, Oxf. ; tv paiKpa'ic}. tv rpoiry. Aid. and Com- plut.), is at once explicable when reference is made to the Hagadah, which is quoted in Jonathan ben-Uzziel's Chaldee Paraphrase of Numb, xxxi, 6, and is as fol- lows : " Balaam flew into the air by his magic arts, and Phinehas threw him down ;" so that iv poiry means in the fall (comp. also Eashi on Numb, xxxi, 6).
Symmachus, too, cannot be understood in many of his translations without reference to the Halachic and Ha- gadic exegesis. Thus the apparently strange rendering of liaX 13Pri3 "^na ?C3ri ^ h\ ov atctvaatig tpi(bov Siu ydXaKTog fii]Tpoq avTOv (Exod. xxiii, 19) becomes intelligible when it is remembered that the Halachah not only prohibits the cooking, but the mixing and eating of animal meat and milk in any form (comp. Meckilta, ad loc. ; Cholin, 115). Hence the rendering of bujnri by OKEvaang. The rendering of il^^ PXT^I by uipKiae Si M(Dva))v (Exod. i, 21), which has been thought very extraordinary and inexplicable, becomes perfectly plain when the Hagadah on this passage is consulted, which tells us that Jethro demanded of Moses to swear that he would devote to idolatry his first-begotten son by Zip- porah, and that Moses consented to it; and remarks further, Then said Jethro, Swear, and Moses swore to him, as it is wi-itten, T\'Ci'>2 biX'l"''!. Now ilPX denotes to swear, as in 1 Sam. xiv, 24, and 2 Kings v, 23 (comp. Mechilta, sec. Jethro, beginning quoted in Jalkut, ad loc. ; Nedarim, 65 a).
These few specimens must suffice, for, greatlj' impor- tant as the subject is, the limits of this article prevent us from giving illustrations of the influence which the Halachic and Hagadic exegesis exercised upon the other Greek versions, as well as upon the Chaldee paraphrases, the Syriac version, the Vulgate, the Arabic, and the ex- positions of the early fathers.
VI. Literature. — Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortrdge der Juden (Berlin, 1832), p. 35 sq.; Hirschfeld, Halach- ische Exegese (Berlin, 1840) ; by the same author, Die hagadische Exegese (Berlin, 1847) ; Sachs, Die religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien (Berlin, 1845), p. 141 sq. ; Rapaport, Erech Millin (Prague, 1852), art. Agada, p. 6 sq. ; Frankel, Vorstudien zu der ffepiiiaginta (Leipsic, 1841), p. 179 sq. ; by the same author, Ueber den Eitijiuss der Paldstinischen Exegese aif die alexandrinische Her- meneutik (Leipsic, 1851) ; and Programm ziir Eroffnung des jiidisch-theologischen Seminars zu Breslau (Breslau, 1854) ; hwzzaiXo.Oheb Ger. (Vienna, 1831) ; Pinner, Vor- studien zum Talmud (Berlin, 1831); Geiger, Urschrift und Uebersetziing der Bibel (Breslau, 1857) ; Steinschnei- der, Jewish Literature (London, 1857), p. 5 sq. ; Deutsch, in Lond. Qu. Rev. April, 1867 sq., art. on Talmud ; Gins- burg, Historical and Critical Commentary on Ecclesiastes (London, 1861), p. 30 sq., 455 sq.; and particidarly the excellent article by Ginsburg in Kitto (s. v.), upon which we have very largely depended in this article.
Midwife (n'l^^:?, part, in Piel of "lb^, "to bring forth ;" Sept. iiaia, Vulg. obstetrix ; Gen. xxxv, 17 ; xxxviii, 28). It must be remarked that riiJn, Exod. i,
MIEG
248