We will now proceed to lay specimens of these once 80 highly prized variants before the reader, in order that he may judge for himself. We shall follow in this the commonly received arrangement of Gesenius, who di- vides all these readings into eight classes :
1. The first class, then, consists of readings by which emendations of a grammatical nature have been at- tempted.
(a.) The quiescent letters, or so-called matres lectio- nis, are sujjjdied. Thus Q^ is found in the Samar. for Q-ofthe Masoretic text; m forH--; "t"^ fori-; DiT'^X for nribX: nniX-S for r-iiK'2, etc.; sometimes a 1 is put even where the Ileb. text has, in accordance with the grammatical rules, only a short vowel or a sheva : 1"i2Snn is foun.l for l-^JSn (Lev. xvi, 12); TI-'JIX for riT'JS (Deut. xxviii, 68)!
(b.) The more poetical forms of the pronouns, proba- bly less known to the Sam., are altered into the more common ones. Thus 13n3, DH, bxn, become ISnjX,
(c.) The same propensity for completing appareiitlj' incomplete forms is noticeable in the flexion of the verbs. The apocopated or short future is altered into the regular future. In this manner "iSril becomes TI5M (Gen. xxiv, 22) ; VQ'^^ is emendated into niTa'^'l (xxv, 18); Sn;! (verb n"h) into nSTi (xli, 33) ; the final "i , of the 3d pers. fem. plur. fut., into HD.
((7.) On the other hand, the paragogical letters 1 and "^ at the end of nouns are almost universally struck out by the Sam. corrector; e. g. "^S-ViU (Deut. xxxiii, 16) is shortened into "310, IHin into HTl (Gen. i, 24); and, in the ignorance of the existence of nouns of a common gender, he has given them genders according to his fancy. Thus masculine are made the words cn? (Gen. xlix, 20), "W'S (Deut. xv, 7, etc.), HiiTa (Gen. xxxii, 9) ; feminine the words T'lX (Gen. xiii, 6), ";"n (Deut. xxviii, 25), ^B3 (Gen. xlvi, 25. etc) ; wherever the word "IJ'S occurs in the sense of "girl," a H is added at the end (xxiv, 14, etc.).
(<>.) The infin. absol. is, in the quaintest manner pos- sible, reduced to the form of the finite verb; so I^HtJ^I SITUI ~1?il, " the waters returned coiitinuaUi/," is trans- formed into 1301 I3bn 131ir"'1, "they returned, they went and they returned" (Gen. viii, 8). Where the infin. is used as an adverb, e. g. pmn (xxi, 16), "far off," it is altered into ilp'^mn, "she went far away," which renders the passage almost unintelligible ; or it is ch^iged into a particijile, as yT3 yiTl'^il (Gen. xliii, 7) into the meaningless 3 "T^il.
For obsolete or rare forms, the modern and more common ones have been substituted in a great number of places. Thus Oils' for D"|iSi (Gen. iii, 10, 11) ; nbi for nbl (xi, 30); CillSlS for the collective ^IS^J (xv, 10); ni73N, "female servants," for nn^X (xx, 18); nnia •'3 nni3n Xl^l for the adverbial DIZ: (xlix, 15); in"i-in for d"^ni-i2 (Exod. xxvi, 26, making it depend from '^'SV) ; Dti-'TO, in the unusual sense of" from it" (comp. 1 Kings xvii, 13), is altered into H25372 (Lev. ii, 2) ; iT^n is wrongly put for "^n (3d pers. sing. masc.
of "'^ri" c^) ; "'^'j t^fi obsolete form, is replaced by
the more recent "1"^" (Numb, xxi, 15); the unusual fem. termination '^- (comp. ?l3'^3X, P'^5"'aX) is elongated into rr^-; inc is the emendation for 1''b (Deut. xxii, 1); inn for "^"lin (xxxiii, 15), etc.
2. The second class of variations consists of glosses or inter|)retations received into the text — glosses, moreover, in which the Sam. not unfrequently coincides with the Sept., the various versions, and Jewish commentaries, most of them therefore the result of exegetical tradition. Thus iTlUXI 0"^X, "man and woman," used by Gen. vii, 2 of animals, is changed into «13p31 "i3t, "male and female;" 1'^X3113 (Gen. xxiv, 60), " his haters," be- comes I'^S^IS, "his enemies;" for il?3 (indefin.) is sub- stituted iT21X''3; XT', "he will see, choose," is ampli- fied by a ib, " for himself;" ^Stl ISH is transformed into 1ir "lOX 15p (Lev. xvii, 10); bx nbx l^jil taS'ba (Numb, xxiii, 4), "And God met Bilcam," be- comes with the Sam. 3 nx "bn. -[xbia H^^Q^^, "and an angel of the Lord found Bi\eam ;" iHlUNri ?>' (Gen. XX, 3), "for the woman," is amplified into nilN P25 nCJXIl, "for the sake of the woman ;" for *i'133?1, from 133 (obsol., comp. tXXj\ is put "^153?, " those that are before me," in contradistinction to " those who will come after me;" "l?P1, "and she emptied" (her pitcher iiito
SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH 295 SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
the trough, Gen. xxiv, 20), has made room for T^'Tiri, "and she took down;" il'O'O Tl"I"13, "I will meet there" (A.V. Exod. xxix, 43), is made DO TiC-ni, "I shall be [searched] fomid there;" Numb, xxxi, 15, before the words n2p3 P3 oniinn, "Have you spared the life of every female?" a n533, " Why," is in- serted (Sept.); for NipX miT^ Dli: "^D (Deut. xxxii, 3), " If I call the name of Jehovah," the Sam. has DwO, " In the name," etc.