3. The third class consists of conjectural emendations of difficulties ; e. g. the elliptic use of ^15% frequent both in Hebrew and Arabic, being evidently unknown to the emendator, he alters the 'nbl'^ n30 riX'O )'2'bn (Gen. xvii, 17), "shall a child be born unto him that is a hun- dred years old?" into T^PIX, "shall I beget?" Gen. xxiv, 62, XI-'D ND, "he came from going" (A. V. " from the way") to the well of Lahai-roi, the Sam. al- ters into "131^3 50, " in or through the desert" (Sept. 6idTijcfpi]i.iov), InGen. xxx,34, "'I'liTD "^iT^ I' Iv^i "Behold, may it be according to thy word," the 1? (Arab. «J) is transformed into nh, "and if not — let it be like thy word." Gen. xli, 32, Dibnn msiri"! b^l, "And for that the dream was doubled," becomes nb:!^ n D'^y^i, "The dream rose a second time," which is both nn-Hebrew and diametrically opposed to the sense and construction of the passage. Better is the emen- dation, Gen. xlix, 10, T^sS"! 'P3''0, "from between his feet," into "from among his banners," ^"^PSl "paT^. Exod. XV, 18, all but five of the Sam. codd. read tbl"b ^13>1, "forever cmd longer," instead of 1"1, the com- mon form, "evermore." Exod. xxxiv, 7, xb npSI n|337> " ^^^^^ ^''11 by no means clear the sin" becomes npB"^ iP "^p^l., "and the innocent to him shall be in- nocent," against both the parallel passages and the ob- vious sense. The somewhat difficult ^SD"! xbl, "and they did not cease" (A. V. Numb, xi, 25), reappears as a still more obscure conjectural "£pXi, which we would venture to translate, "they were not gathered in," in the sense of "killed:" instead of either the lUJJSN, "congregated," of the Sam. Vers., or Castell's "conti- nuerunt," or Houbigant's and Dathe's "convenerant." Numb, xxi, 28, the "1^, "Ar" (Moab), is emendated into 1?, "as far as," a perfectlj- meaningless reading; except that the "i^, "city," it seems, was a word un- known to the Samaritan. The somewhat uncommon words (Numb, xi, 32) m::'U dflb in::a''1, "and they (the people) spread them all abroad," are trans- posed into niJiri':: Dinb i::na^"i, "and they slaugh- tered for themselves a slaughter." Deut. xxviii, 37, the word n^S'iJp, "an astonishment" (A. V.), very rarely used in this sense (Jer. xix, 8 ; xxv, 9), becomes dllib. "to a name," i. e. a bad name. Deut. xxxiii, 6, "ifT'l 1SD"!3 T'S^'O, "May his men be a multitude," the Sam., with its characteristic aversion to, or, rather, ignorance of, the use of poetical diction, reads ^SD^ IPIXTD "^fT^'l, "May there he. from him a multitude," thereby trving perhaps to encounter also the apparent difficulty of the word "ISCO, standing for " a great number." Anything more absurd than the 1P!!5?3 in this place could hardly be imagined. A few verses farther on, the uncommon use of ",73 in the phrase "(I'QSlp'; "i^ (Deut, xxxiii, 11), as " lest," " not," caused the no less unfortunate altera- tion ^i^ip"^ *i72, so that the latter part of the passage, " smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again" becomes " who will raise them V — barren alike of mean-
ing and of poetry. For the unusual and poetical ^X2'n (Deut. xxxiii, 25; A.V. "thy strength"), T^3"l is sug- gested ; a word about the significance of which the com- mentators are at a greater loss even than about that of the original.
4. The fourth class consists of those readings where the Sam. is corrected or supplied from parallel pas- sages. Thus na"X xb (Gen. xviii, 29) becoines xb ri^nCX, according to ver. 28. Proper names, which are variously written in Hebrew, are all conformed to one orthography, as lin^, Moses's father-in-law. In Gen. xi, 8, " and the tower" is added to the Hebrew text, taken from the fourth verse.
5. The fifth class consists of larger interpolations taken from parallels, in which whatever was said or done by Moses as recorded in a preceding passage is re- peated ; and whatever is said to have been commanded by God is repeated in as many words where it is re- corded to have been carried into effect. In this way Exodus is much enlarged by interpolations from itself, or from Deuteronomj'. Gesenius thinks that these in- sertions were made between the date of the Sept. and Origen, because the Alexandrian father mentions a pas- sage of the kind (Pick, HorcE Samarit.').
6. The sixth class consists of corrections made in or- der to remove what was offensive in sentiment to the Samaritans, or what convej'ed an improbable meaning in their view. Thus in the antediluvian times none begets his first son after he is 150 years of age. Hence, from Jared, l\Iethuselah, and Lamech, 100 years are sub- tracted at the time they are said to have their first son. In the postdiluvian times none is allowed to beget a son till after he is fifty years old. Accordingly some years are subtracted from several patriarchs and added to others. To make this intelligible, we subjoin from our Horce 8amaritun(e the following table of the Hebrew and Samaritan chronology, and where the first column, marked A, gives the years before birth of son; the sec- ond, B, the rest of life ; the third, C, the extent ofichole life: