QUOTATIONS
852
QUOTATIONS
thine own heart,-' etc. (ver. 20, 21). It is not improb- able that what we cannoi bul n gard as the i readings in Cbronicli s are to be traced to the similarity between *13*lV and "133^ in the former of the two verses, and ~"~ and ""-" in the latter. Ii may be added that in the Septuagint translation of Chronicles the ob- jectionable words are omitted. | 2.) The "Hut instance is in "_' Sam. vii. 28, compared with 1 Chron. xvii, 21.
In the for r we read, according to the authorized
translation, " What one nation in the earth i- like thy .. ii like Israel, whom God went to redeem for to himself, and to make him a name, and to do great things and terrible, for thy land, befon p3B53. from before), which thou redeemedstto thee from Egypt, [from] the nations and their gods?" The text of this verse is obviously very confused; and in order to extract from it some tolerable sense, our translators have rendered "S" as it it were ":E3 and have inserted from, w ithoul any authority, towards the close. Now, without venturing to affirm that the text in i Ihronicles is to be received as iii every particular the true and genuine one. we have no hesitation in borrow- ing from it what we believe to be an important emen- dation of the text in Samuel— viz. the substitution of 1B1IP, to drive out, for "JX"lS<i | the words are v< rj sim- ilar), for thy land. This will allow us to give "~" its proper force, and render unnecessary the insertion ofthe unauthorized from; the meaning oft lie latter half of the verse when thus corrected being as follows: "To drive out from before thy people, whom thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, nation.-, and their gods."
.">. The two remaining examples are of a differeni
ion, consisting not of historical or prophetical
passages freely math- use of by a later writer, but of
documents of which we have, so to speak, two editions.
The firsl is David's noble song of thanksgiving, of which
two copies ha\ e i le down to us —the one incorporated
with the history in 2 Sam. xxii. the other with the psalm-book as Psa. xviii. Now. on comparing these two copies ofthe same song, we find scarcely a single
line "i ii ne exactly identical with the corresponding
line ofthe other; some ofthe variations being of ex- tremely little importance, others of greater moment The question In re again arises: How are these variations to l"' accounted for? How comes it thai two copies of the same soul;-, handed down to US in the same volume, should, though identical in the general sentiments ex- pressed, in the train of thought, and in the order of the verses, present so many minute differences in the details of the composition? < »n first thought, we are disposed to conclude, somewhat rashly, that all the variations must be regarded as errors of transcription, and that in this case there is no room for the hypothesis of design ■ Mi the part of i he author or editor, inasmuch as we have here the ease not of an independent author adapting to his own purpose the materials furnished by previous writers, but ofa collector giving insertion to a document which, one would suppose, h is his duty to present as nearly as possible in the words ot the original author. On comparing, however, the psalm with the history, it nl thai all the variations cannot he accounted for in this way. For example, the very first words ol the psalm, - 1 will love thee. (> Lord, my Btrength,"do not appear in the other copy ; and of this the only ad- missible explanation plainly is that the words in ques- tion constitute an authorized addition to the song in its original form, the addition being made probablj for the of adapting it more perfectly to liturgical use. [f this explanation he admitted, it follows thai of this Bong ther bav< been transmitted to us two authorised editions the one, which is inserted in the history, pre- senting the song in its original form; the otln r present- ing it in the slightly altered form which was giyen to it when incorporated with the authorized hymn-hook of
the Hebrew nation. In this way a considerable num-
ber ofthe variations may be accounted for. hut not, by any means, all of them; for, with regard to many of them, it i- impossible to discover any useful purpose which could he served by their introduction; and sev- eral of them are just the sort of alterations which most usually arise from the mi-take of transcribers- a-, lor example, the interchange ot letters of similar form, the transposition of letters, etc. i thus tor x~*\ and he »•".« seen, in .' Sam. xxii. 11. we find in Psa. xviii. 11 [10 J N-;--. and h< did fly; and for " ;H" in •_' Sam. xxii, 46 we find ',:rr,~ in Psa. x\ iii, 16 | 15 I. The text in Samuel is the more antique in form -as. for example, in the more sparing insertion ofvowel letter-: bul that of i in- Psalm appears to have been more carefully pre- served. Thus, there is little douht that for — ^r.. in 1 Sam. xxii, 26, we ought to read ".". as in the Psalm; and in ver. 28, TX" of Samuel ought to he read "rX" or nrX *~. as iii the Psalm; and in the second clause also the reading in the Psalm is much to he preferred. So in vers.:;:;, 1 1. 17, 49. ( >n the other hand, in \ i rs. •"'. 43, the reading in Samuel may be preferred to that of the Psalm.