A Proposed New Method of Textual Criticism in the Old Testament (Continued)

Author(s): Paul Ruben

Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 51, No. 3 (Apr., 1935),
pp. 177-188
Published by: University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/528938
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 A PROPOSED NEW METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT-Continued

BY PAUL RUBEN
Hamburg, Hochallee 108, Germany

D) Isa. 1 :21-31.-Of this very simple piece, which is probably the

oldest of Isaiah's utterances, I shall try to cure the corruptions and to
explain the text as I propose to restore it. Perhaps I shall succeed in
showing that no arbitrary measures such as unfounded discarding are
needed to account for the words and sentences transmitted to us; if
by this method unity of meter cannot be arrived at, unless we resort
to a measure of critical violence at the eleventh hour, we had better
forego that unity and try to appreciate the beauty that results from
a variety of rhythmical movement.
1. G has a somewhat fuller text than MT in verses 21 and 22. (a) It
reads the first hand of the Sinaiticus (N*) adds
'V•"• *.j'T:h;
'
can stand for ITR= or for Cr1; cf. Exod. 28:26
KaL 'X7v0as, which
(30); Prov. 28:8; Deut. 32:4; Num. 24:3, 15; (0) it reads ?' (if ,)
before p'I; (y) GA has in verse 22, after =', %
~ ~i?
Nr--
(at b7XrE V/W
lvprKopavoTOL). f.N
The words "nK:•1 seem to destroy the Qinah-rhythm
of the first linet:i.
and to be intruders;
. on the other hand, - p
and pM are protected by their repetition in verse'.:26,n.while
M•
"'.: is unassailable on account of its unexpected realism.
iM'~1
t'•.""-E
One might try to obtain a third complete Qinah-Kc7Xov by adding
rN1 or =11 (GA*) after and m?,V(instead of G1 ?"% after
"
r•J•-, 0.*)
h C I••.. D i. . These words seem, indeed, to
%:""d1
belong together. But were we
"•.:. to incorporate them into the text,
there would be an abundance of expressions foreign to our simple
piece. A conjecture as to whence these words hail (as well as y) and
as to how they got a place here will be found on page 183. If Zion
is addressed in verses 22 ff., while it is spoken of in the third person
in verse 21, this need not alarm us (cf. Isa. 1:4; 62:2).
2. In verse 25, GB translates ' 7,"% •.• 1 Kal els KaOap~y,
trvpWo•c
Tovs 6&IareLtOoV^PcasLaoXrW Kat' dcEXC adroao-; GASQP
7Ybtpovs
wrta7s
177

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178 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

add rEafter rvpWcaw, and after &~b aO:

o Kalr7vras bvrEprzlavovslrarEt-
vwaw; with them agree H(olmes) P(arsons), 24; 91; 97; etc. aE is either
an exegetical addition or the translation of a '. that had been placed,
in one or more Hebrew manuscripts of the type used by G, above the
? of 5 as a correction and had been connected with "I 1 by the
"
translator. The considerable discrepancies of G and MT can be de-
rived from this basis:

-T2 ......................
(a) I have retranslated &droXowith "1iT (cf. Jer. 46 [26]:8, ;'•7"R
d~roX&);this, of course, is but one of several possibilities; but so
far as I can see, it is the only one that allows an answer to the question
as to why a-roh&stands here. (0) I have retranslated 4ivoAovs with
we find as a version of h'1 and f51 (Exod. 33:13;
&vo'jia
Ps. 53
t'b.lY; [52]:2; 58 [57]:3 and elsewhere). (y) As to b1Erepqadvovs,I
believe the translator found, or thought he found, :"b"'T'and in-
terpreted this as '"T'b7. The Greek translators have sometimes
rendered the root *T5 with 4avM~Lfv and b'pitev (Zeph. 2:15; 3:11;
Isa. 23:7, 12), and it is but a step from brep?7qcavlato iVjpts. (3) One
might consider airb aoi as an exegetical addition were there not a possi-
ble retranslation of raWELvW'aw that looks very much like : N2p,
though there is some doubt as to the vowels (cf. Lev. I./.2
25:39,
Eccles.
%-•2
27:8, 10:18, ~'
ranrev•Oe ; ",
rarvLYbs; rarewwOi•crat;
Ps. 106 [1051:43, 11V11 Kai Erare~vW&O~a
av).
In the foregoing basis are embodied two variants: the one, 12M, is

marginal and belongs to -; I do not think that we ought to write

n11V, for why should only the lead be purged away?"3 In Arabic,
31
Cf. Ezek. 22:18, JOID171 YTt ~'41 n
i' : ro ?bviv n-i inn;
the following words are unintelligible; perhaps they are all attempts to read 9

"The house of Israel has become dross to me, all of them; bronze and alloy and iron and
lead are their admixtures."

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 A PROPOSED NEW METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 179

ghubarun, ghubbarunis pars residua rei; "= "W might mean "all
thy alloy" I1 :, as Arab. sd ir has the meaning of kull (see Well-
hausen's note on Amos 1:8). The last two words of the verse were
probably I '~' '. In Arabic, kailun is id quod sparsim decidit
ab igniario; kayyilun, rejecta pars rei; kayy?tl,postrema aciei pars in
bello; rejecta pars rei. Kayyilun is the exact Arabic counterpart of
Heb. (cf. Barth, Nominalbildung, ?30b). The change of X and
6 ''11
(^~t and iT') is rare, but not unheard of. Instead of It',
MT Ps. 40 (39):16 G read NX' (KoL4aeOwwaav); instead of Xrs,
MT Judg. 14:15 T has *t' (lC ); instead of 2•, Judg. 1:31,
we find 5•:3 (G : t), Josh. 19:29, the true reading being 2b5ri ,
as is shown by the cuneiform mahalliba. The word has possibly been
imported from the Midianite mining district.32 If I am thus led to
assume the presence of Arabic words in this line (and elsewhere), this
may be thought to be an objection to my method; but it seems to me
very natural that rare words should have become obscure at an early
date and continued to exist only in the shape of variants, and I think
we ought to be glad if in some cases at least we are helped by the cog-
nate languages to understand them.
The words from 0,128 to T' [t] do not form a
Qinah-K&X0ov;
so there is no reason to "discard" in the corresponding line
(vs. 22): bC20.
And I will smelt out the whole of thy dross
And removeall thine alloy.

3. The words ?Wl to '"' in verses 24 and 25 are

"'IM "';
deeply corrupted.
a) ?Rn 'IR is suspicious, because with Zr?2 the first
Qinah-K^'ov is at an end; "i')"= would form a second short
part of the KWxXOV, !IA':
besides R=::2 ';'. It cannot be said that ":.'
mK7t' must be sound, because it is equivalent to "si b, a
divine title that sometimes occurs after "M812'0 bR"'"
for it does not
seem to be used thus before the second part of the seventh century.33
One might suspect nlN22 's , but this title has been used by Isaiah
both by itself and after .":1 (28:22); and also by his restitutors
32According to Dalman, the melting furnace can have been known but little in Pales-
tine, as there was no black ore (Arbeit und Sitte, I, 1, 217, n. 1).
3aIsa. 37:16 is not an old verse.

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180 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

(3:1; 10:16, 33; 19:4); and one cannot plausibly explain how 'M
could have crept in, while this is possible with .1W"11n"o
01y:2
(see below, p. 183). As to G's obal oi lo-XbovTes'IopailX, see 0; GA has
'IX-j-iinstead of 'Iapai)X, probably under the influence of verses 21
and 26.
-: T- . -T w'N
- T .-. . .V "'oii. These words form a Qinah-
.m) .t~:
K^Xov, which might seem to recommend them as genuine; yet they
are a digression. It is clear from the first stanza (vss. 21-24) that the
prophet's prediction is to refer to the town of Jerusalem; here, how-
ever, the god's foes are spoken of, and that they are not those within
the town is evident from IT' M 1' , for it is with this phrase
that he again addresses the town.
G has ob lrao'rrat ydp p 6 E'vTos bvrevarTtiots: 3
'Ov•s •; ".
",r~;34 the basis .ov of this reading can perhaps be explained
t-].~
thus:

"•'l ,tln [MT]

(1) Instead of ' , G's Hebrew text had 15;' and , ', and b have
sometimes been confounded (Amos has r%?t ~t`'", MT
M it would be rash, 1:"11-G
however, to assume that G is right
r•Z3 2;
here), and so have r and N, 2 and 02. (2) To correct the . of D' •,
E•tl was written above the line; this descended into the line and was
there transformed into ~n"'i. (3) In order to correct Nib, "I,
was entered on the margin; this crept into the text before ?'=2.
(4) The set of words thus brought together, PC:'r 1 b5N'~'
";
01•1== ?""t10, were given an appearance of coherence by writing
"'TN and inserting " before N5b.
I do not think, therefore, that we have anything to learn from G
here. "IM seems to stand as an angry exclamation, as, perhaps, in
no other passage. In Jer. 30:7 we must probably write iTPT
(as G); Zech. 2:10, 11, i, is corrupt; but I cannot -I'prove the
emendation in a few words. "'i is generally followed by a noun,
which is sometimes preceded by bRor b5.

is used to render arl.,

34 raBerOa6 Jer. 33 (26):3, 13, 19; 38 (31):15 (BNQ; rapaKX•6rO7vaL
BabmgA).

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 A PROPOSED NEW METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 181
"
*Y)"T';
:5 i"'NJ means "And I will turn my hand against
thee as an enemy" or "I will subject thee to my power" (cf. Amos. 1:8;
Ps. 81:15). The whole sentence is suspicious, because it serves to con-
nect the digression with the sound text ('1%t l'18; see 3); also
because re-appears in verse 26. One might say, in order to
.•'ER
defend these words, that "I"T"r==' 1 (Zech. 13:7) likewise occurs
in a passage where God's intention to purify is spoken of
'%51[vs. 9]). But this verse, too, is open to suspicion; it (Dt". has been
_.
proposed to change '•71 into 7f-6, following some Greek manuscripts
and Matt. 26:31,3" and conforming it to "rX1-'"0--which is an arbi-
trary removal of a real difficulty:
As the words T71". '' ;M7 1 (Isa. 1:25) cannot be supported
by Zech. 13:7, and as they are as unlikely to belong in this form to the
prophet as '1; !'29 , we must try to elicit from all those letters a
reasonable sentence, if possible, a QInah-KcJXop,as is I ,t
='•
rin:r 'n, seeing that the first stanza also begins with a double..
Qinah-K&iXoV. But this attempt has been without result, so we are
bound to make use of all the variants, i.e., we must avail ourselves of
verses 27-31.
6) The Isaian oracle ends with ;: TD j"1 (vs. 26), returning
with these words to its beginning; what follows does not seem to be
sound. Even if we read ' in verse 29 (with T) instead of
(MT), what are we to make .V of "Ye will be ashamed of the gardens, .•.•

a35I'Pt is translated by GB uLKPpos,by GAQF wroMivas; the latter word is hardly

meant to render the reading r• . For how should G have known the modern inter-
pretation of jN ::j gg, Jer. 49:20; 50:45 (as "shepherds")--an interpretation that is
by no means certain? It is more likely that the renderings of GB and GA refer to different
words. GA has "Yt • instead of 1,2; r = '2"' -R = is suspicious, as we find
O
' A1 again in vs. 8. The basis of our textual tradition seems to have been:

In this basis two readings are contained that lead me to conjecture as the original text:
'In r yhn rx"nrnz
rz.•J1

-1•1 , "bowstring," is found in Ps. 21: 13; even if this verse should be restitutional, that
would not preclude its words being good Hebrew. Read at the beginning of the verse.
"Awake, O sword, against my friend and against the man..•that is my fellow; and destroy,
bow-string, the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered."

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182 THE AMERICANJOURNALOF SEMITICLANGUAGES

for ye will be like gardens"? I had therefore formerly assumed that

-'1 (vs. 30) stands for nt"1rm36and that : ,i"ti means here "to
prove"; this may be so, but what a roundabout way of expressing
one's self: "They will prove a terebinth withered as to its leaf" in-
stead of "The leaf of the terebinth will wither"! Nor do we improve
anything by translating verse 30 with Procksch:37 "For ye will your-
selves be like a tree, etc."; for "yourselves" is not in the text, and,
besides, why should anybody be ashamed of his trees because he him-
self has become like a decaying tree? Verses 27 and 28 contain pre-
dictions that are generally thought to have been formulated in the
time of exile. They were certainly not made at an earlier date. But
why do they stand here? Was there not a whole literature about the
happy time in store for Zion and the pitiful lot of her sinners? And
was there so little esteem for the prophetic writings that not only any
reader-say of the sixth or fifth century-could give vent to his party
feelings upon the sacred page, but that these additions should also
have been copied? It is alluring to replace MT's '%t in verse 31
by G's C~t" '7l'E; but G's reading is nothing but an attempt
to interpret the obscure word '="•. For it is, indeed, impossible
to say of a spark that it will burn ("~'~). Many years ago
I proposed to write(':•'.) for but it is unlikely that ; should
".•2
have been changed into '. "•'",
E) I have embodied, in the accompanying table, the redundant
words of verses 21 and 22, placing them where their surmised restitu-
tional character might be seen most clearly. Part of the recensio had
found its way into the neighborhood of verses 21 and 22 and under-
went such restitution there as the surroundings seemed to allow or
suggest.
3 As (Jer. 49:11); ' r.: (Ezek. 37:7); see my Critical Remarks, p. 20
. of
Mic. 2:9). This interpretation
(concerning"M=.•.. had been proposed as early as 1780 by
Koppe in his German edition of Bishop Lowth's '.;"l.Isaiah (II, 36).
7 Jesaia, I (1930), 50.

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 NEW METHODOFTEXTUALCRITICISM 183
A PROPOSED
" . .....
"""" adz
" : ... , Verse
.. . .......................?•..... " = .l•...........24
.. .... . m ...m ..m ...... ?.........K.. ..
../A-;"1
o an.....oo ..............
oo oo. ..
oo .: 2o7 .........25
oLr);r• .... 1 " oo-sl oo .oo
" ...... ...........2G .21
.
..1......
" .... ............ 28[A
........ ~~~~~......................?
...a
..... F.•• ...,.. " 3-... . . .. ....
...t2•.•
b u% 28
. ...m. ... . .........0'5.
. .IL.. • • • 2 .kT•. ..- oo.•..-.... .o ?o . o ... ....2
'
.. o o .
'7 .. ...... o o .. •. 29
' ?yI:; o ;3.. ............... ....i........ " o. . .•' o..D .... "•.:- 0?
?73 .. . ..
T,•T 31
r 5 030
........
.. o..=:. . . . . . .. .. ?7 .o .?7?'
.. ....Z . . . .? ...
.•t.o o .. . .. oor
. . .. . .. . o . .... . .
,o . . ;.o .7 o
o... . ,o
l = o.. .* t.o.o . ",= . . . . ? o... . . . .
0. 0 0 0 o... 5. 7 o.......o .
o . o o
: o o o o *0 0 0 0 . 0. 0 . 0 . 0 *

. ..oL, . .. . . . .. o.oo.o.. ...

Two manuscripts have been consulted by the recensores;the origi-

nal text seems to have been

The set of letters that I believe formed the original sentences contains
a feminine subject (i'•i?) with preceding predicate; and two desig-
nations of places, the second of which is intelligible: 617n2 "6
"and in the niches of thy lepers." The Arab. lahdun means a recess b_-,
in the side of the grave; here probably some cavities in the rock
where the sick people dwelt are spoken of. The priestly code ordered
them to live outside the camp [Lev. 13:46]); cf. Keil-
"'n2
inschriftliche Bibliothek, IV, 80 (M*'_t._
(col. III, 11. 18-21); II Kings 15:5
(King Azariah had to live in the i'i~Slf when he became
r'-,
leprous.) Stade doubted whether there were special houses for lepers
in Semitic antiquity.38 The first local designation may have been
"within thy precincts," , "dwelling-place," being de-
..,5-,from a root
rived . that is often found in Syriac
, solvit, habitavit,
i'.s
as ZA T W, VI, 157 ff.

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184 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

and Aramaic; as to the change of 2 and N, see my note on

T2". e"]."; ri ' is perhaps a loanword.
But what is hidden in the first words? Most likely some act or oc-
currence was announced here without which the purifying ('•bR)
would not have been possible. Luckily, Ezek. 22:17-22 assists our
.3 1 We read in verse 20
imagination." I;E , "to
blow the fire upon it so as to melt it,"7'.Z:l-
and, indeed, there can be no
smelting without fire.40 The subject of the sentence might therefore
have been ;'7 . In Arab. gahama means accendit ignem, gahuma
and gahima, arsit; gahim, ignis ingens et vehementerardens, omnis ignis
cuius una pars est supra altera; the last-named meaning also belongs
to gahmatun and guhmatun. Then the predicate was Ti1, "it will
burn," from a root identical with the Assyr. hamdttu, "to burn (in-
trans.)" (see HWB, pp. 281b f.), and there is a Hebrew stem, 12 2, "to
burn (trans.)."41 Perhaps, however, we ought to read ,ri
M:,""r.
The ending '1 is sometimes used with verbs in the singular, even
with the singular of the masculine form (of the third person), as
(Judg. 5:26); 1':0,"
- ((Isa.
s . 228:3);42
: .. .T)T "
'7"'
T : "T-
.T

39 In vs. 20 there is a grave corruption; anticipate the following

)"1=7; is inexplicable; • 'In. _. ".':
anticipates the following M• r-
is superfluous after P'
5?.In".:t .• has .•.-.
Jahn noticed that the words "'I3 sy*\WI _l\;
(vs.
CF:.)] .
do not seem to stand in their place. The basis of the suspicious words has been:
22)

..', . ri. .? EN

and this basis contains three variants of -CrEC)N;

• may mean, as Assyr. uppu, "the whole of" (HWB, p. 114b); as to , cf.
i (Ezek. 13:20). Verse 20b may, then, have read i4!g~
m3'ip~.3
:P:i' "So will I gather all of you and blow upon you." r. '.•
'"•i
Buddehave seen that; Martithoughtof insertingL~
40Martiand,"\"T2•., j
before Buddereads~t (ZA TW, 1931,p. 33).
pig";
See .
n. 4: the Gaon of Pumbeditha, R. Hai, where he
41 Biichler, ZATW, XXXII, 62,
wants to interpret the root '"n, quotes Dan. 10:3, , "fresh, warmbread";
7.? for n*r.
so he must have read in the Mishna (Hullin, III, 3) r'.l. And the Arfikh (III,
424 if.) decided, against some of the commentators, in favor of The Cambridge
"Irt'.
Mishna has i'Ith:1.
42 See Procksch. Jesaia. I. 350.

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 A PROPOSEDNEW METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 185

~ ? (MT G (Lam. 1:13), "From above

hath he sent•' fire I into my •_', bones it fell."
lT7.) The text of Ps. 65:11 f.
seems to have been n1• . 1
rr Mri5
~, "Make juicy its herb with
.--l2". showers-bless the summits. O'"Y-".with
the -tabundance of Thy wealth" (cf. the Arab. magga, succulentusfuit
cum intraret aqua, de arbore []Kam];and as to gjethe Arab. autana,
liberaliter largitus fuit, and Prov. 5:9). Ps. 8:2 reads V11 itM~'
5 (MT ), "Thy majesty is glorious above the
M•i'-MJ
-t:tu.il (cf. the Assyr. arcdu, "to be gigantic, most powerful");43
heavens"
,170 means "heat," as in Ps. 19:1. In the passage of Ezekiel quoted
above (22: 17-22), the melting fire means a war; here it probably re-
fers to a pestilence by which the bad elements of the town's popu-
lation are to be destroyed.
') I wish to add a few remarks: (1) In 29, 30 G, S have everywhere
the third person; but G seems to have preserved a remainder of the
text as given by MT in & ab'roltoiobXhorro;they found ~
'17Vr (a
corruption of In •'7•) and interpreted it as ~?
ll~'th; T has every-
where the second person, perhaps upon exegetical grounds. In fact, the
restitutions of verses 27 and 28 and of verses 29-31 are by different
scholars; when they were put together, somebody replaced by
(2) It would take a long digression to I
explain why .V5j2.trans-
?
late
•'.. t)A2 'M "the Leader of Hosts." (3) I have assumed that a
couple of restitutions have found their way into verses 21 and 22.
How was that possible? I think the whole piece was once written
and KW)vq86V, in this manner:
arpoq&,bv

Some restitutor believed (erroneously) that the letters of the recensio

(' :73 2wnrn)belonged to the first stanza; he interpreted them ac-
cordingly and placed them where they stand now; and when the dif-
ferent restitutions were collected, they had to be left where they stood.
43 This root occurs also in Deut. 16:10, 1 1 i
L17 1 1'1I]
[MT] .filZf
ljiZj'
"According to .... thou shalt make it [the festival] solemn." jTI9nli is corrupt;
I cannot give my reasons here for what I believe to be their emendation.

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186 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

TEXT AND TRANSLATION44

t
mik1 V=D. . . T
..

2lab How hath she become a harlot the faithful city I

22a Wherein
21d Thy silver
righteousness dross and Tnow murderers.
has becomeabode

23a Thy rulers are rebellious, and associates of thieves I1

23b Everyoneloveth a bribe I and pursuethrewards
23c
23d They secure
Nor does thenot the right
widow's ofcome
cause the orphan
unto them.
24abeacrwnofgor,
fo Therefore,saith the
the or eope; spritof nd
Ithe Leader
ndfo Lord,adadm f of hosts:
eatyutoth
im
I
hatsitethin
rsiueo
Greatheat shall burnwithin thy precincts and in the nichesofudg thy
udgentto
25b And I will smelt out the whole of thy dross I
lepers.

25c And will removeall thine alloy from thee.

26a And I will restorethy judgesas at first and thy counselorsas at the
beginning,
26c Afterwardthou shalt be called I City of Justice,faithful city.
E) Isa. 28:5, 6.-These verses are a transparent and instructive
instance of a "spurious passage." "In that day shall the Lord of hosts
be for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty unto the residue of
the people; And for a spirit of judgment to him that sitteth in judg-
ment and for strength to them that turn the battle to the gate." They
interrupt the connection of verses 1-4 and verse 7,45 and do not refer
to any historical time, but to an ideal age of military success and
victorious justice, when the god more than the human agents will act
in the foreground of the stage. Duhm has seen that these sentences
are not Isaian, and Guthe, Cheyne, and Marti have followed him.46
But why do they stand here?
44 I have
freely used Gray's rendering (op. cit., pp. 31 and 32).
4 See what I say below about the possibility of separating vss. 1-4 from vss. 7-22.
46Procksch is inclined to place these verses before 4:2, 3 and to consider them all as
Isaian; he understands "'( and P'IN (4:2) of the growth of the last days;
but how can that be said .I ,i a glory, a pride and an adornment," but by
to be "a beauty and
a very loose writer? These verses are as bad as vss. 4-6 (see Gray's remarks, op. cit., 77).

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 A PROPOSEDNEW METHOD OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 187

In the second verse of Isaiah, chapter 28, MT has pr-

"'-'N
it ,i,'i
there-
M"1' , G lob Kai b
0v'lOB& Kvpiov; seems,
'iao'vpbv oKXf•pov
fore, that in G's Hebrew text "2.^1 was followed by a noun not of the
same gender as YH2•1 pV1, i.e., by a feminine substantive, ?Z or
'iW27; the latter is rendered by Ovjl6s (Ps. 77 [78]:49; Lam. 2:2;
Hos. 13:11). As it is a predicate we expect here (with M-- as its suffix,
referring to n~'1), is probably the right reading: "He has
•27 2:2;47 Jer. 23:9). If this is so, it becomes
carried it away" (cf. Zeph.
clear either that Isaiah, while uttering verses 1-4, bore in mind the
thoughts of his political adversaries, 3i: b "2 Jai zi,
•
"When the rushing flood passes, it will not crush us" . (28:15),48
or that both he and his adversaries make use of a line of a contempo-
rary poet; for, besides tl' , he says in verse 2 and I"ct
t"U•E
in verse 3. ..
Some Greek manuscripts (HP 36, 48, 51, 90, 144, 233, 308) have,
instead of 6py' Kvplov,wrapa Kvplov Gb O8v6 s KvpLovKal 6py@' i.e.,

. .
; 6pyO is used to translate q)pP Num. 16:22, 44; II Chron.
?.~.p ? 24:18; Isa. 60:10, etc.
19:2, 10;
If we now turn to the words following it appears that we
verses 5 and 6 are useful
have twice the same set of words, and thatM-•".,
exactly to restore the letters they were composed of.
Verse

pendium of the god's name (see n. 18); the

..... of (vs. 5) and, etc.]

into has been added, and has been taken as a com-[GHP

v-
G has instead of (MT verse 2), 0V''5: eXovaa
=Wjp'171 )0' ob CrKE77,V.
At the beginning of verse 5, has been changed
'.. by the restitutor
into X]I'M[71. has been added, and 7 has been taken as a com-
,'i"'
pendium of the god's name (see n. 18); the b of r)'It (vs. 5) and
47The words I"11IV mean "like chaff that the storm has carried away"; as to
'11, see below; instead of prI MT we must read, with G, R lU
a48 is here r•nI
with ="t vs. Isa. 41:25,
b1 synonymous C7~I; cf. 18, .~ll.
l"'
(not to be changed!); Ps. 36:12; Ir~ , "Let not the foot
b. .•..; •. of pride
crush me."
.•

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188 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

the =2 of the first tE'7•E (vs. 6) are likewise without any founda-
tion in tradition; the supplementary letters have been suggested by
the second t~~2:B 49 and by C~' "'2.t.2• ('v Ayiyrnrrp),verse 5,
is found in the Greek manuscripts 49, 87, 91," 97, 228, 301, 309, and
the Aldina.
The passage seems to have run
r:T trn3
C-qrsm trr nn0 ["ar:3p]

=t"" belongs to the Arabic verb lahha IV, "poured forth rain in-
cessantly (cloud)," and probably means incessant rains."5What stands
before t1f7• is no part of the text, but most likely a piece of histori-
cal information; it seems to be the name of the yl2 prjT. '
is one of several possible readings and may be similar to ,EP
.3p
being either identical with qais, that often occurs in names 5'.
of persons
and nations,52 or with a conjectural divine name i;p contained in
jip5J the name of Nahum's birthplace. As this was situated, ac-
cording., to one tradition,53 in the south of Palestine, beyond Eleu-
theropolis, in the territory of Simeon, there is some ground for the be-
lief that [ was an Edomite leader of troups.54
'.f]
If I may give a conjectural restoration to the second line, verses 2
and 3 would run thus:

-- 0 "--: ". "."-: ? :

One mighty and strong has swept it away Like showersof rain powerful
and rushing,
He has cast to the groundthe gloriousadornment11and the diademof pride
is troddenby feet.
[To be concluded]
49
• has twice been changed into t:); the restitutors were very eager to find the
word L*BM in their documents.
50As to Z,2, cf. Jer. 14:18, (MT, GB), •'1?- (GA).
51 See, as to these, Dalman,
r7I
cit., I, 1, 183 f.; 187, n. 3; 207.
op.
52 Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidenthums, p. 67; N1ldeke hesitates to combine it
with the name of the Edomite god OD (ZD MG, XLI, 714, n. 1).
53 See Nestle, ZDPV, I, 222-25, and the vitae prophetarum attributed to Epiphanius,
pp. 26 and 27, in the same scholar's Marginalien und Materialien NaosI Arb
6'EXKEal
•rpav
70)0 'IatlyaapaY Ov;)sj lvpetv.

speaks here of an Edomite attack upon Samaria, then 28:1-4 does not, of
54 If Isaiah

course, refer to the capture of the town in 721, but to a previous event not recorded-as so
many other events-in the books of Kings.

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