Teuch

(a) The character of the MSS, and the method of dividing the text.—The Samaritan manu- scripts, like the majority of the Jewish ones, are of parchment or paper; the Samaritans like- wise preferred the roll form for use in Divine worship. The Samaritan MSS want the vowel signs and the accents, which are employed in the Jewish Pentateuch.

In lieu of these they exhibit the following signs: a point separates each word from the next; two points, similar to the colon in modern languages, mark off smaller and larger paragraphs (Kohn, Zur Sprache, Litt., u. Dogmatik d. Samaritaner, p. 1f.) The whole Pentateuch is divided by the Samaritans into sections which they call ssp (kazin). Of these they reckon in the Pentateuch 966 (Hupfeld, ZDMG, 1867, p.

20), while the Jews are accustomed to count in the Torah 379 close and 290 open parashas (cf. Konig, Hindeit. BEAG) Sapaleuavie (6) Linguistic differences. The vowel letters are much more frequently employed in the Samaritan than in the MT. Even shéwd is many times indi- cated by 1 or *: for instance, nynx, a form which the MT first exhibits in 2 Ch 8}8, is written by the Samaritan in Dt 28%, or "ww is read for wa in Dt 34.

The orthography which the MT favours, especially in the earlier parts of the OT, agrees still oftener with that found on the Jewish coins. But the Samaritan Pentateuch thus reflects the latest stage of development reached by Hebrew orthography within the OT, and in a great many instances goes even beyond this. In the matter of pronouns, the unusual forms are regularly changed into the usual ones. For instance, 7, which in the Pentateuch (Gn 2” ete.)

stands for the later 7 195 times, and which is altered in the MT only in the margin, is replaced by x7 in the Samaritan in the text. The form 13, which is permitted in the MT, is changed in the Samaritan into 1m (Gn 42", Ex 16%, Nu 32). As to the conjugation of verbs, the lightened form of the imperfect, the so-called jussive, is almost always changed into the ordinary form: 2¥*) (Gn 32!)

is replaced by 2 (read by the high priest Amram as wyeshdv) ; xv (41°) by anv (yere’t) ; x yy) (311° 41”) by mene (wére’s). —In the declension of nowns, the endings in -6 and -4, which, in spite of J. Barth (ZDMG, 1899, p. 598), are to be considered relics of the old case-endings, are almost uniformly dropped: ima appears as nn in Gn 1” (12 of Nu 23!8 24% 15 is left unaltered) ; 333 as na (genuwat) in Gn 31; and andy as aDN in Ex 15%.

In the construction of nouns, many of the marks are obliterated which point to a nomen generis being of common gender: eg. 1y3 ‘young 70 SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH maiden’ (Gn 24™- 16. 28. 65.57 343.12, T)t 2215-29 [except v./*]). which the Massoretes altered only in the margin, is changed into my (ndra) in the text of the Samaritan (cf. Gesenius, de Pentateuchi Sam- aritant origine, ete. p. 28 ff.) The solitary occur- rence of p which the present writer (Ledrgeb. ii.

293) has been able to discover before the article in the Pentateuch is jy7p of Gn 6”, and this dis- appears in the ya 39 (min aéph) of the Samaritan. —In the lexical sphere, the following differences are worthy of note: 79° ‘ beget’ is replaced by the form that became usual in later times, V7, in Gn 108 and 22%, The verb nu, which is used in Ex 2175: 29. 31. 32.36 of the ‘ pushing’ of an ox, is re- placed by the more familiar verb 737 ‘strike.

’— Differences of a syntactical or stylistic kind are the following- the sentence 74. 1.0 axd jaba (MT of Gn 177 ‘shall a child be born to one who is a hundred years old?’ LXX ef rq éxarovraere? yev}- cetat vids;) is in perfect agreement with the Hebrew linguistic usage as this appears in Gn 438 etc. But the Samaritan has missed this construc- tion, and substituted the easier alben maat shena uléd (vx), ‘shall I at the age of a hundred years beget a child?’ In the MT of Gn 7?

the formula \nvy} Wx appears alongside of the synonymous pair of words 739" 731 (v.°). This variety of expression disappears in the Samaritan, which uses the latter formula in both verses. The asyndetic yy (Gn 1), bx (318), ordain (64), oA (v.°), are changed into xy etc., and greater clearness is thus obtained.— Under the same heading may be ranged certain phenomena of diction, due to the Aramaic dialect, which afterwards became naturalized among the Samaritans.

For instance, we find yw for px (Gn 84), onaa for ona; (7!*), roy for on ‘wine’ (Dt 32"). The gutturals are thus very frequently interchanged, because to the Samaritan copyist, accustomed to the Aramaic dialect, they had lost their distinctive phonetic values. To the same cause are due such forms as that of the pronoun ne (Gn 121) 18 2447. 6) and anx (315), or of ‘npny (for npns Gn 18"), the infinitive mam (for rmd 935), etc. (cf. Gesenius, /.c. p. 53 ff.)

(c) Material differences: (2) many passages are altered or supplemented from parallel passages. For instance, mvyx Xb of Gn 18” is replaced in the Samaritan by nnws xb 1d ashit, after vv. 3%, The servant of Moses is called in the MT sometimes yoin (Nu 13836 Dt 32"), and sometimes y(1)vim (Ex 17%. 18t. 248 etc.)

, but the Samaritan writes the latter form even in the three passages in which the change of Hoshea into Jehoshua is recorded, so that we read in Nu 1316 ‘and Moses called Jehoshua, the son of Nun, Jehoshua’! Again, in Gn 118 the formula is regularly added, ‘and all the years of .. were... years, and he died,’ which is derived from the parallel genealogy (5°), In 17 ‘on the eighth day’ is read in harmony with the parallel passage. i fter 30° we find a long addition, which is borrowed from 31.

Specially striking is the following series of passages: Ex 6° (cf. 141%) 738 (cf. vv.16-18) 79 (ef. vv. 26-28) 8!" (cf, vv. 16-19) 95-29 107 TIS (ch 4) 1S 5(et Dit! 2204 (ChE 272. 5-7) 202) (ef. Dt 5% 28 1818-22 527f.)

39°) Nn 414 1910 1218) 13% 92013 02108 2S ote aoe Olen nae remarkable circumstance about all these passages is that in every instance where it is recorded that Moses said or did something, this is always pre- ceded by a statement in so many words that it was a Divine command that he should act so, and, wherever a Divine command is recorded, this is re- eated in the same terms when we are told that oses fulfilled it.

This is a carrying to the ex- treme of that pleonastic form of expression which may be observed also in certain portions of the Jewish-Hebrew Pentateuch (cf. Kénig, Séilistil, etc. pp. 169, 172, 176). That the above passages in the Samaritan Pentateuch are of secondary origin is sufticiently evident from the circumstance that its text there has not the support of a single ancient witness.—(8) There are differences due to a religious or other like interest.

The statement in Gn 2” 'n agin ova aby bon, ‘and God declared all his work finished (see Kénig, Syntax, § 95d) on the seventh day’ was not understood, and so the seventh was changed into the sixth day (Sam. beydm eshshishshi). The number 430 years, during which the Hebrews sojourned in Egypt, . according to the MT of Ex 12”, appeared to be too large, and hence the expression 3939 s1x2 ‘in the land of Canaan’ was inserted before the words ‘in the land of Egypt.

’ (By the way, the MT of Ex 12” is shown by Ezk 45 to have been the text in existence at the time of the prophet, for the 390+40 years of Ezk 45 are nothing else than a reflexion of the 430 years of the Egyptian bondage of Israel), Again, the plural predicate with which ons ‘God’ is coupled in Gn 20! 315 357 and Ex 228, is changed into a singular, in order to avoid the appearance of polytheism (Kohn, de Samari- tano Pentateucho, p. 22).—Another group is formed by the following passages.

—The statement in Ex 244 yn ‘and they belied (sc. God),’ is aot by unxn ‘and they cleaved to (God),’ the idea being that the Deity must have been strictly invisible. The conception of God was thus transcendentalized. In obedience to the same motive, so-called inter- mediary beings are introduced between God and man, o'7>x (‘God’) being replaced by pdx axbo (‘an angel of God’) in Nu 22” 234, and mm by ma oxbp in vv.

526, Conversely, 7x92 (‘the angel’) is once, Gn 4818, changed into 3$p7 (‘the king’), in order to avoid attributing to the angel what God Himself had accomplished, namely, the deliverance of Jacob. The Samaritans showed themselves in other instances as well very jealous for the char- acter of God.

From this motive they changed the words ‘take all the heads of the people and hang them up’ (Nu 25*-) into ‘command that they slay the men who attached themselves to Baal-peor,’ the command as it runs in the MT appearing to involve an injustice on the part of God. To the same category belongs the substitu- tion of ‘hero (w1°3) of war’ for ‘man (wx) of war,’ as a designation of God in Ex 15%.—Yet another group of differences have for their aim the securing of the esthetic purity of the Law.

The Samaritans, for instance, have not only taken into the text those marginal readings which the Jewish Mas- soretes adopted for esthetic reasons (Dt 28%), but have replaced the term rwan ‘his secrets’ (25") by nwa ‘his flesh.’—Finally, it was upon national grounds that the name 5a'y (‘Ebal) was exchanged for oui (Gerizim) in Dt 274. It has been shown, notably by Verschuir (in No. ili.

of his Disserta- tiones philologice-exegetice, 1773), that the con- text demands the building of the altar nowhere but upon Mt.‘Ebal. God is presented especially as witness to the oath and as arava of an breach of it (29! 1), and accordingly we loa both for the building of the altar as a symbol of the Divine presence, and for the offering of sacri- fice by the people, upon ¢hat mountain from which the curse was proclaimed (27).

After the Sam- aritans, moved probably by 27” where Gerizim is named as the mount of blessing, had built their temple upon this mountain to the south of Shechem, ‘they would be led naturally enough to introduce the name Gerizim in v.4,. The Jews, on the other hand, had no interest to substitute the name ‘Elal for the name Gerizim, for the point that concerned them was not whether Gerizim or ‘Ebal was to have the preference, but whether the hegemony belonged to Gerizim or to Zion (Jn 4”).

In view of all these differences between the SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH Jewish-Hebrew and the Samaritan-Hebrew Pen- tateuch, there can be no doubt that what the Samaritans possess is a later form of the Pen- tateuch. Whether we look at the groups dealing with linguistic differences or at those connected with the subject-matter, the indications point to a late period.

A sufficient evidence of this is supplied by the Jewish marginal readings which are taken by the Samaritans into the fet itself, but the same conclusion follows equally from the theological peculiarities of the Samaritan Penta- teuch which have been mentioned above. For the same transcendentalizing of the conception of God is met with also in the later writings of the Jews: ¢.g.

the statement ‘and God was grieved’ (Gn 6°) is replaced in the Targum of Onkelos by ‘and He commanded by His xx>2 (word) to destroy their energies according to His will.’ iii. RELATION OF THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH