ployer may do for his workpeople is of little value unless he feels rightly, and shews the right feeling towards them. Of course we must not forget that the workpeople have reciprocal duties, and that these also must be enforced. They must be faithful, considerate, conscientious, trustworthy. On this point the New Testament perpetually reminds us of the circle of Christian duty. And on this, as on every other subject, the Christian pulpit should be an echo of the Christian record.

Lastly, we would have the church to encourage those of her ministers or members who feel a special interest in the subject to do all they can, in their individual capacity, consistently with their other duties, for advancing the temporal welfare of the community. An individual minister may do much that the collective body may not do. On his own responsibility, he may take a part in many undertakings on which the church could not enter, upon her responsibility. The press will give him that aid in circulating his views which he might be tempted to seek from the publicity of church courts. By this course he will not be committing others to his views, nor asking them to pledge themselves to positions which imperfect information may make them unwilling to take up. True, he does all this cum periculo. He runs the risk of becoming secularised. His likelihood to avoid this risk depends on the strength of the spiritual fire within him. If the spirit of earnest piety be strong, there is little to fear. If it be weak, the danger is, that he will enter on secularities in a con amore spirit, very different from that in which he preaches the gospel. In that case he will hurt the cause which he seeks to advance; and the dust of worldliness will soil his garments, and dim the lustre of his soul. W. G. B.

ART. III.-Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

A Dictionary of the Bible, comprising its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History. Edited by WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D. Second Edition. 1861-3.

A

DICTIONARY of the Bible which should contain the latest and fullest information on Biblical subjects, arranged and discussed by competent hands, was much needed when Smith's Dictionary appeared. Whether that work fulfils these requirements may be a matter for debate. We believe that to

New School of English Critics.

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a large extent it does. In some respects it does not. It could not indeed have been expected that, in a work so vast, abounding with most varied erudition, and most patient research, all the contributions would be marked by equal precision and care in stating and verifying facts. But whatever may be the shortcomings proved or believed to exist in the Dictionary, there are few who will withhold from the contributors and editor the praise of great zeal, high ability, and extensive research in their undertaking. It is not, however, to the excellencies of the work that we propose calling attention. It is to a drawback, and in our opinion to a serious drawback, to its value as an otherwise admirable help to students of Scripture. Nor does this drawback apply to only one or two articles. It is woven into the structure of a large part of the book. Now and again, in articles written by different contributors, we find it stated that the Hebrew manuscripts used by the LXX in translating the Old Testament into Greek, two or three hundred years before our era, contained "probably correct" readings, which our printed Hebrew text, as arranged by the Masorets long after, does not exhibit. So often do we come across this probable correctness of the version of the LXX, and probable wrongness of our Hebrew Bibles, that unpleasant apprehensions of insecurity begin to take possession of our minds. If there are good grounds for suspecting the faultiness of our printed text, and the superiority, in any passages, of the renderings of the LXX, these apprehensions must be condemned as weaknesses arising from unworthy trembling for the ark of God. If there are not good grounds for calling the printed text in question, the sooner the claims put forward for the Septuagint are thoroughly sifted and disposed of, the better it will be for the cause of truth.

We do not deny that the differences between the version of the Seventy and our present Hebrew text are both singular and startling. But it is possible to make too much of them.

It may be that the Greek translators have sometimes given us the correct reading of a passage, which is obscured by a gloss or a copyist's error in our Hebrew Bible. But each of the instances which may be produced, must, at first, at least, stand or fall by itself. If we find the Greek version holding its own against the Hebrew, our respect for the former will rise, and for the latter fall. If, on the other hand, the Greek translators be convicted of error and inconsistency, not once or twice, but repeatedly, our confidence in their ability and trustworthiness may be thoroughly shaken. We do most cheerfully allow that the importance of the Septuagint as a whole cannot be overrated. Its value and excellencies are not in question. But when the Hebrew and Greek texts are found to give widely

different views of the same passage, both cannot be correct; which is right, and which is wrong?

Let us reduce these general principles to practice, by examining two or three passages, which are relied on to prove that the Seventy have sometimes, if not frequently, preserved the correct renderings of what are errors in our Hebrew text. We shall then be able to see whether this alleged correctness of the LXX does not rather arise from a want of care on the part of modern critics.

The first passage we shall take is one which several critics believe to be erroneous in our present Hebrew Bibles. It is in 1 Chron. xvii. 10. According to the printed text, Nathan is there represented saying to David, "Furthermore I tell thee (TNT), that the Lord will build thee an house." But the Seventy read, “And I will increase thee (zai aůžhow σs = 7720)), and the Lord will build thee an house." That is to say, the LXX clearly read as one word what our present text reads as two, for the Hebrew letters are the same in both cases. Either reading gives a perfectly good sense to the passage. Which of them, then, is to be preferred? the supposed reading of the unknown manuscript used by the Seventy, or the text as banded down to us by the Masorets? In short, did the Masorets fall into an error by stupidly separating into two words what was only one, or has the Greek translator as stupidly gone wrong by turning two words into one? Canon Selwyn (Art. Septua gint) says, "The Septuagint has probably preserved the true division and sense.' We believe, on the contrary, that there is no room for a probability in the matter. The Seventy have given judgment against themselves, that they are entirely wrong. It happens that the speech of Nathan is also reported elsewhere in Scripture. In 2 Sam. vii. 11, his words are, “Also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house." In Chronicles, the telling is by Nathan; in Samuel, it is by Jehovah, Nathan keeping in the background. But the words, "The Lord telleth thee," might, if run together, be rendered, "The Lord hath increased thee." Have the Seventy been as consistent as our printed text? Have they kept in Samuel to the translation which they give in Chronicles? They have not: καὶ ἀπαγγελεί σοι Κύριος, ὅτι οἶκον οἰκοδομήσεις αὐτῷ, " Also the Lord telleth thee (will tell) that thou wilt build him an house."* The Greek translator of Samuel, following the Hebrew, uses ȧ-ayyeλ (telleth); the translator of Chronicles, augow (increase),

"That thou wilt build him an house" is not correct, see verse 18: "he will build thee an house" is meant. But the blunder does not surprise a careful reader of the LXX.

Stanley and Selwyn on probable errors in Hebrew. 699

in rendering the same word of the original. There cannot be more satisfactory evidence that aighow, I will increase, is a blunder on the part of the Seventy, and that our printed Hebrew text is perfectly correct.

The next example which we shall take of the alleged superiority of the Septuagint to the Hebrew, introduces us to the head of this new school of critics, the learned and accomplished Dean of Westminster. Commenting on the statement of the Hebrew Bible, 1 Sam. xxvii. 7, that David was "a full year and four months" in the land of the Philistines, he says, "The value of this is materially damaged by the variations in the LXX to four months, and Josephus to four months and twenty days" (Art. David, p. 406, g). But, as before, there is "material damage" done only to the unfortunate Greek translator, and to the learned Dean. The evidence of this is clear and full.

In the first of these two passages, the Greek translator makes David dwell with Achish four months, which in the second, a page or so farther on, lengthen out to between one and two years. Are not the correctness of the Hebrew and the blundering of the Greek clear as day?

It is plain from the above instances that little trust can be put in the fancies of critics about the "probably correct readings" of the manuscripts used by the Greek translators. Experience proves that there is not a more dangerous field of adventure than that of conjectural readings. It is a kind of dreamland, where the most learned and the most clear-sighted are the first to lose their way, to tumble into pitfalls, or to make themselves laughing-stocks. The instances given above do not therefore surprise us. The first of them is one of five, regarding which Canon Selwyn (Art. Septuagint) has no doubt that the Seventy have preserved the correct readings of the Hebrew. Of the other four we shall say nothing, as we do not mean to examine them here. But a careful critic will be slow to allow to the Seventy the superiority claimed for them.

Among other questions discussed in the article "Septuagint❞ is this: "Was the version (LXX) made from Hebrew manuscripts with the vowel points now used?" Twelve examples are given, for the purpose of shewing that the Greek translators pronounced the Hebrew differently from the Masorets. The inquiry may be interesting; it may also be important. If we had thorough confidence in the Seventy, it would shake our faith in the Masorets to find the former differing from the latter in the vowel sounds which they attached to the consonants; for what reliance could we then put on the points in our printed Hebrew text? However, one or two of the twelve examples will throw a flood of light on this curious subject.

In Numbers xvi. 5, we read, " Moses spake unto Korah, and unto all his company, saying, Even to-morrow (p) the Lord will shew who are his." Now pa may stand for pa, morning, or for p, to look at. "Even to-morrow" is the rendering in our English Bible; but the Seventy have izionira, he has looked at. It will not be denied, we presume, that the right translation is "to-morrow," or "in the morning," for which we have the equivalent word in verses 7 and 16; and it appears that the decision of Jehovah was given next day, apparently at the time of morning sacrifice. Nor is this the only case in which the Seventy have blundered with p. In 1 Sam. xi. 5, "And, behold, Saul came after the herd out of the field,” they have, Σαούλ ἤρχετο μετὰ τοπρωί ἐξ ἀγροῦ, " Saul came after the morning out of the field." But it was not μετὰ Torgot when Saul was coming from the field. On the contrary, it was night, after the labours of the day were over, and when the citizens of Gibeah, assembled in the gate, were hearing the news from Jabesh-Gilead. And the nonsense translation of the Seventy would never have been made, had they not confounded

an ox, with morning, just as they confounded the latter word with p, he looked at. The correct rendering in Samuel is not μerà TоTgwi, but "after the herd or oxen," with which Saul had probably been ploughing during the day. Clearly, then, while the Seventy blundered in translating the word p in both passages, their manuscripts were the same as ours. We say it was a blunder on their part; the critics whose views we are opposing, maintain that the vowel sounds they had were not the same as we have.

In further support of their theory, these critics bring forward not a few proper names, of which we may select for examination, Etham, Salchah, Bezer, and Pisgah. So far as these names are concerned, the case is thus put by Canon Selwyn.