soever they would for wives, is probable in itself, and but too well supported by example in every age. This version is that of the Samar. both Arabs, Onkel. Aquil. and Sym, Pious Bishop Wilson adopts it, and observes, When great men make vice fashionable by their example and authority, it is the beginning of a total corruption and general judgment.' Luke xvii. 27.

3. My Spirit shall, &c. The sense of striving' attributed to the verb (a) in the common version, is supported by no authority, (see Note Heb. Bibles). The sense given is obvious, and Eupported by the use of the word in other places. Michaelis, from the Arabic, renders, My Spirit shall not be always despised among men,' &c. Some of the versions read (b) shall not always abide or dwell in man.' With other critics I consider (w) a verbal noun, signifying, in ignorance, unwarned. The warning follows, 'their days shall therefore yet be, &c,' Compare Nehem. ix. 30.

We cannot pass over the eleventh chapter, without noticing the alterations which Mr. Boothroyd has introduced into the text. There is, he remarks, in his note to the eleventh verse, a considerable difference in the chronology from the flood to the time of Abraham, between the Hebrew text, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint. The two latter add a hundred years to the age of each before they begot children, which makes a 'difference of 700 years; and if Cainan be admitted, of 830 years. Thinking it improbable that the Post-deluvians would live above a hundred years before they married, he prefers the chronology of the Hebrew text, adding from the Septuagint the account of Cainan. To this proceeding, however, it is obvious to object, that if the chronology of the seventy be discarded in the other instances, it should also be rejected in the case of Cainan, whose age at the birth of Salah, should be reduced to thirty years, in conformity with the Hebrew text. Instead of this number of years, Mr. Boothroyd gives us 185 years, as the age of Cainan on the birth of his son Salah. By this adoption of the Septuagint reading, it is quite obvious, that he furnishes an insuperable objection to bis preference of the Hebrew text, as it is an admission that the Post-deluvians lived a hundred years before they married. To preserve consistency, Mr. Boothroyd should have reduced the Septuagint numbers to those of the Hebrew in the example before us.

Gen. xii. 16. Mr. Boothroyd's translation of this verse is professedly founded on the admitted reading of the Samaritan text, but it is incorrectly represented, and the version given corresponds neither to the Samaritan nor to the Hebrew lection. He-asses, which is marked as if it were a various reading substituted for one of less authority, is common to both the Samaritan and Hebrew copies: so is she asses,' which Mr. B.

has improperly omitted in his version. The passage should I read as follows:

And Abram was kindly treated for her sake; and had flocks and herds, a very large possession; and men servants, and maid-servants, and he-asses, and she-asses, and camels.' Ch. xiv. 9. Tidal king of Goim.' The definite article is omitted, and by this means Goim appears as the name of a place, and not as a national appellative, which is the usage of the word in the 2d verse- Tidal king of the Goim.'

Ch. xlix Geddes is generally followed in the translation of this chapter, in which we observe but few deviations from the public version. The 10th verse appears in the following form. 10. A sceptred chief shall not depart from Judah,

Nor a judge from his own offspring,

Until the Shiloh come;

To whom the nations shall be obedient.'

Exodus vi. 3. And I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, by the name of GOD, the Almighty; but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.

Ch. vi. 3. I was not known to them.' There is a designed antithesis between the name God assumed, when he appeared to the patriarchs, and that he now assumed; and this seems to me the most natural and consistent sense of this passage; I appeared to, and entered into covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God, the Almighty, but by my name, Jehovah, I was not known to them, as their covenant God, but by this name I now enter into covenant with you, and by this name I will be known as your God. Hence, in the following history, this name generally occurs; and by it he claims their submission and obedience. "I am Jehovah, or, 1 am Jehovah, your God," is the reason assigned for his various laws. The name Jehovah was known to the patriarchs, if the present text be any authority, (for there is much variety of lection), but it was not appropriated to him as their God.'

Exodus xvii. 15, 16. is a perplexing passage: "And Moses "built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi. For " he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the Lord will "have war with Amalek from generation to generation." The Authors of the Common Version have added in the margin, as explanatory of the preceding rendering, Or, Because the hand of Amalek is against the throne of the LORD, therefore the Lord will have war with Amalek, &c.' accompanying it with the literal import of the Hebrew, The hand upon the 'throne of the Lord.' The following is Mr. Boothroyd's version, which is copied from that of Geddes.

And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it JehovahNissi, (Jehovah is my signal). And he said, "Because this shall be known as my signal of the war which Jehovah will have with Amalek from generation to generation,"

The alterations made in the text of the original, from which the reading in the translation is derived, will not satisfy, perhaps, every reader. A very different construction of the passage is given by Bate in his Translation of the Pentateuch, who renders it, And he said, Surely the hand upon the cup of Jah (is, or denotes) war from Jehovah with Amalek, from generation to generation.'

A translator is never more worthy of our grateful acknowledgements for his labours, than when he is employing his learning and his judgement for the purpose of removing the obscurities of preceding versions that may have proved the occasion of erroneous opinion, or of distressing reflection. In such cases, the sense, rather than the idiom, ought to be retained. To such cases Mr. Boothroyd has been laudably attentive. In the example so frequently adduced, as opposed to the equity of God in his government of men, Exodus iv. 21. which the Common Version reads, "I will harden his heart," Mr. B. renders, I will permit his heart to be so hardened.' Nothing more, he remarks in his note, is meant, than the leaving of a man to the bent and tendency of his own disposition. In Chap. xxxii, 32, the reading of the Common Version is preserved: "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book "which thou hast written." There is here no question of future perdition, though such a construction has been given to the passage: we are satisfied with Mr. B., that Moses expresses nothing more than his wish rather to die, than to see the destruction of Israel. We could almost express our readiness to accept a version of the text directly in this form, but are at the same time so sensible of the objections that may be urged against so free a rendering, that on the whole we are satisfied to have the sense given in the margin. The reader may compare, if he pleases, the perplexities of Pool with the plain, unembarrassed criticism of Henry on this passage.

Deut. xviii. 15, in Mr. Boothroyd's version, presents us a striking instance of change of opinion in the Translator. In his Hebrew Bible he maintained, in a note, that the passage refers to a succession of prophets in the Jewish Church, and that though the writers of the New Testament have accommodated the words to Jesus Christ, the series of Moses's speech cannot be reconciled with such an interpretation, unless in a figurative and mystical meaning. The reasoning of Dathe in support of this view of the subject, appeared to Mr. B. to be so just, that he extracts the passage for his reader's use. But in the Translation he rejects Dathe's interpretation, and limits the prediction of Moses to the person of Christ.

Deut. xxvi. 5. C. V. "A Syrian ready to perish was my

"father."

Geddes. My forefather was a wandering Aramite.”
Boothroyd. A wandering Syrian was my father."

Mr. Boothroyd's version, which is not different from that of Geddes, we consider as altogether inadmissible. No instance can, we apprehend, be cited, in which the Hebrew verb means to wander: it uniformly imports perishing, and is a very common word. We shall quote Mr. Boothroyd's note on the passage, for the purpose of examining the solidity of the reasons on which he grounds the adopted reading.

אובד

A wandering Syrian, &c. The sense given to 728, or 7218 in the common version, does not seem appropriate to the condition of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were not, ready to perish, but were rich and prosperous. I have therefore followed Dathe and others, who justly observe, that the word is applied to the sheep which has wandered from the fold, Psalm cxix. 176, and that the word in this sense is suited to the life of the patriarchs. Abraham was a Syrian by birth, and by the call of God, a wanderer from his kindred and country. Though God gave to him many promises, yet the only possession he had in Canaan, was that of a burying place. Isaac and Jacob lived a like wandering life. These patriarchs, as the root of the Jewish people, are meant by father.'

19

The reference evidently is to Jacob, as the immediate head of the twelve patriarchs whose names designated the twelve tribes. He was their "father," since from him the whole nation were called Israelites. That Jacob is meant, appears very clearly from the subsequent part of the verse: "He went "down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few; and "there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous' The sense given in the Common Version, to the word in question, we must take leave to say, is most appropriate to the case of Jacob, who certainly considered himself as being "ready to perish," when in a time of severe famine, he assigned as a reason for sending his sons into Egypt to buy grain, "that we may live and not die." See Gen. xlii. 2. A reference to this fact cannot be considered as otherwise than appropriate in the confession of an Israelite on offering bis first fruits in Canaan to the Lord. The example cited from Psalm exix. 176, is totally insufficient to prove that the word 78 means wandering: it is there applied to a sheep which had strayed from the fold, and was in danger of perishing; "a lost sheep." "A Syrian ready to perish was my father," the reading of the Common Version, ought by all means, to be retained.:

Deut. xxxii. 5, is confessedly a difficult passage. Kennicott thought that the first part of the verse, as it now stands in the Hebrew text, did not adinit of any regular construction; he preferred the reading of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and pro

posed to read, They are corrupted; not his, children of pollution.' Geddes endeavours to extract a meaning out of both texts: Corrupted are his own degenerate children.' Which is followed by the present Translator: Corrupted are his own 'polluted children;' literally, he remarks, His own children have corrupted themselves, by their pollution.' But neither the Heb. nor the Sam. reading can be this literally construed. Mr. Boothroyd's version is tautological; and though we may allow that he has given what appears to be the sense, we do not perceive very clearly by what means he has been able to obtain it.

We prefer the rendering in the Common Version, of v. 11th of this chapter, to the following, the first part of which fails in expressing the striking and beautiful allusion of the original. It is not to the affection of the eagle as watching her nest, that the Hebrew term refers, "but to the action of the eagle in exciting her young to fly; a sense which is admirably preserved by the Vulgate provocans ad volandum pullos suos.'

'As an eagle, with affection, watcheth her nest,

And hovereth over her young;

Or spreadeth her wings, and taketh them up,
And beareth them on her pinions,

So Jehovah alone conducted them :".

The

Joshua v. 1. Until they had passed over.' reading of the Common Version is in the first person, "Until "we had passed over." As this is the only passage in the book, in which the Hebrew text exhibits the narrative in the first person, there is certainly strong presumption against the accuracy of the Common Version which is copied from it. We cannot hesitate in admitting the propriety of the alteration adopted by Mr. Boothroyd, for which he has cited only the authority of manuscripts. The versions also support the correction.

Ch. viii. 3. Three thousand is substituted for thirty thousand, as the proper reading, from conjecture, in opposition to the text and all the versions. Mr. B. is in this instance less timid than Geddes, who retains the reading of the Common Version in his translation, with a reference to his margin, in which a note is inserted stating this persuasion that the true number is three. This conjectural emendation we should be disposed to receive as one of the most probable corrections of the kind.

Judges v. 21. Over mighty persons thou didst prevail.' This rendering we deem totally inadmissible. The grammatical construction of the passage is entirely violated. The verb rendered didst prevail,' is feminine, (5) and cannot be construed with the noun torrent, (b) which is the antecedent, according to Mr. Boothroyd's version, an which being in the