312 On tlte Form of the Ark of Noah. 



What has now been said, renders it more than probable that 

 " tzoliar"" was not meant to express a window. It is our busi- 

 ness, then, to look out for the true meaning. ' 



Happily the Greek translation of the Septuagint throws an 

 important light upon the question ; and as the sense, in which 

 it is obvious the translators understood the word, makes the 

 whole passage under consideration highly intelligible, and in all 

 respects consistent with itself, we can have no hesitation in ad- 

 mitting it as the right one. 



The words which the English translators have rendered, " a 

 window shall thou make to the ark,^ the translators of the Sep- 

 tuagint have rendered " zTtcrwuym x<);»j(7g;j tjjv iciftaroy^'' where itti- 

 vvvetynv can obviously bear no other meaning than " bringing, 

 or gathering together, upwards, or towards the top.'''' 



It is evident from this, that the Greek translators understood 

 the word " tzohar " to imply the peculiar form of the ark itself, 

 and not to express a window or opening ; and their interpreta^ 

 tion of it must have been *' a narrowing or contracting top^"" 

 finishing above in a narrow ridge, like the pavilioned roof of a 

 cottage. With this sense, the sentence of the Hebrew complete- 

 ly accords with the following one, and both sentences make an 

 intelligible and consistent whole, — and are, " a narrowing top 

 shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shall thou finish it 

 above ,•" to which the literal translation of the Greek is entirely 

 equivalent, — " gathering it together upwards shalt thou make 

 the ark, aud in a cubit shall thou finish it above^ 



Having obtained this light on the subject, we can return to 

 the Hebrew language, where we find, although not the word 

 * " tzohar,*" yet a word (tzor) containing its only two radical let- 

 ters, used (when we view what it implies in respect to the form, 

 and not the material) in a sense analogous to that which we now 

 give to it; as in Exodus iv. 25, and Joshua v. 2, 3, where it 

 means a sharp-edged or wedge-Jbrmed stone, or other instru- 

 ment ; and this, again, may furnish us with a key to the origin 

 of the employment of the plural form of" tzohar" in the sense 



Genesis viL 1 1, and Genesis viii. 2 ; in the margin floodgate. The same vrortl 

 is found in many other passages ; and in Hosea xiii. 3, the connexion deter, 

 mines its meaning to be, chimney or vertical opening. It is therefore used 

 figuratively in Genesis. * 



