252 Charles C Torrey, 



other hand, the massoretic pointing of the Aramaic text is of the greatest 

 value. The more carefully it is studied, the more certain becomes the 

 conclusion that it has preserved with great fidelity an old and generally 

 trustworthy tradition. At the time when the vocalization was fixed, it 

 was not only the case that Aramaic of this same general type was the 

 native tongue of the men who did this editorial work, but it was also 

 true that many forms and modes of pronunciation which had passed 

 out of ordinar}- use were still perfectly well understood by these Jewish 

 scholars. Illustration of this will appear in the sequel. It must also be 

 borne in mind— and the fact is generally not appreciated— that in the 

 many cases of disagreement between qere and kctib the massoretes are 

 generally not correcting the consonant text, but simply preserving a 

 parallel reading. They neither misunderstood the forms which they have 

 given us in the kct^b, nor disapproved of them ; the}- merely wished, in 

 each case of the kind, to record also another tradition which seemed 

 to them worthy of preservation, and this was the only way in which 

 they could do so. I do not see how it can be doubted that in all such 

 instances as nStT, 3 : 29 ; rnPIX, 4:5; n^3^, 4 : 19 ; n^°tOX3, 4 : 21 ; 



■- T ITT * T 



those who first introduced the variant pronunciation understood perfectly 

 the meaning of the kctlh (see the notes, below, on the passages cited). 

 I also believe that in all of the cases just named we may take it for 

 granted that they regarded the consonant text as giving the better reading ; 

 that is, if they had been obliged to choose between the two readings, 

 rejecting absolutely the one or the other, they would have adopted the 

 keilb. 



Our Aramaic text is of an old and excellent type. It is better than 

 that which lay before Theodotion, though the difference is not great, 

 and is far superior to that which was rendered by the old Greek trans- 

 lator. The date of this last-named version ' was not far from the middle 

 of the second centurj- B.C. {Ezra Studies, pp. 82-85). The text which 

 we have, preserved in the single cursive and the Syro-Hexaplar version, 

 follows in chaps. 1—3 and 7 a recension which difters only slightly from 

 that of the massoretes ; in chaps. 4—6, on the other hand, it embodies 

 a widely different and much inferior recension; see the note on 4: 12, 

 the footnote at the end. 



The following scattered notes may help to determine the original text 

 in some places, and will perhaps be found to throw some light on certain 

 notoriously difficult passages. 



' Of the first six chapters only, in its original form ? There are several 

 questions here which call for further investigation. 



I 



