50 George Dahl, 



or intended merely to distinguish this "IKI from other Dor's, for 

 example, from "i"! pJ7 in the same verse. By a very natural mis- 

 take, the two words of the gloss were wrongly divided, the H be- 

 ing taken for the article and therefore joined to the following. 

 The gloss was then inserted at the end of the verse, no other place 

 being obviously suitable for it. nflJH could not of course be read 

 as riDJn ' since ilG^ could only be the construct state of a noun 

 nflJ ) from the root wl*lj . The word %vas therefore not unnaturally 

 read as a segholate, 115^(1 '- as though from a root HfiJ • (To read 

 n5^n • as some modern commentators have suggested, is only to 

 make a bad matter worse. The phrase would be grammatically 

 objectionable, nC'*'7C^ with a feminine noun, and the troublesome 

 article ; moreover, it has no possible meaning in the present con- 

 text.) This explanation seems to be the only one that will in any 

 satisfactory manner really explain the phrase that has proved such 

 a stumbling block to all commentators'". 



In nnp'^'pti^ of Ezekiel 21:19 (Ileb.) we have a case almost exactly 

 parallel to the one under discussion. The true significance of the 

 form nntJ'*'*?^ ^^^ ^^'^o in this instance escaped the commentators. 

 The verse, now corrupt, reads as follows: 



T ■ ■ : V V ■ T • : It '.' i - \ ~ : ■■ t ■ r t \ : t ~ : 



Dn'7 nn-tnn ''7'\^^r\ 'iin D"in N*\n U'^iin ni.n 



Apparently, a marginal note, D*'?'?n Dill Pint!^^'?^ ' supplied a 

 variant reading for 7711 Dill (which is the third time the word 

 Din appears in the verse). That is, the form of the verse which the 

 glossator Avished to preserve was the following: DIP! DIP! iSDilT 

 "IJI br^^n W'-hn Din N*M □^'?'?n . observe that this reading 

 (with D^'?'?n instead of '?'7n) is supported by the Old Greek [rpav- 

 fxaTLwv) and by the Peshitto (U'*-t^), which accordingly corroborate 

 our proposed explanation of the difficult niltJ*''?^ • — ^^^ ^^^^ ^'^^^' 

 the verse is obscure; in fact this very obscurity may have led to 

 the writing of the marginal gloss that later, by its insertion into 



' The V in HO^ ^^ lengthened in pause. 



'The Greek, with its rb -piTov tF/^ ISia^edd, has mistaken the phrase as a 

 town name, and is of no assistance in determining the true meaning of the 

 expression. 



