50 George Dahl, 



or intended merely to distinguish this 1K*1 from other Dor's, for 

 example, from ^1 pj7 in the same verse. By a very natural mis- 

 take, the two words of the gloss were wrongly divided, the jl 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. n£3Jn could not of course be read 

 as n£3^n ' since ri£3^ could only be the construct state of a noun 

 n£3J > from the root tllJ . The word was therefore not unnaturally 

 read as a segholate, nfi^H ^ as though from a root Jl^D^ • (To read 

 nfi^n* as some modern commentators have suggested, is only to 

 make a bad matter worse. The phrase would be grammatically 

 objectionable, rW^^ 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 nnC^^*?^ of Ezekiel 21 : 19 (Heb.) we have a case almost exactly 

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

 form T\TW^^^ bas also in this instance escaped the commentators. 

 The verse, now corrupt, reads as follows: 



urii nninn ^iijin bbn T\n N^n u'^iin nnn 



._. ^ .. .. - ^ _ ^ ^ ._. ._. . . ^ _. 



Apparently, a marginal note, D^'p'^H Dill Hnt^^'?^ ' supplied a 

 variant reading for '^^n D"^n (which is the third time the word 

 D*)n appears in the verse). That is, the form of the verse which the 

 glossator wished to preserve was the following: Dill Dlfl '?£3Dn^ 



'^y^ bT\yn n'^iin Din N^n u'^iin . observe that this reading 



(with D^^'^n instead of '^'^fl) is supported by the Old Greek (r/oav- 

 /Aartw) and by the Peshitto (U^^^), which accordingly corroborate 

 our proposed explanation of the difficult Hilt^^'ptp^ — For the rest, 

 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 T in jl5^ i® lengthened in pause. 



' The Greek, with its rb rpirov rf/g Na^f^a, has mistaken the phrase as a 

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

 expression. 



