THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 



197 



textual criticism. The term I would advocate is " Further " 

 criticism. And as a specimen of the absolutely necessary 

 Further " criticism I would venture to call your attention to a 

 passage in the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy xx, 19. l^ot one point, 

 letter, or accent in this passage requires to be changed in order to 

 give a thoroughly satisfactory rendering. Indeed the meaning 

 is so obvious when the right key is applied that one is amazed 

 that it has not hitherto been observed. Yet commentators have 

 been so far from seeing this meaning that Canon Driver has 

 almost a whole page in his commentary on Deuteronomy 

 devoted to its elucidation, and even then the result is not satis- 

 factory. The change which he finally adopts of the pointing 

 from Dlb^n to DTb^n is as far as ever from the true 



T r |T T T V 



meaning. 



We are the more amazed at its not having been seen because 

 of the delicacy of the scientific instruments which have been 

 fashioned, largely by Dr. Driver's own work and by others, such 

 as the late Professor A. B. Davidson. 



Two causes have operated towards obscuring the passage. 

 One is the prejudice created by a misapplied humanitarianism 

 expressed very forcibly by Dr. Kitto, for instance, in his Daily 

 Bible Illustrations, volume on " Isaiah and the Prophets," p. 253 : 

 " In all ancient sieges, even in those conducted by the Jews them- 

 selves, as early as the time of Moses, trees in the neighbourhood 

 of the besieged cities were unsparingly cut down by the 

 besiegers to aid in filling up ditches, and in the construction of 

 mounds and embankments, and of towers and military engines. 

 It is, however, a beautiful incident in the law of Moses that the 

 destruction of fruit-trees for any such purpose is absolutely 

 interdicted." Then the passage from Deuteronomy xx, 19, 20, 

 is given in a footnote as in the Authorized Version. 



The other cause is the prejudice which criticism has built 

 upon this other. It has taken advantage of the prejudice of 

 misapplied humanitarianism to build up a very showy proof of 

 the ignorance of Elisha the prophet of this law, and therefore 

 of the non-existence of the Pentateuch in his time. The clue 

 to the meaning of the passage does not lie in its humanitarianism 

 but in its utilitarianism. It is one of the finest examples of 

 sanctified common sense to be found. Elisha presumably knew 

 Hebrew and knew the correct meaning of the passage before us 

 if it was in his hands. There is no want of harmony between 

 his prophetic utterance in ii Kings and this passage. 



The words D*'^'^ D^72\ " many days," give us the clue to the 

 meaning. There is no ambiguity about them. They mean a 



