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EEV. CANON GAEEATT, M.A., ON 



8. There is a noticeable variant in Exodus xxi, 20, as to the 

 punishment of a man who should smite his man-servant or his 

 maid-servant with a rod if his servant die under his hand. In 

 the Masoretic Hebrew text the law runs thus : " And if a man 

 smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his 

 hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he 

 continue a day or two he shall not be punished ; for he is his 

 money." 



With this the Septuagint agrees. "Punished" may here 

 mean anything and it might mean death, but would no doubt 

 be interpreted according to the discretion of the courts. He 

 should be punished if death ensued at once, but if death did 

 not ensue immediately there is no command for his punishment. 



The command as it stands in the Hebrew and the Septuagint 

 is a very considerable moral difficulty. 



But the Israelitish Code as it appears in the Samaritan text 

 is different: "If a man smite his servant or his maid with a 

 rod and he die under his hand, he shall die. Notwithstanding, 

 if he continue a day or two, he shall not die, for he is his 

 money." And therefore it is not likely that he intended to kill 

 him ; it was homicide, not murder. " He shall not die," but 

 any punishment short of death may in this case be inflicted. 



There is a pathetic history recorded by Bishop Colenso about 

 the effect produced by this text on his mind in consequence of 

 the observations of a Zulu with whose help he was translating 

 it into the Zulu language {On the Pentateuch, vol. i, 9). Had 

 he been translating it from the Samaritan Codex he could not 

 have been moved, as he unhappily was moved, by the Zulu's 

 objection. 



9. There is a curious historical variation in Gen. xlvii, 21. 

 The reading in our Hebrew Bibles is " as for the people, he 

 removed them from one end of the borders of Egypt even to 

 the other end thereof." But in what follows we learn that 

 Joseph's purpose was to obtain a fifth part of the produce of 

 the land for Pharaoh, and it would seem an extraordinary 

 method of obtaining this to remove the cultivators of it from 

 the land into the cities. But the Samaritan Text agrees with 

 the Septuagint and Vulgate in changing the words into " he 

 made bondmen of them," which, of course, was the Hebrew 

 when the Septuagint was translated. The Samaritan has 

 retained the true text. 



10. There is a much more important difference. On this I 

 am afraid it would take too long for me to enter. I can only 

 state the fact. There is a difference, or, rather, several minute 



