THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH. 



207 



Masoretic, the Ismelitish or Samaritan, and that Irom which 

 tlie Septuagint must have been translated, and by comparing 

 these we can draw out the exact form of the Decalogue and show 

 it to have been the same both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. 



The apparent differences only begin with the fourth 

 commandment, and here is the resulting text in both Exodus 

 and Deuteronomy : — 



" Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it. Six days shaft thou 

 labour and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the 

 Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work, 

 tliou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy 

 maid-servant, thine ox nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor 

 thy stranger that is within thy gates." 



" Honour thy father and thy mother, that it may go well 

 with thee, and that thy days may be long upon the land which 

 the Lord thy God giveth thee." 



" Thou shalt not kill." 



" Thou shalt not commit adultery." 



" Thou shalt not steal." 



" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." 



" Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. Thou shalt not 

 covet thy neighbour's house, nor his field, nor his ox, nor his 

 ass, nor anything that is thy neighbour's." 



Thus collated there is no distinction between the Decalogue 

 in Exodus and in Deuteronomy — not the distinction of a 

 letter. 



Conclusion. 



What 1 consider myself to have proved is this : that about 

 350 years before (according to the "higher critics") any part 

 of the Pentateuch was written, the whole Pentateuch in two 

 Kecensions existed in the two nations of Israel and Judah, and 

 are both in our hands to-day ; and that, therefore, the whole 

 theory connected with them vanishes like the unsubstantial 

 fabric of a dream. 



Discussion, 



The Chairman. — It is not often that we have the privilege, in 

 this room, of hstening to an octogenarian, and it is very encourag- 

 ing when we find that members of the Victoria Institute are not 

 only able to live till eighty years of age, but that they are also able to 

 produce such a paper as we have heard this afternoon, and we may 



