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APPENDIX. 
I HAVE asserted in the foregoing paper that the first two 
reasons or conjectures assigned for such a casual cc altera- 
tion of numbers ** in the Hebrew text as shall leave “ the 
history of facts incorrupt/* are based upon error, and that the 
fifth is a conjecture resting upon another conjecture. The first 
is as follows : — 
25. ‘ f The word for thousand in Hebrew (eleph) also means 
ox. This may have led to one or two mistakes, if not more.** 
But how ? For (eleph), even in its plural form U'&x 
(alaphim), can be translated oxen only four times throughout 
the Old Testament, and in the historical books only once ; 
where, in the authorized version, it is represented by the word 
Mne. In the singular >*f?K it never signifies ox. Whereas, if 
many thousands are to be expressed, the word for thousands is 
always tfw, singular (exactly according to our idiom five 
hundred , and ten thousand) ; D^K, the plural, is used only 
when the number of thousands is under ten. How, then, is 
it possible that in any one of the alleged cases of highly 
exaggerated numbers/* such exaggeration could have been 
caused by D'sbtf, which in those high numbers is never used, 
sometimes signifying oxen ? The second reason is this : 
“ Marginal comments and corrections and the figures 
heading hajphtoroth or liturgical sections, may have become 
incorporated with the text.** 
26. The possibility of marginal comments and corrections 
having become incorporated with the text is not to be denied ; 
although its probability to any large extent is so questionable 
that before this reason, even so far, can have any weight, 
instances of such probable incorporation must be adduced. As 
to Hajphtoroth, they exist only in the Prophets. They must 
here, therefore, be confounded with Parashoth — the liturgical 
sections of the law. These I have looked through, and not 
a single instance can I find of the probable incorporation of 
the £ 32 £ 3 , or ddd at the head of the fifty-four sections with any 
passage containing one of the so-called exaggerated numbers. 
27. The following is the fifth reason : — u But the most fertile 
source of errors in the text of Scripture as regards numbers is 
