THE EXPOSITOR. EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A. THIRD SERIES. Volume II. WITH ETCHing of professor godET, BY H. MANESSE. London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXV. THE REVISED VERSION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. I. THE BOOK OF GENESIS. OUR readers will have ere now familiarized themselves with many of the changes made in the Revised Version of the Old Testament. Some of the most striking or interesting of these were pointed out in the numerous reviews which appeared when the Revised Version was published; others will have been noticed by readers themselves. The object of this and the following papers is to explain somewhat more fully the nature and grounds of the more important alterations made by the Revisers.1 2 i. 2. For "without form, and void" (cf. Seb. Münster [1534] informis et inanis) has been substituted the less. special "waste and void"; the same word is applied elsewhere to a wild and desolate expanse, e.g. Deut. xxxii. 10; Ps. cvii. 40. On moved, the explanatory margin, was brooding upon, 1 The writer of the notes on the Pentateuch and Joshua, being a member of the Old Testament Revision Company, desires it to be understood that the opinions expressed by him are simply his own, and that he in no way speaks as representing the Company. Indeed, the revision of the books in question was virtually completed before he became a member of the Company; so that in many cases he is only able to explain the grounds of a change from his general knowledge of the subject. 2 Pupil of the celebrated Jewish scholar, Elias Levita, and author of a Latin translation of the Old Testament, with notes (derived largely from Jewish sources), which exercised an important influence upon the English versions of the 16th century, especially upon the "Great Bible" (1539). VOL. II. B 253082 should be noted. The word occurs again, Deut. xxxii. 11 ("fluttereth"). Milton paraphrases excellently : "Darkness profound Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm Throughout the fluid mass."-(P.L., vii. 233-7). 5. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Similarly vv. 8, 13, etc. The intention of the writer is to mark the progress of time, not to state merely (as A.V.) that the evening and the morning constituted the first day. Hence, after the work of each day, he notes the arrival of evening, and then of the morning following, the two together marking the completion of the first (second, third, etc.) day. 12. Fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, i.e. fruit containing the seed necessary for the propagation of the species. 21. Sea-monsters (cf. Job vii. 12). The term whale being (in modern English) too special. 30. Margin: living soul. The Hebrew nephesh is a wider term than the English "soul," denoting the sentient principle possessed by all animals generally. See Oehler, Theol. of O. T., § 70. In v. 20 the Hebrew is literally "swarms of living souls." The Hebrew words are the same in i. 21, 24; ii. 7, 19; ix. 10, 12, 15, 16. 31. The sixth day. The Hebrew has here the article, with the intention, apparently, of marking the sixth day as definitely the last. ii. 1. And for thus. The verse is not a summary of chap. i., but introduces the seventh day. The act of completion, marking as it does the commencement of the period of rest, is assigned by the Hebrew writer to a special day. The old correction (LXX., Sam., Pesh.), sixth for the first seventh in v. 2, obliterates this distinctive point of view. |