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470 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
STUDIES IN BEN SIBA.
The discovery of so much of the Hebrew of Ecclesias-
ticus as is now in our hands necessitates and affords
ample material for a revision of the modern translations
of the book, which are based upon defective and discrepant
Greek, Syriac, and other Versions. But the Hebrew as we
have it is not free from clerical errors : in places it can be
read only with difficulty, or not at all: and even where
the text is good, and "he may run that readeth it," the
meaning of the writer is for one reason or other not
always immediately discoverable.
In the following short studies of a few more or less
obscure passages in the Hebrew use is made of the five
publications — (i) Dr. Schechter's edition in the Expositor
(1896) of the Lewis-Gibson folio of Ecclesiasticus dis-
covered by him on May 13, 1896 ; (a) The Oxford edition
by Messrs. Cowley and Neubauer of this and nine following
leaves subsequently found in the Bodleian Library (1897);
(3) Das hebrmsche Fragment der Weisheit des Jesus Sirack
(1897) from the Abhandlungen der koniglicken Oesellschaft
der Wissenschaften zu Oottingen by Dr. Rudolf Smend ;
(4) Das neu gefundene hebraische Stuck des Sirach (1897)
by Dr. A. Schlatter, Professor in Berlin, from the JBeitrdge
zur Forderung christlicker Tkeologie ; (5) Dr. Schechter's
article Genizah Specimens, Ecclesiasticus, in this volume
(pp. 197-306).
STUDIES IN BEN SIEA 47 1
L Job xiii. 28 and Ecclesiasticus xliii. 20.
To begin with a verse in which the reading is clear but
has been thought to be corrupt. The rendering of Eeclus.
xliii. 20 in the Oxford edition is as follows, except that
the four clauses there make two lines in double columns,
the clauses in the second column not commencing with
capital letters : —
" The cold of the northwind he causeth to blow,
And congealeth his spring (marg. the pond) like rotten-
ness (?).
Over every standing water he spreadeth a crust,
And a pond putteth on as it were a breastplate."
The difficulty is in the second clause, which (with mpo
in the margin for mpo) runs thus in the Hebrew : —
jnipo tfap"' apnai
On this Dr. Smend has the foot-note, " mpl fur apnai
(? Nold. nach Gr.) und ^P>? (Nold.) oder vielleicht besser
jppnai und mpD Wellh.-Bacher."
Dr. Schlatter, substituting cheth, lamed for resh, qof,
reads 3?ro as milk, and gives the rendering, "Die Kalte
des Nordwinds lasst er wehn, und lasst wie Milch die
Quelle gerinnen," quoting in support of it Job x. 10, " Hast
thou not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like
cheese 3 " and rendering the word for " curdle " (the anti-
thesis of pour) by " lasst gerinnen."
A better solution is suggested by Job xiii. 28 (Sept.) b
icaAaiovTai l<ra a<rK.Q> r) &<nrep Ifi&Tiov (Tiyro^patTov, where acriup
is for 3p"i (A. V, & R.V. a rotten thing), in the sense leather
bottle. This is a sense of the Targumic N3p1"i (Syr. N3pi as
in Job 1. c), on which see Kohut, Aruch Completum, s.v.
3p"> (1) ; and it gives a parallelism which is illustrated by
the story of the Gibeonites, who went to Joshua with old
bottles and old garments, saying, " These bottles of wine,
which we filled, were new ; and, behold, they be rent : and
472 THE JEWISH QUAKTEKLY REVIEW
these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason
of the very Jong journey " (Josh. ix. 13).
Whatever be the meaning of api in Job xiii. 28, enough
has been said to show that Ben Sira may perhaps have
used it in the sense 6\(tk6s in Ecclus. xliii. 20. In regarding
the surface of a piece of water as stiffened into " a skin "
by the frost, he would only have been giving a new appli-
cation to an old simile, for the sea itself is thought of as
gathered into an cktkos in Psalm xxxii. 7 (Sept.) o-vvayu
&<rel aandv vhara 6akacrcrr]s. Again in Joshua iii. 16, "the
waters which came down from above stood, and rose up
in one heap," for "0 heap Symmachus gives a<r<ca>fxa. The
Septuagint renders it by irrjyixa, aptly corresponding to
a word in the Greek of Ecclus. xliii. 20 koi Tray/jo-erai
Kpi<TTak\os a<£' Hbaros. Compare also " cktkos j3oos, the bag
in which Aeolus bottled up the winds " (L. & S.).
In the New Testament the word olo-kSs occurs in the
parable of the new and old wine and bottles (Matt, ix,
Mark ii, Luke v), where for " bottles " the Kevised Version
substitutes " wine-skins " or " skins/' as in St. Mark ii. 22
" And no man putteth new wine into old wine-skins [marg.
skins used as bottles'] : else the wine will burst the skins,
and the wine perisheth, and the skins : but they put new
wine into fresh wine-skins."
As the new wine-skins seem to some readers to spoil the
old text, I will repeat here my suggestion lately made else-
where that, there being such good literary authority for
" leather bottle " as Shakespeare's line in Part 3 of Henry VI,
His cold thin drink out of bis leather bottle,
it is an expression which might fairly be used in the
Gospels. It would suffice to insert the word leather once
in each of them. Thus St. Matthew ix. 17 would read,
" Neither do men put new wine into old leather bottles :
else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the
bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles,
and both are preserved."
STUDIES IN BEN SIBA 473
II. Ecclesiasticus 1. 1-3.
The January number of the Jewish Quabtebly Review
contains an edition by Dr. Schechter of one of the more
recently discovered Cairo leaves of Ecclesiasticus (pp. 197-
206), which supplies a good typical instance of the way in
which the Hebrew (while itself needing emendation) enables
us to correct errors in our texts of the ancient Versions.
Ecclus. 1. 1-3 runs thus in the Revised Version : —
1. It was Simon, the son of Onias, the great [marg. high]
priest,
Who in his life repaired the house,
And in his days strengthened the temple :
2. And by him was built from the foundation the height
of the double wall,
The lofty underworks of the inclosure of the temple :
3. In his days the cistern of waters was diminished,
The brasen vessel in compass as the sea.
Verse 1. — The MS. reads '-o \ran pnv p ?Woe>, Great one
of his brethren and glory of his people, Simon son of
Jochanan the priest. On the Greek for prn* (Syr. troru)
Professor Swete favours me with the following critical
note : —
"In Sir. L. 1 the first hands of codd. Btf read IONIOT
for ONIOT. Holmes and Parsons quote the same reading
from cod. 2,53, lavaov from cod. 155, and 'IcavCov from the
Aldine text. In 1 Mace. xii. 20, one cursive has IwvaOav 1
for 'Oih'o. In 2 Mace. iii. 31, another cursive gives Avaviav
for 'Ovtav. The text of Josephus shows similar variants.
Niese's apparatus criticus gives \a>viav as a reading in Ant.
xii. 44, loviov, ib. 156, and lamas, Icovia, ib. 225."
Professor Swete adds in a postscript that "in Cod. Sin.
ONIOT is a correction of N°*, for which a later hand has
restored IONIOT."
1 Note a similar confusion in the spelling of names in Acts iv. 6 (Codex
Bezae), where in place of the current reading 'Iw&wrjs the Greek has
mtl ABAS and the Latin Ioathas (J. B. H.).
474 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
Verse 3. — The Kevised Version has the marginal note on
the word diminished, " The text here seems to be corrupt."
The Syriac, Arabic, Greek and Latin are given as below in
Walton's Polyglot.
The Syriac has spina ism, and he digged the fountain, for
the whole verse. The Arabic likewise reads briefly c^Aa-j
cj^jlJI, Etfons effossm [est].
The Greek and the Latin are respectively : —
b> rjp.epa.is avrov rjkarr&Oiq timboxeiov [al. — X e ' a ] vbaratv,
XaA-fos '[al. XaxKOs] axrel 6ak&<r<rr)$ t6 T[fplp.eTpov.
In diebus ipsius emanaverunt putei aquarum,
Et quasi mare adimpleti sunt supra modum.
The Hebrew, according to the MS., is : —
:i3i»ru D3 rvew mpo man nm new
M rfcs] These words by themselves would naturally
be read D3 0^?, but the context and the Versions require
a different sense. Obviously D3 is a corruption of Op,
quasi mare, but it is less easy to explain or account for
ITBW. The Greek xa^s axrel 0aAa<r<njs k.tX, " The brasen
vessel in compass as the sea," reminds us of ntJTOn a>, "the
brasen sea that was in the house of the Lord" (a Kings
xxv, Jer. hi). Accordingly it may be thought, either (1)
that Ben Sira wrote JiKTO in Ecclus. 1. 3 ; or (a) that the
Greek x a ^ K °$ is corrupt, and was possibly suggested by
Solomon's molten (or brasen) sea. On the latter hypothesis,
it was natural in the first instance to conjecture that Ben
Sira wrote '"D nrw (Schechter) ; the true reading of the
Greek being supposed to be \&kkos oxrei Oakcuro-ris rb nepC-
nerpov, and Xclkkov being an actual rendering of nrw, pit,
in a version of Psalm lvii. 7 (Field, Hexapla) nrw '•osb ro,
they digged [cf. rra in Ecclus. 1. 3] a pit before me.
But a still better solution was suggested by Professor
A. A. Bevan's reference to the Moabite Stone for a word
nWN (to be read fW"K or otherwise) meaning storage-pit or
reservoir (p. ao6), in place of which some copyist (if not
STUDIES IN BEN SIKA 475
Ben Sira himself) may have written Wit, as in the Cairo
text. Dr. Schechter accordingly renders Ecclus. 1. 3 : —
" In whose generation a well was digged,
A reservoir like the sea in its abundance."
In Ecclus. xlviii. 17 it is said, with a play upon the
name Hezekiah (C. & N., p. 39) : —
" Hezekiah strengthened his city,
When he turned aside waters into the midst of it,
And hewed the rocks with [Heb. as] brass,
And stopped up the mountains for a pool."
The rendering "with brass" presupposes the alteration
of haf into beth in the Oxford fol. 9, recto, line 9 : —
:mpo onn mcrri onrc neroa 3srn
The Greek and the Latin of this line are : —
&pv£ev <nbrjp(a aKp6rop.ov,
Kal <uKob6ixr]<T€v nprfvas els #8ara.
Et fodiit ferro rupem,
Et aedificavit ad aquam puteum.
It is remarkable that a reading of the Greek in Ecclus.
1. 3 is x aA *<* s &<rei, where there is no "brass" in the
Hebrew ; whereas here, for neros, as brass, the Greek has
o-iSjjpo), with iron. In the former verse Fritzsche con-
jectured, perhaps rightly, that rikarrddr] is a corruption of
iXaTopridri, was hewn ; but he supposed the word for hew in
the Hebrew to be asn. Here we have avrPl, which might
have been rendered Kal ekarSurja-e. For mpD onn Dr. Schlatter
proposes to read ropo tPtb, comparing the Greek Kpr/vas eh
Tjbara.
0*3 . . . nipo] The comparison to the sea of an artificial
pool for " the gathering together of waters " was evidently
suggested to Ben Sira by Genesis i. 10 '13 ow mpoS,
" And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering
together of the waters called he Seas." This is a good
illustration of his way of turning Scripture to his uses. It
476 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
would be a result of some critical importance if we could
detect all his allusions to books of the Old Testament, and
trace them to their several sources.
III. The Lewis-Gibson folio.
On the acquisition of the Lewis-Gibson folio of the
Hebrew of Ecclesiasticus, Mrs. Lewis writes in the Guardian
for Feb. 23, 1898 (p. 313), " The single leaf which Mrs. Gibson
and I brought to Cambridge in May, 1896, and which
was discovered amongst a bundle of other fragments by
Dr. Schechter, was bought by us in Southern Palestine, and
not at Sinai."
The folio extends from chap, xxxix. 15 to chap. xL 8 ;
but in some places letters are torn away or mutilated, or
bo faded as to be hard to decipher. The recto begins thus,
according to Messrs. Cowley and Neubauer's translation : —
"1. [With s]ongs of the harp and of stringed instruments,
And thus with a shout shalt thou say :
2. All [the works of] God are good,
And he supplieth every need in its season.
3 appraise
And the utterance of his mouth is his treasure.
4. In [his] place he maketh his pleasure to prosper,
And there is no restraint to his salvation."
The numerals 1-4 refer to the lines of the MS., each
of which is made up of clauses a and b written in parallel
columns. On the word " appraise " there is the foot-note,
" So text, but the sense is obscure."
Line 3, recto. — The reading of this in the Oxford edition is
: rwK «j nsidi . 3 "py T
The Greek [©] is given as follows : —
€V \6y(p avrov ecrrq «s 6ifJ.<ovia voatp,
km iv prjixaTt o-rofxaros avrov airohoxfia vbdratv.
The Syriac is also given, but with a numeration and
spacing which indicate (p. xiv) that it is not understood to
STUDIES IN BEN SIRA 477
be a rendering of the passage under consideration. It is
to the effect that God by his word makes the sun to rise
and set, thus : —
. nb anye "in mescal new rune mcsoa
On the Hebrew of line 3 a there is the foot-note, " The 3 is
fairly distinct : after it there is a blot which may conceal
a 1 (cf. ©) or a i ; there is no sign of a third letter."
Dr. Smend gives as his text of the line, with several
letters marked as doubtful or indistinct : —
: nm vb wpbdm troy by *py* ran
Dr. Schlatter, assuming (1) that the Greek translator
was on the right track; and (2), on the authority of
Messrs. Cowley and Neubauer, that the nun is " deutlich
erkennbar," gives that letter only as certain in his text of
line 3 a, which is simply [*t]j[a] In a foot-note the
kaf is detached from *pjP : the remainder njy of the verb
is turned into D^D water: and for the whole clause is
given, with a reference to Psalm xxxiii. 7, 133 OK) DJ13 1131.
The note ends, "Las er ">i> , die Leuchte? "0 TV steht Ps.
cxxxii. 17." Dr. Schlatter's rendering of the line is, " Sein
Wort halt das Wasser wie Garben beisammen, und das,
was aus seinem Munde geht, seine Ansammlung."
The Greek and the Syriac differing totally, it is best first
to cross-question them as witnesses to the Hebrew text.
The Greek by ev Aoyoi airrov points to something like
nana, which would just fill the space before fny. For this
it may have read Toy (Bacher) or Toy. In some hand-
writings, when the MS. is not in good condition, a confusion
between n and D may readily arise. Or y\jy> may be
thought to be a corruption of an original DnjT or any, cf.
Ex. xv. 8 : —
: n'bro "13 10a ia» av> vnj» ym nna
An original "tt3 as a heap would account for dipavid, and
vStop may have been added by the translator to show that
by difxwvid he meant a heap of water. Other Hebrew
478 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
words which are or might be translated by a form of
BifMwuL, or by some other word for * heap," are *?:, itfl, B^nj,
ion, n&ny.
The remainder of the Greek, with the omission of vbdrmv
as merely epexegetic, may be almost literally retranslated
into Hebrew, riTOiK fa KX1D31.
The Latin has exceptoriwm (sing.) for iiroboxelo. (pi.).
To explain the Syriac of line 3 0, instead of interpolating
beth omit tsade", thus ms VQ treiDl. Then taking na mouth,
"pro jusso, praecepto," and mistaking X¥1D for a hiphil
participle, we may render the clause, "And his word
makes his light to rise." For an example of NV in this
sense see Ecclus. xliii. 1 (p. 17, ed. C. & N.), "The sun,
when he goeth forth [marg.], poureth out warmth."
The Syriac of line 3 a is easily accounted for by supposing
that the translator read y\y for Y~i]P, which may have been
written with a medial 3 at the end 1 . Transposing the
statements, we then get for the whole line, " By his word
he maketh the sun rise ; and by his word he maketh it set."
The discordant testimony of the Versions may be pro-
nounced on the whole not unfavourable to the Egyptian
Hebrew text, so far as it has been deciphered. This text
must now be examined more closely.
11313] Dr. Smend rightly supplies 11313 as a reading,
where others had left the space before "plP vacant, or filled
it conjecturally. Looking at the MS., I should say (1) that
part of the second beth, including the junction of its two
strokes, is distinctly visible ; (2) that there are other traces
of 11313; (3) that these and the consentient testimony of
the Versions make Dr. Smend's reading practically certain.
"py] I do not regard the yod of this word as doubtful,
but Dr. Smend may possibly be right in reading daleth, as
written of course by mistake for resh. What is really difficult
is to make out what was written after y\y. The Oxford
edition gives nun as "fairly distinct," presumably in the light
1 In my unpublished Catalogue of Aboth MSS., no. 90 has " no distinctive
form for final D."
STUDIES IN BEN SIRA 479
of difxmvia. To me it seemed at first that what I supposed
the editors to have taken for nun might as well have been
taken for kaf. I can see also what has been taken for
ayin (Schechter, Smend). But possibly both appearances
are fallacious. The "blot" is darkest at its beginning,
which may not merely conceal but be the remains of some
letter, perhaps a kaf.
There is (I think) a lamed just after and in contact with
the blot. In fact this is the only letter which seems to me
at all distinct in the word following THJ>\ As to this lamed
I may seem to be at one with Dr. Smend, who reads *HJP
Dnay by. But he gives the explanation (p. 28), " Von b ist
der obere Schweif nicht sicher zu erkennen, die Spitze meine
ich aber unter der rechten Ecke von B (in araio) zu sehen."
But my lamed points to the right corner of the beth (not
the teth) in tyaiB (line a a).
As regards the sense of the verse, I take the second
hemistich to mean, And his Word is his treasury. In
Wisdom ix. 1 b the Revised Version has, " Who madest all
things by thy word," with the marginal note, " Gr. in,"
that is, in thy word. Compare in the New Testament
Col. ii. 3 (ed. Ellicott) kv 3 «<rli> Ttavres ol 6r\(ravpo\ rrjs
ao<p[as Kal rijs yvda-etos airoKpvtyoi, in whom are all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. As it is said
by St. Paul that all such treasures are in Christ [the Word] ;
so Ben Sira may have said that his Word is the treasury
out of which in creation God draws all things. In the
first hemistich I would suggest some such reading as
bs YW TO-Hj By his word he ordereth all things.
Compare in a Sam. xxiii. 5, " ordered in all things and
sure;" and in Wisdom xv. 1, RV. : " But thou, our God, art
gracious and true, Long-suffering, and in mercy ordering all
things."
After coming to this conclusion, I saw (or supposed that
I saw) traces of two various readings of "P'ty'i both in
unusual places. (1) In the middle margin of line 3, below
and just touching the line ruled for the scribe's guidance,
480 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
and thus at a higher level than the text, I found a word
with an ayin followed by some less distinct letters. It
has been suggested to me (without reference to the Greek
eo-rt)) that the letter next after the ayin is a mem. (a) Below
line 3 a and beginning a little before "py is something that
I could read as a word suiting neither line 3 (to which it
seems to be attached as a variant) nor line 4. If, however,
we may regard the last letter as a mem, like the mem of
Elohim at the end of the Oxford folio 1, recto, we may
make the word into any, comparing in Exodus, 1. c.
Line 4, recto. — Dr. Schechter's reading of line 4 is : —
The Oxford edition reads '» Win [vjrinn, and Dr. Smend
'ia lain lfiMn. In the Expositor there is the note on Wl,
" The word is very indistinct, and looks at the first glance
like enn ; but I am fairly certain of the reading given in
the text." On lTinn, " was keinen Sinn ergiebt " (Schlatter),
Messrs. Cowley and Neubauer have the valuable note,
which (with some modification) prepares the way for
a more intelligible reading, "This word appears to have
been altered by a second hand : the D is clear, but the rest
is not certain." These three readings seem to me to be all
as wide of the mark as they are different from one another.
The Greek of the line is : —
ev TrpoardyixaTi avrov iraaa ^ evboida,
Kai ovk itrnv os ZX.a,TT<o<rei t6 <ra>rqpiov avrov,
for which Clement of Alexandria (cf. Fritzsche) gives in
Paed. ii. 4 (Potter, p. 194) on iv irpoorayjuaTt avrov irao-a
evboKLa yiverai, ical ovk io~ri.v eAarraxris els rd o-atrripiov avrov.
It is to be noted that his construction ko.1 ovk eariv
ikdrraxris els K.r.\. is exactly that of the Hebrew. Ben Sira
obviously alludes to 1 Sam. xiv. 6, " for there is no restraint
to the Lord to save by many or by few."
The Syriac of line 4 a is "UynD rovav Nnnro, with glad-
STUDIES IN BEN SIRA 481
ness his will is done, as Dr. Schlatter remarks, adding,
"Zu erwarten ware ein zu Uim im st. constr. stehendes
Nomen."
Unable to find a word that could with any probability
be read into and made to fill the space before 1J1in, I at first
merely thought of "v!P liiJO pan as a conjectural original
fairly in harmony with the Versions ; comparing for pan
rfcr Isaiah Mil 10 ntor» n* mn» pern 'ia r?0 ninv », and for
the combination Wi }»an St. Paul's Kara ttji> evSoKiav tou
fcAijparo; airoC (Eph. i. 5). Further scrutiny of the text
led at length to a reading nearly on the lines of this
conjecture.
Preceding the slight remnant of the resh of unn is
a faded van, which I would connect with what follows,
reading mini. Before this are two accidental spots on the
paper, forming a sort of spurious sof pastiq. To the right
of this was seen a slight crease across the line, reaching from
line 3 to line 5. To the right of the crease is a faded stroke
of unusual form, with its top above the usual level of all
letters except lamed. It is like the second stroke of an alef
set nearly upright, and is not like anything else. Along
the crease there seemed to be traces of a stroke belonging
to a lamed, and joining the alef. I read therefore Mini bn.
For examples of alef, lamed joined together, see •«! rp law
in the long line near the end of the Oxford fol. 4, recto ;
and taptrT 1 at the beginning of line 13 in fol. 9, verso. This
is given as a specimen page in the Oxford edition, where it
faces the beginning of the Latin Version. See also ntae> in
the margin at the end of fol. 2, recto. The Greek ita<ra
suggests ?a for ?K.
The first letter of the line is said to be certainly taw ;
and its being a Jl could scarcely have been doubted if it
had stood alone. But when letters are linked together we
get ambiguous forms. This letter is also more angular on
the right than some taus. Can it be a cheth finished off in
an unusual way, to connect it with the letter following'?
The next letter would then be not much like anything in
VOL. x. K k
482 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
the Hebrew alphabet, but not more unlike an incomplete
a, linked to the letters next before and after it, than
anything else. What comes next after it is like part of
an ayin, sloping down below the line ; but the letter
ayin is not so written in this manuscript. Can the third
letter be the final letter y, with the part below the line
turned aside for some reason?
In the first line of the page stands ?33 (Smend) with two
segols, of which the latter is the more distinct. This in the
MS. stands almost under the lamed, and not directly under
the beth as it is printed in accordance with our custom.
Beneath the third letter of line 4 is at least one dot, which
may belong to a vowel sign ; and the down stroke of the
supposed y ma y have been deflected to make way for it.
Thus the line would begin with pan, or an abortive attempt
at it. Reading now nw 131Jni 7N pan, God purposeth and
his good pleasure prospereth, or "O pan, we can account for
the Greek iv itpocrrayimn and the Syriac Nnnro, since fan
beneplacitum may be rendered either ordinance or pleasure.
Cf. Psalm cxxxv. 6 '13 pari new ba, "Whatsoever the Lord
pleased that did he in heaven, and in earth."
The reading pan is confirmed by what seem to me to be
traces of a correction of the text (perhaps by the original
scribe), the clearest part of which is like the top of a large
p, to the left of and beginning just above the white spot in
the margin of line 4 a.
Lines 15-16, verso — These lines are rendered by
Messrs. Cowley and Neubauer: —
" 15. A little .... for a moment he is quiet,
And from the midst of terror [s he is perturbed ?] ;
16 from the vision of his soul,
(He is) as a fugitive [hurrying on before] the pursuer."
In the text they read DipB* y:ro pirfr tayo with marginal
variant np. Dr. Schechter reads pTl^ with marg. m">,
Dr. Smend prb with marg. [n]eur&.
Professor Margoliouth writes in the Expositor: "The
STUDIES IN BEN SIRA 483
Greek has here oXCyov as oihev h bvwnaiaei. The Hebrew
Fragment shows that we have not a mistranslation but
a corruption of the Greek text. The preposition kv, which
is before faxnsavati, has really lost its substantive ; and
orairai/o-ei (which should rather be foaTtcvucreTcu) is a verb
corresponding to the Hebrew Blpew. I do not see why
Dr. Schechter should question pri!>, which seems very
natural in this context. Only the Greek shows us that the
order of the second and third words should be inverted ;
and indeed it is unnatural to separate JM">3 from bj». The
verse so restored is metrical :
nSpitfr p>r6 yyj3 B$n?
and I can imagine none but metrical reasons which induced
the author to add pTii>, and to substitute pat BjflD for the
idiomatic yjn Dj»a."
For my own part, I do not find any difficulty in the text
of the first half of the line, which (although it might
perhaps be improved rhythmically by a transposition) the
MS. seems to require us to read
j oipty j»-o pnb djjo
The man rests for " a little moment," p'nb, els Kevov, in vain :
he tries to repose, but in a moment he is disturbed by
nightmare.
Comparing the three readings p>rb, p)rb, p)"b, we see
(1) that they agree as to the first and fourth letters ;
(2) that one has resh after the lamed ; (3) that one has yod
for the third letter. These readings together give pnb, and
the MS. as I see it does not suggest anything else. The
last stroke of the supposed chetk is a mere irregular scratch
on the paper, and goes below the line. The third letter is
quite unlike the vau of opt^.
rmi'] Next, as to the marginal variant. Dr. Smend's
lamed also is probably not a real letter, but this is of no
great practical importance, since the readings tip and nn
presuppose the undisputed lamed of the text. I see no
ska
484 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
reason to doubt about the cketh. Before it is what looks
at first like a n (Smend) ; but this appearance is due to
a spot on the paper, which may be passed over as accidental
(Schechter, C. & N.). What has to be taken into account
before the chetk has the appearance of a single letter, or
part of one. The Oxford editors make it the top of a p,
taking (I suppose) a faint streak visible on the paper for
the completion of that letter. Probably Dr. Schechter was
right in reading ni"> with resh, vau run together as one
letter * ; but I doubt about the interpretation, " The marginal
reading ni"» is probably to be pointed nn, meaning to be
comfortable, to feel refreshed (cf. Biblical and Talmudic
Dictionaries, s. v. nn or nin)." Dr Smend writes in a foot-
note nn?, with a query, for pn? which he gives in his text.
Bead rather nro in the margin, as a synonym for P'n?, and
see in Gesenius under nn, " de re inani .... D*"y in ventum,
i. e. frustra, Eccl. v. 15, Jer. v. 13, Job vi. 26."
Line 156, which is defective in the MS., is read con-
jecturally (1) naSD -\)vb rnnio poi (Schechter) ; (2) p3D1
B> . . . [ni]i>ru, with the note on "perturbed" in the trans-
lation, "Beading 08l£ ; or ItfJrp is disquieted" (C. & N.) ;
(3) tw[B» ni»]bfb p3»l, with the note, " P?» (paaoi) = Kal
an eKeCvovt — Der Armenier driickt nach Edersheim (ei>?)
iwirvlois und Koinq aus " (Smend).
The Greek of the whole line as given in the Oxford
edition is : —
oXiyov ws ovbtv tv avairava-ei,
Kal CLTl' (KUVOV tv %1tVOl$ WS kv fipcpq (TKOTItaS.
Dr. Schlatter gives it conjecturally, oXiyov ... is ovhev
. . . kv ava-navcrei Kal air' (IwnvCmv) o>s ev fifiepq Komq, with the
suggestive note, "G giebt koI ait' eKtivov iv {farvois as ev
fip-epq (248 : rmtpais) o-kottios. Hier steht Kal air' neben pat?' ;
(Ktivov ist sicher verdorben. fnxtpais ist darum zu beachten,
1 In Ecelus. xliii. ao & the Hebrew text has mpo his spring, and the
margin mpo pond, the letters resh, mm in the one reading corresponding to
single letter he in the other.
STUDIES IN BEN SIRA 485
weil es an die Moglichkeit denken lasst, dass <r von <TKomas
zu rjfiepq gehort."
The Greek dkCyov w? ovbev points to j»"o tayo. But what
has become of pn~b, i.e. els Kevov, as for example in Job
xxxix. 16 els Kevbv eKvniaaev ? If pf"b (or nil!') was rendered
els Kevov, this might easily have been corrupted into the
freivov which Dr. Schlatter rejects as sicker verdorben.
There is no great difficulty about the transposition of
a word from the middle of 15 a to 15 6, and els Kevov would
go well enough with something like &s ijixipas Komq, he
labours as by day. But the former hemistich would read
as well with pni? at the end, thus : —
.pnb ttfpe* yri tayna
In 15 b there is one word clear, namely pao. Allowing
this to stand, we cannot read niD^na in dreams after it ;
but we may read rora terror, or n^na (pi.). The former is
joined with pni? in Lev. xxvi. 16, "I will even appoint over
you terror .... and ye shall sow your seed in vain ; " and
in Isaiah lxv. 23, " they shall not labour in vain, nor bring
forth for trouble." For a cognate parallelism see Psalm
lxxviii. 33, " Therefore their days did he consume in vanity,
and their years in trouble." For the plural m^TO terrors,
see Jer. xv. 8.
After what is left of !>m (the paper being torn here)
there are first some small remains of letters : then nothing
at all : lastly a small shin and sof pasuq, wrenched out of
their place. In its original position the shin was lower
down, and a little further to the left. To fill up the line
I would suggest, as what may perhaps have stood in the
MS., something like : —
trw b*3 nkm paw
he is troubled as the sea terrors And amid,
comparing Isaiah lvii. 20 : —
This would both account for the rendering fjptpq (or -as)
486 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
in the Greek, as by mistake of yam for yom, and give the
same antithesis of BHJ and DpB> in Ben Sira as in Isaiah, 1. c.
The reading tsnji suits its place in the MS., the paper being
torn away close to the beginning of the B>, that is the
top of its first stroke, but so as to leave ample space
below for the survival of part of almost any possible letter
except n or *j. If the line had ended with B>3 (C. & N.,
Smend, Schlatter), the lower part of the gimel ought now
to be visible ; but the resh of en would have been just
torn away. From the smallness of the shin we may be
sure that no space was wasted at the end of the line.
The comparison of troubled sleep to the unrest of the sea
is illustrated by Prov. xxiii. S3~35 & v\, " Thine eyes shall
behold strange things, And thine heart shall utter froward
things, Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the
midst of the sea, Or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not hurt ;
They have beaten me, and I felt it not: When shall I
awake? I will seek it yet again." Compare also Job
vii. 4, " I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning
of the day ; " and the New Testament metaphors from the
sea in Eph. iv. 14, St. James i. 6.
Line 16, verso. — The Hebrew and the Syriac of line 16 a
are respectively : —
lti>aJ J1TITD J?0 BJJD
The Greek as given in the Oxford edition is Tedopvftrmivos
h opdaei icapblas avrov, and the Latin, " cor turbatus est in
visu cordis sui." But cor turbatus must be a corruption
of conturbatus.
Immediately above tMHD in the MS. is the same word in
the line '"0 pn? Dy» ; and a "corrupt following" by the
scribe of that precedent may have given rise to the im-
possible Jft3 D£D, as Noldeke has remarked. The Syriac
seems to lead us a step in the right direction ; for, ~\bo in
that dialect having the sense DJJD counsel, "|i>Dn» taking
STUDIES IN BEN SIKA 487
counsel suggests DjjDriD, or (as it would be written) oytio
with teth dageshed. This points to a real correction of
the text as we have it. Reading jjdo (for Dyo) with the
Syriac, we get 1B>W ptno JfBJJttD.
jtbjjdd] Going again some way with the Syriac, which
like the Greek begins with a participle (Schlatter), we may
suppose that Ben Sira wrote j/d$;dd as a participle of the form
yoyonio. Changing the root-letter u into n, we get j/nynno,
as in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16 V*3» D^jflfBtt, R - v - " but tfl ey
mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words,
and scoffed at his prophets" Lexicographers (Buxtorf,
Kohut, Levy) compare the Aramaic NJJS3 with the Hebrew
nyn errare, aberrare. See also Gesenius on Jfyn in hithpalpel
and Q'yrjppi illusiones. Ben Sira's JJ0yt3D (possibly from
a root jjjjd) may signify that the man is TeOopvprunivos,
conturbatus, troubled or scared by the vision of his soul ;
or it may connote hallucination (lit. suffering himself to
be led astray). Both senses suit the context, whatever be
the precise definition of the term used.
Professor A. A. Bevan adds (Feb. 25, 1898), "I have just
noticed that in Payne Smith's Thesaurus Syriacus, col.
1495, a passage is quoted from the Acta Martyrum in
which a verb •*^s>^ seems to occur: — ^.o^.v^c? las**-
.Jlcuttt? U~*= v oo»**a"J until their nostrils are with
the odour of corruption." The Thesaurus gives Assemani's
rendering, donee ipsorum animae foetore conficiantur.
Line 166 begins with TIB'S, after which come fragments
of a letter or two, partly displaced through the tearing of
the paper. In the middle there is a great gap ; and at the
end fpri, a little above and to the right of its original
position. Conjectural readings of the whole or part of
what stood between these two words are 'osi' DW (Schechter),
n (C. & N.), »3bd rnu (Smend).
The Greek ms e*rjre</>«/y<ws airo irpo<T<0Trov irokeiiov and the
Syriac Nam Blp |D pijn toil ytx suggest spn '•JSO *me>3
(Schlatter), since saeid may be taken in the sense effugiens
(Field, Hexapla, Obad. 18); but there is apparently room
488 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
for something more. Inserting wn we might read, "intW
*pn ^ao Mil as a remanent that fleeth from the pursuer.
The old form remanent is here used for one remaining, to
avoid remnant, which naturally suggests more than one,
although it may be applied to one only, as in Shakespeare's
line, Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood !
These Studies were already in type when I first saw the
Lewis-Gibson folio, of which I had previously used photo-
graphs. In the MS. and the photographs there are accidental
marks, which can easily be mistaken for traces of letters.
It may be well therefore to state that the new readings
pointed out in the recto (lines 3 and 4) have been seen as
such by others after me, although not completely deciphered.
It has been further suggested to me that at the end of
line 3 a there is a full-sized lamed, a little before the
somewhat smaller ayin in the middle margin (p. 480).
The letters " altered " in line 4 a do not Beem, as they
stand, to spell anything: perhaps the alteration was meant
to have the effect of erasure. The Greek of the clause is
verbless (p. 480). This may have come of a confusion
between ETOA and ETAO, if its last word was evohmBrj-
a-erai. Compare Ecclus. xi. 15 (17) Kal fj eiboida avrov ds
tov al&va €Voba>0rj<r€Tai.
Looking again at the photograph, I still do not find any
vestige of a letter before the shin at the end of line l$,
verso (p. 486), although Dr. Smend (p. 38) claims to see,
" Vor B> eine untere Horizontale, die einem i gehoren kann."
C. Taylok.
