f uch a diftinct account of the ages and characters of the manufcripts to which he refers, as may be easily confulted pro re nata. If the person who examines his various readings hath not always fresh in his memory what account Dr. Mill hath given of particular manufcripts, he is put to the laborious task of fearching for it amidst a variety of other matter in his large Prolegomena. It will not be difagreeable, therefore, to our learned Readers, if we juft obferve, that, in order to fupply this defect of Dr. Mill, the late learned Mr. Hallet publifhed, in 1728, an useful little piece, which, as it is very scarce, ought to be reprinted, entitled, Index librorum MSS. Græcorum et Verfionum Antiquarum Novi Fæderis; quos viri eruditiffimi J. Millius et L. Kufterus cum Tertiâ Editione Stephanicâ contulerunt.

Dr. Kennicott, we find, quotes the feveral manuscripts and printed editions, from which his various readings are taken, by figures, according to the numerical order in which they will be arranged in his Differtatio Generalis; and this appears to be judicioufly done, fince the figures take up much less room than an abridgment of the titles of fuch manuscripts and editions would have done, and the making use of them, therefore, greatly reduces the fize of the volume. Befide, the placing the manufcripts and printed copies in numerical order will render it abundantly more eafy to find them in the catalogue, or account of them to be contained in the General Differtation, than if they were defcribed by abridged titles, or arbitrary marks.

The Hebrew text in this edition is printed from that of Everard van der Hooght, published at Amfterdam, in 2 vols. 8vo. 1705; and a better, in our opinion, could not have been chofen; fince it is very correctly printed, and the fimilar Hebrew letters, which are liable to be mistaken, are in this edition remarkably fharp and well defined; a very advantageous circumftance in collating the manufcripts by it, and tending much to the accuracy of the collation itfelf: and with pleasure we obferve, that there is the like excellency in the type in which Dr. Kennicott hath procured his own work to be printed. In one refpect, however, he hath judged it proper to deviate from Vander Hooght in the manner of exhibiting the Hebrew text, having printed the poetical parts of it not in the manner of profe, as Vander Hooght hath generally done, but in those hemiftichs into which they naturally divide themfelves; but then the words, as the Doctor juftiy obferves, follow one' another in the fame order as they do in Vander Hooght; fo that any perfon may read thefe paffages as profe, if he is fo inclined; or may divide the hemiftichs differently, according to his own judgment.

With

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With refpect to the Hebrew poetry, we are far from thinking that the verfification was reduced to a meafure fo exact and artificial as Bifhop Hare fuppofes. It is more probable that it was only a kind of measured profe, diftinguishable into lines very nearly of the fame length, though not capable of being fubjected to a regular profody; and this idea, in our opinion, is moft confonant to the artlefs fimplicity of thofe early periods of the world. Now the printing of the poetical parts of the Hebrew Bible in hemiftichs is attended with fome peculiar advantages, which are juft mentioned by Dr. Kennicott, in the preface to this firft volume, with an affurance that they will be more particularly ftated in his Differtatio Generalis in the fecond volume; together with many other critical obfervations, highly neceffary to the illuftration of both. It is certain that the fpirit, and fometimes the true fenfe, of many beautiful paffages in the poetical parts of the Old Teftament, very much depends upon their being divided into hemiftichs, and being confidered and read as poetry. Mirum quantum elucefceret ftatim, to use Dr. Kennicott's own words, facri poetae mens! idque mille in locis; ubi fub ufitatâ PROSA formâ difficillimum eft ullam faltem veram, expifcari fententiam. And it should be farther obferved, that where the Hebrew poetry, in any particular place, will not, as it generally does, eafily run into hemiftichs of nearly the fame length, but one line is remarkably longer or fhorter than the reft, there is fome ground for the fufpicion of a corruption in that place, either by an infertion or omiffion.

The Samaritan text is here exhibited according to the copy in the London Polyglot, in a column parallel with the Hebrew text; and the variations of the Samaritan manufcripts from this printed copy of the Samaritan text, are placed by themselves at the bottom of the page; in like manner as are the variations of the Hebrew manufcripts from the printed text of Vander Hooght. But it should be obferved that the Samaritan text, being nothing more than a copy of the Pentateuch, written in Samaritan characters for the use of the Samaritans, may be justly confidered as a different edition of the Hebrew Pentateuch; and as fuch fhould be collated not only with Samaritan manufcripts, to make an accurate Samaritan text, but also with the printed Hebrew text, in order to render that Hebrew text more correct. This Dr. Kennicott hath contrived to do, by printing in He. brew letters, in a column parallel with the Hebrew text, not the whole Samaritan text, but only thofe parts of it in which it differs from the Hebrew, oppofite to the correfpondent places in the Hebrew column, leaving the reft of the Samaritan column blank; infomuch that the eye perceives at once, with the utmost ease, the variations of the Hebrew and Samaritan texts.

REV. Aug. 1776.

H

We

We have been ftruck with a remarkable variation of the Samaritan from the Hebrew in Exod. xxvi. in which the former hath clearly preferved the true order of the original, as it came from the hand of the infpired Author, and the latter hath fuffered a dislocation of no less than ten verfes. After the 35th verfe of this 26th chapter, the Samaritan hath ten verfes, which, in the prefent Hebrew text, are not to be found in that place, but are inferted out of their natural order in the beginning of the 30th chapter. The 26th chapter contains inftructions for erecting and furnishing the tabernacle; and after the directions concerning hanging the vail to divide the holy place. from the most holy, and putting the mercy feat upon the ark of the teftimony in the most holy place, and the table without the vail, &c. the Samaritan text very properly introduces ten verfes, defcribing the altar of incenfe, which is directed to be placed before the vail, &c. and thus all the directions concerning what was to be done in the tabernacle are finished, 'before any directions are given concerning the court of the tabernacle, the confecration of the priests, and other matters: whereas in the Hebrew text, after part of the inftructions are given concerning what was to be placed in the tabernacle, follow inftructions concerning the court of the tabernacle, the confecration of the priests, and other things; and then in the 30th chapter we find ourselves brought back again, unexpectedly and abruptly, to inftructions concerning what was to be done in the tabernacle, relating to the altar of incenfe, and the placing of it before the vail. This is a remarkable fpecimen of the preference to be frequently given to the readings of the Samaritan above thofe of the Hebrew text.

There is a no lefs remarkable confirmation of the Greek verfion of the Seventy, and, at the fame time, an undeniable demonftration of the great imperfection of the Maforatic copy of the Hebrew text, in the 21ft chapter of the book of Joshua; where we have an account of the appointment of the cities of the Levites, the number of which is exprefsly faid to be 48; for the children of Aaron 13; of Kohath 10; of Gershon 13; of Merari 12 in all 48. Yet the authority of the Mafora having excluded from the text two whole verfes, which in our English verfion are the 36th and 37th, containing an account of four of thefe cities, namely Bezer, Jahazah, Kedemoth, and Mephaath; the whole number of them, in direct contradiction to the affertion of the facred text, that they were 48, is hereby reduced to 44; and the 12 allotted to the children of Merari, in particular, to eight. And this now is the boafted authority of the Mafora! We find, by Dr. Kennicott's collation, that out of 182 manuscripts collated for the book of Jofhua, 126 have thefe verfes; 56, in obedience to the Mafora,

have them not; and out of 26 early printed editions, collated for the book of Joshua, 23 have them, three have them not. In the first printed edition these two verfes are exhibited thus:

וממטה ראובן את בצר ואת מגרשה ואת יהצה ואת מגרשה: את קדמות ואת מגרשיה את מפעת ואת מגרשה ערים ארבע:

'And of the tribe of Reuben Bezer and her fuburbs, and Jahatzah and her fuburbs; Kedemoth and her fuburbs; Mephaath and her fuburbs: four cities.'

Dr. Kennicott hath given us feveral remarkable various readings upon the beginning of the firft of thefe verfes. The reading of the first printed edition, which we have just mentioned, is fupported by a great number of manufcripts. But if this be the true reading, five only of the fix cities of the Levites will be enumerated as fuch, in this chapter. The following is the reading of the Seventy, εκ της φυλης Ροβην την πολιν το Φυγαδευτηριου τε φονεύσαντος, την Βόσορ εν τη ερήμω. Thus the fix cities of refuge are all exprefsly mentioned as fuch. Now we find this very reading of the Seventy fully confirmed by many Hebrew manufcripts, which read the beginning of the first verse thus:

וממטה ראובן את עיר מקלט הרצח את בצר במדבר ואת

מגרשת :

And of the tribe of Reuben a city of refuge for the flayer, Bezer in the wilderness, with her fuburbs. The Septuagint verfion hath been efteemed by many very paraphraftical in places where it only follows perhaps, as in the prefent inftance, the readings of more ancient copies. In a learned differtation, published in the first volume of the Thefaurus Novus TheologicoPhilologicus, the Author, Jo. George Abicht, having afferted the genuineness of these two verfes in general, concludes his differtation with this prediction: Plura tollet perfpicax et fedula pofteritas dubia, hactenus à multis notata, fed nondum remota, fi modo fanita lingua ftudium-conftanter floreat, et eruditi per afpera ejufdem,

Nomen in aftra ferant : hoc ipfum pofcere fata Et reor, et fi quid veri mens augurat, opto. VIRG. Æn. vii. v. 272. A prediction which is not only accomplished in the clear elucidation of the paffage before us, but is likely to be fo in num berlefs others, by a right application of the critical materials with which Dr. Kennicott, at the expence of infinite labour, hath furnished the learned world. And that the expectation of the learned of all denominations, Roman-catholics, Calvinists, and Lutherans, who were never before known fo wonderfully

to unite in promoting any public undertaking for the fervice of religion and literature, will not be difappointed, we may safely conclude, if the various readings in the second volume, not yet publifhed, fhall appear to be as numerous as they are found to be in the firft. The fubject of the first volume is principally historical, and comparatively of lefs importance than that of the fecond, wherein are contained the principal prophecies with which the honour, and even the truth, of the Chriftian religion is nearly connected. It will require a great deal of time and labour, spent in an accurate examination of the various readings, compared with the context, grammatical conftruction, and the fcope and defign of the facred writers, with the ancient verfions, and with parallel places, before the true value of many of thofe readings can poffibly, in the nature of things, be afcertained. Several which, at firft, have no promifing appearance, may, upon fuch mature confideration, be found to be of great moment, and may open a way for the removal of confiderable difficulties, or at least for our obtaining a clearer view of the meaning of particular paffages of divine revelation than we ever before received. In our opinion, it only belongs to the fcioli, the malevoli, or the morofi, to form a hafty decifion against the merit and probable utility of a work of astonishing labour, and, as far as appears, great accuracy in the execution, the real value of which can only be difcovered gradually, by long attention and close application.

We are far from fuggefting these fentiments as if we thought the learned Collator and his work flood in need of an apology. But we are willing to fave the most forward, who are usually the leaft capable judges, the mortification of forming a premature judgment, or paffing a rafh cenfure; the more rash, as the work is not yet completed, nor the Author's Differtatio Generalis, which will accompany the fecond volume, published. For our own part, we heartily with that the learned Editor, after the immenfe labour of conducting the collation of near 700 manuscripts and printed copies, and of collecting and arranging under every verfe fuch a prodigious mafs of materials, may enjoy fufficient health to complete his great undertaking; and may live to bear a part in a new tranflation of the Old Teftament, or at least in amending the present translation; for which the numerous various readings which he hath supplied, will no doubt prepare the way, by demonftrating the neceffity of it, and furnishing the proper means of accomplishing it, after they fhall be maturely examined, and the text thereby better afcertained than it is at prefent.

ART.