[370]. It cannot be supposed, of course, that an Ephraimite would have recorded the defeat and slaughter of his tribe at the hands of Jephthah. But such a momentous disaster could not fail to become known throughout Canaan, and some notice of it must have been taken by the chroniclers of Ephraim themselves. Where and by whom, however, the present account was composed it is vain to inquire, and the question may be left for discussion to the philological critics. That Samuel, who was brought up at Shiloh, could write we are assured in 1 Sam. x. 25.
[371]. 1 Sam. ix. 5; xiv. 1.
[372]. 1 Sam. ix. 18, 19. The disintegrating critics have assumed this narrative to be primitive and contemporary because it presents us with a picture of Samuel which seems to degrade him into an obscure local soothsayer, and on the strength of it have disputed the antiquity of such narratives as assign to him national influence. They might just as well maintain that the only primitive and contemporary account of King Alfred that we possess is the story of the burnt cakes at Athelney.
[373]. 1 Sam. vii. 14.
[374]. Zuph gave his name to ‘the district of Zuph’ (1 Sam. ix. 5), which has the plural form in Ramathaim-zophim.
[375]. Ephraim, however, may be, like Jerusalem, the older form of which has been recovered from the cuneiform inscriptions, a later Massoretic mispronunciation of an original plural Ephrim. The Massoretes have erroneously introduced a dual form into the pronunciation of the name Chushan-rishathaim, and probably also into that of Naharaim when compared with the Egyptian Naharin and the Nahrima of the Tel el-Amarna tablets. Perhaps the dual form Ephraim originated in the existence of the two Ophrahs (with ’ayin), which are already mentioned in the geographical lists of Thothmes III.
[376]. 2 Sam. viii. 18; see also 2 Sam. xx. 26. The Authorised Version mistranslates the word in both passages.
[377]. Translated by me in the Records of the Past, new ser., IV., pp. 109-113.
[378]. See above, p. [244]. The Hebrew Samuel could also represent a Babylonian Sumu-il, ‘Sumu is God’ or ‘the name of God,’ which we actually find in early Babylonian contracts.
[379]. So, too, the Chronicler states that he was descended from Ithamar the younger son of Aaron (1 Chron. xxiv. 3).