[8b] Gen. xlix. 21. For, “Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words,” read, “Naphtali is a spreading Pine, that putteth forth goodly boughs.” Psa. xxix. 9. For, “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve, and discovereth the forests,” read, “The voice of the Lord rendeth the pines, and layeth bare the forests.” So Dr. Lee. To surrender the Bible, body and soul, into the hands of the Massorites, as is required by their pointing of these passages, is surely asking too much. Let the reader peruse the whole of the 29th Psalm, and determine the fitness of the correction for himself, which he may very safely be allowed to do. The former passage, if consistently carried out on the principles of the translators, would run, “Naphtali is a hind let loose, that giveth goodly words,” in which the incongruousness of the metaphor would, if possible, be still more manifest. See Stanley’s “Syria and Palestine,” p. 355.
[10a] See Preface to Herwitz’ “Etymology and Syntax of the Hebrew Language.”
[10b] See Kitto’s Bib. Cyc., art. Chronicles. The whole article is very reassuring, considering the able and accomplished pen from which it proceeds. The writer, Dr. Davidson, to whom the lovers of Biblical philology are under the greatest obligations, deliberately asserts the corruption of the passages in question, and advocates a reading in conformity with the corresponding statements in 2 Samuel and Kings.
[11a] Compare, among other instances in point that might be given, 1 Kings ix. 28 with 2 Chron. viii. 18.
[11b] If no purification of the text should avail us in these cases, it would be advisable to accompany the change in the text with a note in the margin explanatory of the corruptness of the reading that has been superseded.
[13] The change of accent the word undergoes in the original when repeated in the second hemistich, gives marvellous emphasis to the exhortation—an emphasis altogether lost in the translation.
[14] The application of this principle may go some way towards neutralizing the doubts that have been raised as to the identity of the Isaiah of the later portion of the prophecy with the Isaiah of the earlier portion. See chap. lxiv. 10, 11. One thing at least is evident, namely, that the Apostle Paul, who was confessedly well read in Hebrew literature, in his quotations from the latter portion of the prophecy, seems to have had no notion of any other Isaiah than that to whom the whole prophecy is ordinarily ascribed. See Rom. x. 16. In fact, these doubts, now complacently acquiesced in as valid by the Rationalistic School abroad and at home, were equally unknown to all the world till about half a century ago. The general reader may content himself with Dr. Alexander’s candid and able investigation of the question in his recent Commentary on Isaiah.
[15] The uses of the particle ו in combination with the verb. Let the Hebrew student consult the masterly investigation and elucidation of this subject in the Hebrew Grammar recently published by Messrs. Mason and Bernard, Vol. II. chapters 51–55.
[17a] This rendering is faulty as not providing for the emphatic personal pronoun “he” in the original.
[17b] Niphal in the sense of the Hithpael conjugation. See Gen. xvi. 9.