[1037] Others would render My covenant being with Levi. Wellhausen: for My covenant was with Levi. But this new Charge or covenant seems contrasted with a former covenant in the next verse.
[1038] Num. xxv. 12.
[1039] This sentence is a literal translation of the Hebrew. With other punctuation Wellhausen renders My covenant was with him, life and peace I gave them to him, fear...
[1040] Or peace, שָׁלוֹם.
[1041] Or revelation, Torah.
[1042] וְנַם־אֲנִי: cf. Amos iv.
[1044] Here occur the two verses and a clause, 11–13a, upon the foreign marriages, which seem to be an intrusion.
[1046] Heb. literally: And not one did, and a remnant of spirit was his; which (1) A.V. renders: And did not he make one? Yet he had the residue of the spirit, which Pusey accepts and applies to Adam and Eve, interpreting the second clause as the breath of life, by which Adam became a living soul (Gen. ii. 7). In Gen. i. 27 Adam and Eve are called one. In that case the meaning would be that the law of marriage was prior to that of divorce, as in the words of our Lord, Matt. xix. 4–6. (2) The Hebrew might be rendered, Not one has done this who had any spirit left in him. So Hitzig and Orelli. In that case the following clauses of the verse are referred to Abraham. “But what about the One?” (LXX. insert ye say after But)—the one who did put away his wife. Answer: He was seeking a Divine seed. The objection to this interpretation is that Abraham did not cast off the wife of his youth, Sarah, but the foreigner Hagar. (3) Ewald made a very different proposal: And has not One created them, and all the Spirit (cf. Zeph. i. 4) is His? And what doth the One seek? A Divine seed. So Reinke. Similarly Kirkpatrick (Doct. of the Proph., p. 502): And did not One make[you both]? And why [did]the One [do so]? Seeking a goodly seed. (4) Wellhausen goes further along the same line. Reading הלא for ולא, and וישאר for ושאר, and לנו for לו, he translates: Hath not the same God created and sustained your (? our) breath? And what does He desire? A seed of God.