(Vol. iv., p. 481.; Vol. v., pp. 31., 87.)
Your pages are not suited to the discussion of topics like this: I mean,
that to enter fully into all the points raised by MR. MARGOLIOUTH, would
occupy more space than you could afford. I therefore write only a few
general remarks, lest my silence should be interpreted as an
acquiescence in MR. M.'S arguments. The difficulty MR. M. has to contend
with is evidently this: how came the eminent Hebrew scholars, who were
the authors of the ancient versions--how came the whole body of Jewish
Rabbis who have written upon the law, to be ignorant of what seems so
clear to MR. M., that םיבותכה, in the passage in question was
in fact a proper name, denoting _the place_ in which Eldad and Medad
were? How came it that they all took it in the sense expressed in our
English version? [I do not admit the Chaldee paraphrase as an exception
(notwithstanding what MR. M. remarks), because the words איביתכב ואנון
are an exact rendering of the Hebrew text, and partake of the
same ambiguity, if there be any ambiguity.] The legend which I quoted
from Rashi clearly proves that the Jews of his time understood the
passage as our English translators have done. This is MR. M.'s
difficulty: and how does he meet it? He says, "What of that, if they
happen to be wrong? Such a consideration will never interfere with my
own judgment, founded on a thorough knowledge of the meaning of the
Hebrew word."
What is this but to say that the Septuagint translators, the authors of
the other ancient versions, the Jewish Rabbis, had not the same
"thorough knowledge of the meaning of the Hebrew word" which MR. M. "in
his own judgment" believes himself to possess? I do not, however,
suppose that MR. M. really intends to set up his own judgment against
these authorities, as if he was better acquainted with Hebrew than those
who lived when the language was vernacular; but when he tells us "that
he has long since learned that opinions are not necessarily true because
they are old, nor doctrines undeniably infallible because we have
believed them from our cradles," it becomes necessary to remind him that
I never asserted any such thing, and that my argument, from authority,
amounted simply to this,--that the judgment of the LXX, and other
ancient translators, with that of all the Jewish Rabbis of later date,
was a better authority, in my judgment, as to the meaning of a Hebrew
word, than the unsupported opinion of MR. MARGOLIOUTH, which (as it
seems to me) is also inconsistent with the context of the passage. If
MR. M. will produce the judgment of any other authority, especially of
those who lived near the time when Hebrew was a vernacular language (for
this is what makes the age of the authority valuable), his opinion will
be more worthy of attention.
MR. M. says, as one of his arguments, "It would appear that DR.
TODD himself found the ב insurmountable, and therefore
omitted it in his last Hebrew quotation."
This omission was the error of your printer, not mine; and I think any
one who did not greatly need such an argument, must have seen that it
was a mistake of the press. In my own defence I must say that I had not
the advantage of being allowed to correct the press.
I do not deny that MR. M.'S interpretation is ingenious and clever, but
it is for this reason especially that I object to it; Holy Scripture is
too sacred a thing to be trifled with by ingenious conjectures: it is
easy for a man of talent like Mr. M. to gain a reputation with the
unlearned by affecting to correct our English version on a "thorough
knowledge of Hebrew words." This is a rock upon which many have
foundered; the temptation is very great to a man like MR. M., who has
been brought up with a verbal knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures: and it
is in no unkindly spirit towards him, but very much the reverse, that I
venture to give him this warning.