commentaries, and by Ewald in his Jahrb. xi. (1861) and his commentary (2nd ed. 1867). The historical importance of the Egyptian text-recension is heightened by this circumstance, that the old Syrian translator of the Solomonic writings had before him not only the original text, but also the lxx; for the current opinion, that the Peshito, as distinguished from the Syro-Hexaplar version, sprang solely from the original text with the assistance of the Targum, is more and more shown to be erroneous. In the Book of Proverbs the relation of the Peshito and Targum is even the reverse; the Targum of the Proverbs, making use of the Peshito, restores the Masoretic text - the points of contact with the lxx showing themselves here and there, are brought about[1] by the Peshito. But that Jerome, in his translation of the Vulgate according to the Hebraea veritas, sometimes follows the lxx in opposition to the original text, is to be explained with Hitzig from the fact that he based his work on an existing Latin translation made from the lxx. Hence it comes that the two distichs added in the lxx to Pro 4:27 remain in his work, and that instead of the one distich, Pro 15:6, we have two: - In abundanti (after the phrase בּרב instead of בּית of the Masoretic text) justitia virtus maxima est, cogitationes autem impiroum eradicabuntur. Domus (בּית) justi plurima fortitudo, et in fructibus impii conturbatio; for Jerome has adopted the two translations of the lxx, correcting the second according to the original text.[2]
- ↑ Cf. Dathe, De ratione consensus Versionis Syriacae el Chaldaicae Proverbiorum Salomonis (1764), edited by Rosenmüller in his Opuscula. Maybaum, in the Treatise on the Language of the Targum to the Proverbs and its relation to the Syriac, in Merx's Archiv, ii. 66-93, labours in vain to give the priority to that of the Targum: the Targum is written from the Peshito, and here and there approaches the Hebrew text; the language is, with few differences, the Syriac of the original.
- ↑ The Ethiopic translation, also, is in particular points, as well as on the whole, dependent on the lxx, for it divides the Book of Proverbs into proverbs (παροιμίας), chap. 1-24, and instructions (παιδεῖαι) of Solomon, chap. 25-31. Vid., Dillmann in Ewald's Jahrb. v. 147, 150.
