CHAPTER VII.
THE TEXT OF PROVERBS.
The sense of proverbs is naturally most difficult to catch
when there has been no attempt to group them by subjects.
Hence the textual difficulties of so large a part of the earliest
anthology. Grätz has made some valuable among many too
arbitrary corrections; but a systematic use of the ancient
versions is still a desideratum. Lagarde, Oort, Bickell, and
others have led the way; but much yet remains to be done.
My space only allows me to give some preliminary hints, which
may at least stimulate further inquiry, on the relation of the
Hebrew text to the versions, especially the Septuagint version
(if I should not rather speak of 'versions'). How comes
it, we may ask first of all, that the Septuagint contains so
many passages not found in the Hebrew? One answer is
that in a foreign land, with a new language and a new circle
of ideas, explanation was as necessary to the Hellenistic
Jews as translation. Hence the tendency of the Septuagint
translators to introduce glosses. But the form of the
Book of Proverbs specially favoured interpolations. Sometimes
only a few words were inserted to make the text more
distinct (e.g. i. 22, xii. 25, xxiv. 23); at other times explanatory
or suggested remarks were added, at first perhaps in
the margin. Of course, it is perfectly conceivable that the
received Hebrew text itself may contain similar additions;
the analogy of other books, in which such interpolations
occur, even favours this idea. One such insertion is patent;
there can be no doubt that i. 16 was added in the Hebrew,
to the detriment of the connection, from Isa. lix. 7. As this
passage is wanting in the best MSS. of the Septuagint, we
might be tempted to use this version as a means of detecting
