Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/236

 one person; but the connexion becomes doubly significant in view of the evidence that the two figures were distinct, and belong to different strata of the J document. Di.'s objection, that a biblical writer would not speak of wine as a comfort under the divine curse, has little force: see Ju. 9$13$, Ps. 104$15$.—In virtue of its threefold connexion with the story of the Fall, the Sethite genealogy of J, and the incident of 9$20ff.$, the v. has considerable critical importance. It furnishes a clue to the disentanglement of a strand of Yahwistic narrative in which these sections formed successive stages.—The fragment is undoubtedly rhythmic, and has assonances which suggest rhyme; but nothing definite can be said of its metrical structure (perhaps 3 short lines of 3 pulses each).

32. The abnormal age of Noah at the birth of his first-*born is explained by the consideration that his age at the Flood was a fixed datum (7$6. 11$), as was also the fact that no grandchildren of Noah were saved in the ark. The chronologist, therefore, had to assign an excessive lateness either to the birth of Shem, or to the birth of Shem's first-born.

I. ''The Chronology of Ch. 5.''—In this chapter we have the first instance of systematic divergence between the three chief recensions, the Heb., the Samaritan, and the LXX. The differences are best exhibited in tabular form as follows (after Holzinger):

+-+++-++-+++ +-+-+-+++-++++-++++-++-+ +-+-+-+++-++++-++++-++-+
 * |                  MT.              ||              Sam. (Jub.).           ||                  LXX.             || Year  |
 * |                                   ||                                     ||                                   ||       of Death.      |
 * | First-born. | Remainder. | Total. || First-born. | Remainder. |  Total.  || First-born. | Remainder. | Total. ||   MT. |  S.  |  LXX. |
 * | First-born. | Remainder. | Total. || First-born. | Remainder. |  Total.  || First-born. | Remainder. | Total. ||   MT. |  S.  |  LXX. |
 * | First-born. | Remainder. | Total. || First-born. | Remainder. |  Total.  || First-born. | Remainder. | Total. ||   MT. |  S.  |  LXX. |
 * | First-born. | Remainder. | Total. || First-born. | Remainder. |  Total.  || First-born. | Remainder. | Total. ||   MT. |  S.  |  LXX. |
 * 1. Adam          |     130     |     800     |   930  ||     130     |     800    |    930   ||    230      |     700    |   930  ||   930 |  930 |   930 |
 * 2. Seth          |     105     |     807     |   912  ||     105     |     807    |    912   ||    205      |     707    |   912  ||  1042 | 1042 |  1142 |
 * 3. Enos          |      90     |     815     |   905  ||      90     |     815    |    905   ||    190      |     715    |   905  ||  1140 | 1140 |  1340 |
 * 4. Kenan         |      70     |     840     |   910  ||      70     |     840    |    910   ||    170      |     740    |   910  ||  1235 | 1235 |  1535 |
 * 5. Mahalalel     |      65     |     830     |   895  ||      65     |     830    |    895   ||    165      |     730    |   895  ||  1290 | 1290 |  1690 |
 * 6. Jered         |     162     |     800     |   962  ||      62     |     785    |    847   ||    162      |     800    |   962  ||  1422 | 1307 |  1922 |
 * 7. Enoch         |      65     |     300     |   365  ||      65     |     300    |    365   ||    165      |     200    |   365  ||   987 |  887 |  1487 |
 * 8. Methuselah    |     187     |     782     |   969  ||      67     |     653    |    720   ||    167   |     802[A] |   969  ||  1656 | 1307 |  2256 |
 * 9. Lamech        |     182     |     595     |   777  ||      53     |     600    |    653   ||    188      |     565    |   753  ||  1651 | 1307 |  2207 |
 * 10. Noah         |     500     |          |     ||     500     |         |       ||    500      |         |     ||    |   |    |
 * Till the Flood   |     100     |          |     ||     100     |         |       ||    100      |         |     ||    |   |    |
 * Year of the Flood |   1656     |          |     ||    1307     |         |       ||   2242      |         |     ||    |   |    |
 * Year of the Flood |   1656     |          |     ||    1307     |         |       ||   2242      |         |     ||    |   |    |