Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/359

 (see below) do double duty,—as gen. after and as subj. to —a faulty syntax which a good writer would have avoided (v.i.). The suggestion that the first two names are gen. and the last two subj., has the advantage of putting Kĕdorlā'omer, the head of the expedition ($4. 5. 9. 17$), in the place of honour; but it is without warrant in the Heb. text; and besides, by excluding the first two kings from participation in the campaign (against $5. 9. 17$), it necessitates a series of changes too radical to be safely undertaken.—2. The group of five cities (Pentapolis, Wis. 10$6$) is thought to be the result of an amalgamation of originally independent traditions.

In ch. 19, only Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned as destroyed (19$24. 28$ [18$20$]; so 13$10$, Is. 1$9f.$, Jer. 23$14$ etc.) and Zoar (19$17ff.$) as spared. Admah and Ẓeboim are named alone in Hos. 11$8$, in a manner hardly consistent with the idea that they were involved in the same catastrophe as S. and G. The only passages besides this where the four are associated are 10$19$ and Dt. 29$22$, although 'neighbour cities' of S. and G. are referred to in Jer. 49$18$ 50$40$, Ezk. 16$46ff.$. If, as seems probable, there were two distinct legends, we cannot assume that in the original tradition Admah and Ẓeboim were connected with the Dead Sea (see Che. EB, 66 f.).—The old name of Zoar, (Destruction?), appears nowhere else.

The four names in v.$1$ are undoubtedly historical, although the monumental evidence is less conclusive than is often represented. (1) is thought to be a faulty transcription of Ḫammurabi (Ammurab[p]i), the name of the 6th king of the first Bab. dynasty, who put an end to the Elamite domination and united the whole country under his own sway (c. 2100 ). The final presents a difficulty which has never been satisfactorily explained; but the equivalence is

between the second and third. The reading of the Sixtine ed. (first two names in gen. coupled by ), which is appealed to in support of Wi.'s construction, has very little MS authority. "I have little doubt that both in H. and P. 19 (which is a rather carelessly written MS) and in 135 the reading is due to a scribe's mistake, probably arising from misreading of a contracted termination and induced by the immediately preceding . How it came into the Roman edition, I do not feel sure." —2. ] G, etc.—] G .—] G —] G , , [E] ('name has perished'), S .—] the first of the 11 instances of this Kethîb in Pent. (see on 2$12$).