Page:Job and Solomon (1887).djvu/318

 The Old Latin has many peculiarities; its inaccuracies are no proof of arbitrariness; the translator means to be faithful to his Greek original. Many verses are transposed; others misplaced. For instances of the former, Fritzsche refers to iii. 27, iv. 31, 32, vi. 9, 10, ix. 14, 16, xii. 5, 7; for the latter, to xvi. 24, 25, xix. 5, 6, xlix. 17. Sometimes a double text is translated, e.g. xix. 3, xx. 24. It is to be used with great caution, but its age makes it valuable for determining the Greek text. For the text of Ecclesiasticus in the Codex Amiatinus, see Lagarde's Mittheilungen. 23. Page 198 (Aids to the Student).—To the works mentioned add Bruch, Weisheitslehre (1851), p. 283 &c., and especially Jehuda ben Seeb's little known work The Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira rendered into Hebrew and German, and paraphrased in Syriac with the Biur, Breslau, 1798 (translated title), and Geiger, 'Warum gehört das Buch Sirach zu den Apocryphen?' in ''Zeitschr. d deutschen morgenl. Gesellschaft'', xii. 536 &c. The Title Qoheleth (twice, see below, 'the Qoheleth').

24. Page 207, note 2.—The name is undoubtedly an enigma, and M. Renan thinks that ordinary philological methods are inadequate to its solution. Even Aquila leaves it untranslated. Without stopping here to criticise M. Renan's theory that QHLTH were the initials of words (comp. Rambam, Rashi) in some way descriptive of Solomon, let me frankly admit that none of the older explanations is absolutely certain, because neither Qōhēl nor Qohéleth occurs elsewhere in the Old Testament literature. Two views however are specially prevalent, and I will first mention that which seems to me (with Gesenius, Delitzsch, Nowack &c.) to deserve the preference. In one respect indeed it harmonises with the rival explanation, viz. in supposing Qal to have adopted the signification of Hifil (the Hifil of Q H L is found in the Old Testament), so that Qōhēl] will mean 'one who calls together an assembly.' The adoption thus supposed is found especially in proper names (e.g. ). But how to explain the feminine form Qohéleth? By a tendency of later Hebrew to use fem. participles with a masc. sense. In Talmudic Hebrew, e.g., we find, 'buyers,' , 'stone-*masons,' , 'foreigners' (passive participles in this stage of the language tend to adopt an active sense). But even earlier we find the same tendency among proper names. Take for instance Sophereth (hassofereth in Ezra ii. 55; sofereth in Neh. vii. 57), Pokereth (Ezra ii. 57). Why should not the name Qoheleth have been