CHAPTER LV.
LV. But Samuel knew nothing of all these things, because three days before the battle God sent him away, saying unto him: Go and look upon the place of Arimatha, there shall be thy dwelling. And when Samuel heard what had
1
3. And when the Philistines had set the ark of
1 is come upon us for a season? 6. And now, whereas all that are with child and give suck die, and they that give suck are made childless, and they, that
|
2 For the middle way leadeth to Accaron, and the way on the right hand to
1 hath befallen us, for now have we denied our gods. 8. And the Philistines took milch kine and yoked them to a new cart and set the ark thereon, and set them at the head of the three ways, and their young they shut up at home. And the kine, albeit they lowed and yearned for their young, went forward nevertheless by the right-hand way that leadeth to Judæa. And then they knew that for the ark's sake they were laid waste. 9. And all the Philistines assembled and brought the ark again unto Silo with timbrels and pipes and dances. And because of the noisome creeping things that laid them waste, they made seats of gold and sanctified the ark. 10. And in that plaguing of the Philistines, the number was of them that died being with child 75,000, and of the sucking children 65,000, and of them that gave suck 55,000, and of men 25,000. And the land had rest seven years.
Footnotes
225:1 LV. The plagues that afflicted the Philistines are only obscurely indicated. They appear to have consisted of noxious reptiles which particularly attacked the children and the mothers. In 9 it is said that sedilia aurea (ἕδρασ LXX) were offered pro reptilibus pessimis quae exterminauerunt eos, whereas in the Bible these objects represented the bubones characteristic of the plague--the "emerods" of A. V.
226:1 5. The phrase et (aut R) conueniens (+ temporarie R) dominatio is unusual. temporarie, which seems likely to be genuine, would represent πρόσκαιροσ. I adopt the aut of R, and take conueniens to be a mistranslation of some word meaning fortuitous (from συμβαίνω or συντυγχάνω or the like): in 1 Sam. 6:7 LXX the word used is σύμπτωμα ("it was a chance that happened to us").
226:2 7. The passage about the three roads in 7 is confused in the MSS. I have made a smooth conflate text which probably conveys the original writer's meaning.
227:1 7. an evil (lit. mighty) time: ualidum tempus.
| | | |