――‘If the axe be blunt, and it troubles the face and increases the slain; and the advantage of the diligent is wisdom.’ The Vulgate reads――‘Si retusam fuerit ferrum _et hoc non ut prius_ sed hebetatum fuerit, multo labore ♦exacuetur et post industriam ♠sequetur sapientia’――‘If the iron should be blunt, and this _not as before_, but should have lost its edge, it is sharpened with much labour; and after industry will follow wisdom.’ Jerome renders the former part in conformity with the Vulgate; but after ‘_non ut prius_,’ which he also has, runs on with――‘sed conturbatum fuerit, virtutibus corroborabitur, et reliquum fortitudinis sapientia est ...’――‘but is troubled; it shall be strengthened by virtues, and the remainder of strength is wisdom.’ It will be seen then that we have reason to suspect a corruption of the text; and we think that the suspicious ‘non ut prius’ of the Vulgate and Jerome shows what this corruption was. We notice also that neither the LXX. nor the Syriac take any notice of the negative. Guided by the clue thus given, we will venture on the following conjectural emendation of the text. We imagine that it was originally written thus, ‎‏והוא להפנים קלקל, the ה being written full――like ♣שתקיף in chapter vi. 10, compare also chapter viii. 1, Nehemiah ix. 19――and having the meaning, ‘to _the_ faces’ or ‘edges.’ Such an insertion of ה being unusual, would cause suspicion to rest on the passage, and the transition to ‎‏לא פנים would be easy. This, however, was but one out of many possible conjectures, and the Vulgate has preserved another, namely, that the reading was לפני, ‘as before,’ and, as was common with the ancient versions, inserts both the reading and its variant into the text. This conjectural change in the text will make all quite clear; the passage will then read thus――‘If the iron be blunt, and so it is as to its edges whetted, and so too blows prevail, and so too an advantage is the success [due to an instance] of wisdom,’ _i.e._ in this case a skilful hit. That is, if the axe be blunt, grinding, force, and skill together, will produce the required result. No doubt this can only be put forth as mere conjecture, but, in the absence of any satisfactory interpretation, may be admitted; for, in fact, arbitrary senses given to words, and the insertions of explanatory glosses not immediately deducible from the original, do amount to alterations of the text. None of the other ancient Greek versions have been preserved in this place, except a reading of Symmachus, which is very curious, showing still more forcibly how early the difficulty must have arisen, since it is at best a reading _ad sensum_ only, προέχει δὲ ὁ γοργευσάμενος εἰς σοφίαν, ‘and the nimble advances into wisdom.’ ♦ “exacueter” replaced with “exacuetur” ♠ “sequeter” replaced with “sequetur” ♣ “שהתקיף” replaced with “שתקיף”