Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 117, January 24, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 117, January 24, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
But do not all the ancient paraphrasts sanction the translation of the
authorised version? What of that, if they happen to be wrong! Such a
consideration will never interfere with my own judgment, founded on a
thorough knowledge of the meaning of the Hebrew word. I have long since
learned that opinions are not necessarily true, because they are old
ones, nor doctrines undeniably infallible, because we may have believed
in them from our cradles. I am positive, however, that had the LXX, the
authors of the Vulgate, Rashi, and the translators of the authorised
version, known the locality of Wady Mokatteb, they would have hesitated
before they put so unnatural a construction on the word. Aye, and DR.
TODD too, if he were in the valley, and traced, with his generally
correct mind, the wanderings of the people of Israel, would have
exclaimed, "Surely this is none other than the Kibroth Hattavah of
Scripture, and rightly named "םיבותכ."
Onkelos, however, in his _Chaldee Paraphrase_--DR. TODD evidently
overlooked that, for he grouped the _Chaldee Paraphrase_ amongst the
mistranslators--renders the words םיבותכב המהו literally and
grammatically by the Chaldee words איביתכב ןונאו, "And they
were amongst the inscriptions."
But do not the words "but they went not out into the tabernacle, and
they prophesied in the camp," "completely overturn my hypothesis?" They
may according to DR. TODD'S criticisms, but not according to the correct
sense of that interesting portion of Scripture. The people in the camp
were evidently under the impression that it was not right for any one
but the seventy to prophesy, nor was it lawful to prophesy any where
else but at the tabernacle, as they were accustomed to hear Moses do;
the fact, therefore, that two men, who were _not_ of the seventy, and
far away from the tabernacle, probably in the very centre of the camp of
Israel, which I conceive Wady Mokatteb to have been, being gifted with a
spirit of prophecy, seemed so astounding and unprecedented in the
history of Israel's wanderings, that the inspired writer is induced to
make a particular note of the few circumstances connected with that
extraordinary event.
The above is a _fair_, _sound_, and _well-digested_ view of the passage
in question. Adding to it the stubborn fact--which _Dr. Todd_
ignores--that where the ancient maps have Kibroth Hattavah, the modern
maps have Wady Mokatteb, the conclusion is inevitable that _Wady
Mokatteb is mentioned in Num. xi. 26_.
MOSES MARGOLIOUTH.
Replies to Minor Queries.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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