[549] Cf. Amos: _Seek Me_ = _Seek the good_; and Jesus: _Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord; but he that doeth the will of My Father in heaven_. [550] So LXX., but Hebrew _it_. [551] Davidson's _Syntax_, § 136, Rem. 1, and § 71, Rom. 4. [552] So by the accents runs the verse, but, as Wellhausen has pointed out, both its sense and its assonance are better expressed by another arrangement: _Hath it grown up?_ then _it hath no shoot, nor bringeth forth fruit_. ên lo ṣemach, b'li ya'aseh qemach. Yet to this there is a grammatical obstacle. [553] Wellhausen's reading _to Egypt with love gifts_ scarcely suits the verb _go up_. Notice the play upon P(h)ere', _wild-ass_ and Ephra'[îm]. [554] So LXX. reads. Heb.: _they shall involve themselves with tribute to the king of princes_, presumably the Assyrian monarch. [555] So LXX. [556] Text obscure. [557] LXX. addition here is plainly borrowed from ix. 3. For the reasons for omitting ver. 14 see above, p. 223. [558] ii. 16. [559] On this verse see more particularly below, pp. 340 ff. [560] So LXX. [561] Read יערכו. Cf. with the whole passage iii. 4 f. [562] לחמם for להם. [563] יָבִיאוּ. [564] Plural: so LXX. [565] Others read _they are gone to Assyria_. [566] Literally _knows_. See below, p. 321, _n._ 9. [567] See above, p. 28. [568] So, after the LXX., by taking העמיקו with this verse, 8, instead of with ver. 9. [569] iv. 12. [570] iv. 13, 14. [571] Here, between vv. 11 and 12, Wellhausen with justice proposes to insert ver. 16. [572] So Wellhausen, after LXX.; probably correct. [573] So we may attempt to echo the play on the words. [574] Cf., _e.g._, the _Proverbs of Ptah-Hotep_ the Egyptian, _circa_ 2500 B.C. "There is no prudence in taking part in it, and thousands of men destroy themselves in order to enjoy a moment, brief as a dream, while they gain death so as to know it. It is a villainous ... that of a man who excites himself (?); if he goes on to carry it out, his mind abandons him. For as for him who is without repugnance for such an [act], there is no good sense at all in him."--From the translation in _Records of the Past_, Second Series, Vol. III., p. 24. [575] 2 Peter i. [576] Doubtful. The Heb. text gives an inappropriate if not impossible clause, even if ישׁוה be taken from a root שׁוח, to _set_ or _produce_ (Barth, _Etym. Stud._, 66). LXX.: ὁ καρπὸς εὐθηνῶν αὐτῆς (A.Q. αὐτῆς εὐθηνῶν), "her [the vine's] fruit flourishing." Some parallel is required to בקק of the first clause; and it is possible that it may have been from a root שׁוּחַ or שִׁיח, corresponding to Arabic sâḥ, "to wander" in the sense of scattering or being scattered. [577] After LXX. [578] Doubtful. Lawsuits? [579] "Calf," "inhabitants"--so LXX. [580] LXX. supplies. [581] See above, p. 263. [582] Very uncertain. Wellhausen reads _from his idol_, מעצבו.