Questions and Answers By R, A. TORREY
seventy men,” then 50,000 men are men tioned without any “and” and apparently without being connected with the verb “smote.” The Syriac and Arabic read 5000 and seventy men ; the Chaldee reads seven ty men of the elders and 50,000 of the com mon people. Josephus says only seventy were smitten. Whatever is the correct in terpretation there is no reason for being staggered. While neither the Authorized or Revised Version is the exact rendering of the Hebrew text as we have it, it is not impossible that there were 50,000 men and seventy men of “ the people,” i. e. of Israel present at Bethshemesh at that time. You will notice that it does not say that He smote 57,000 o f the men of Bethshe mesh. It sáys He smote of the men of Bethshemesh because they had looked into the ark of Jehovah without stating the number of the men of Bethshemesh; then it goes on to state that He smote of (the “of” would be more accurately rendered “among” ) the people (i. e. Israel) sevently men 50,000 men. In regard to 1 Kings 20:30 the Revised Version again makes a change because the Authorized is not an accurate rendering of the Hebrew text as we have it, the Hebrew text does not say that the wall “fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left.” It says, “the wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand men that were left,” i. e. the wall fell upon the rem nant, not twenty and seven thousand of the remnant. This, of course, does not mean that it fell upon every one of them but that there had been such an awful slaughter of the Syrians, 100,000 footmen, only 27,000 were left and as they fled into Aphek the wall fell upon the company that was left. How many of them were hit and killed by the wall we are not told. There is nothing impossible nor improbable in this and so certainly you do not need to be staggered by it. Concluded on page 490.
I want to believe in every word taught or inspired by the Holy Spirit, but I am simply staggered when I read the statements of i Kings 20:30 and 1 Samuel 6: iq . Can you give me any relief? I f the figures are incorrectly translated why did not the re visers make the necessary alterations? The doctrine o f “Verbal Inspiration” is not that the Scriptures as translated in our Authorized Version, or any other particular version, were inspired in every word, but that the Scriptures as originally given were inspired in every word. There have been errors in manuscripts and errors in trans lation, though now the correct manuscript readings are practically settled, and no doc trine is affected by any questions as to cor rect readings, and, furthermore, scholars are agreed as to the correct translations as far as they affect any fundamental doc trine. There is no doctrine now in doubt because of questionable translations. In regard to 1 Samuel 6:19, the revisers did make an alteration; instead of reading as in the Authorized Version, “ He smote of the people 50,000 and three score and ten men,” the revisers read, “He smote of the people seventy men and 50,000 men.” They put “ and” in italics to indicate that it is not in the original, which it is not. In the Hebrew as we have it, it reads, “He smote of the people seventy men fifty thou sand men.” There is no “ and” at all. The construction is very peculiar. Many ex planations have been given o f it. One is that the seventy men who were smitten were as valuable as 50,000 men because they were priests. This to me is not a very satisfying explanation. Another one is that the seventy men that He smote were seven ty of the Bethshëmites and the 50,000 were those that were slain by the ark while it was in the land of the Philistines At all events the record does not say that He slew “ fifty thousand and three score and ten men,” nor even as we read in the R. V., ‘seventy men and 50,000 men.” It simply says that “ He smote among thç people
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