To commence with the LXX., the earliest of the existing versions. The translation of this book, like that of Job, proves a more competent acquaintance with the Greek language and literature than is usual with the Alexandrine translators. The rendering is more free than literal : giving what the writer conceived to be the general spirit of the passage without strict adherence to the actual words. Bertheau remarks that the version of this book ap pears to have been undertaken rather with a lite rary than a religious object, as it was not read in the synagogues or required for their internal regulation. It is to this freedom of rendering that not a few of the apparent discrepancies are due, while there are others which are attributable to carelessness, misconception of the writer's meaning, or even possibly to arbitrary alterations on the part of the translators. In some cases also we find two incompatible translations fused into one—ex.gr., vi. 25 ; xvi. 26; xxiii. 31. Of the majority, however, of the variations, no explanation can be offered but that they represent a different original, and there fore deserve the utmost consideration for the history of the text.
In the first division, i.-ix., these variations are less considerable than in the second. Two verses ap pended to ch. iv. remove the abruptness of the close, and complete the sense. To the simile of the ant, vi. 8, that of the bee is added. The insertion after viii. 21 seems out of place, and disturbs the con tinuity. In ch. ix. there are two considerable addi tions to the description of the wise and foolish women, which seem to complete the sense in a very desirable manner. The variations are much more considerable in the section x.-xxiv. A large num ber of verses is wanting (xi. 4 ; xiii. 6 ; xvi. 1•4 ; xviii. 23, 24 ; xix. I, 2; xx. 14-19; XXI. 5; xxii. 6 • xxiii. z3—which comes in very awkwardly in the Hebrew text ; xxiv. 8) ; the arrangement of others is dislocated—ex. gr., ch. xv. closes with ver. 29, vers, 30, 32, 33, standing at the begin fling of ch. xvi., while a verse very similar to ver. 31 is found after xvi. 17 ; xix. 3 stands as the last verse of ch. xviii. ; in ch. xx. vers. 20-22 come between vers. 9 and so. The most extra ordinary dislocation, hardly to be ascribed to any thing but an error of the scribe, appears in ch. xxiv. After ver. 22 is introduced xxix. 27, to which succeed four distichs descriptive of the wrath of a king and urging attention to the writer's words, not found in the Hebrew. We then find, xxx.-xxxi. 9 (i e., the prophecy of Apr, and of Lemuel), with the remainder of ch. xxiv. foisted
in between vers. 14, 15 of ch. xxx. The re mainder of ch. xxxi., the acrostic on a virtuous woman, stands in its right place at the end of the book. The additions in this section are also numerous and important. We find proverbs in tercalated between the following verses, x. 4, 5 ; xi. 16, 17 (by which a very imperfect antithesis in the Hebrew is rectified) ; xii. 11, 12 ; 13, 14 ; xiii. 9, 10 ; 13, 14 (found in the Vulgate, xiv. 15, 16) ; xiv. 22, 23 ; xv. 5, 6 ; 18, 19 ; 27, 28 ; 28, 29 ; xvii. 6, 7, 16, 17 ; xviii. 22, 23 ; xix. 7, 8 ; xxii. 8, 9 (found with slight variations 2 Cor. ix. 7) ; 9, 10 ; 14, 15. In the dislocated ch. xvi. five or perhaps six new proverbs appear. Intercalated proverbs are also found in the section xxv.-xxix.
ex.gr., xxv. 10, II ; 20, 21 ; xxvi. II, 12 (found also Eccles. iv. 21) ; xxvii. 20, 21 ; 21, 22 ; XXIX. 25, z6. Besides these, a careful scrutiny will dis cover a large number of smaller interpolations throughout, many of which are only explanatory clauses.
To specify the words and clauses which vary from the Hebrew would carry us far beyond our limits. For these and the comparison of the two versions generally, the student may be referred to Jager, Observ. iu Pray. Salons. vers. Alex., and Schleusner, Ogusc. critic. In many of these cases the LXX. has probably preserved the true reading (ex.gr., x. to, b) ; but, on the whole, Ewald and Bertheau agree that the Masoretic text is the better and purer.
The Peshito-Syriac version, like the LXX., while it agrees with the Hebrew text generally, presents remarkable deviations in words and clauses, and contains whole verses of which there is no trace in the Hebrew. Some of the variations only prove a different interpretation of the text, but others are plainly referable to a difference in the text itself (ex.gr., vii. 22, ff ; xv. 4-15; XiX. 20; xxi. 16 ; xxii. 21, etc.), and thus confirm the view that at the time the version was executed-i.e., anterior to the 4th century-the present Hebrew text was not universally recognised.
The Vulgate translation of Proverbs, hastily executed by Jerome in three days (together with Ecclesiastes and Canticles), offers many of the same phenomena as the LXX. version. Many of the additions of the LXX. are to be found in it-ex. gr., x. 4 ; xii. I I, 13 ; xv. 5, 27 (cf. xvi. 6) ; xvi. 5, etc. ; and in one or two instances it has independent additions-ex. gr., xiv. 21 ; xviii. 8. There can be little doubt that in these points it preserves an authentic record of the state of the text at a period anterior to any existing Hebrew MS.