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Padan-Aram, and the birth of Benjamin. I have computed at least ten years, so that Rachel could not be with child by him in Padan-Aram. Other commentators" think that the passage is a Synecdoche; but surely this pretencc is very idle. We must have an odd notion of Moses' eloquence, to suppose that he had a mind to display it in giving us the names of Jacob's twelve sons; and a still more surprising notion of his rhetoric, to make such a passage as this a figure of speech, which looks ten times more like a mistake than a synecdoche. I think it certain that Moses did not write the words in Padan-Aram in this place; but that he ended his period with the the words which were born to him; but that some careless or injudicious transcriber, finding the words in Padun-Aram in Gen. xlvi. 15. might add them here also, and be led into the mistake by considering, that he had twelve children born there, which is indeed true, but eleven of them only were sons; one of his children born in Padan-Aram, namely Dinah, was a daughter. In the catalogue in Genesis xlvi. there seems to be a deficiency: Moses begins it, These are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben his first-born, but then he does not add the names of Jacob's other sons which he had by Leah and Zilpah, nor of those which he had by Bilhah; and if we cast up the number of names which are now given us, they will fall short of the number which Moses.

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computes them to be,' by all the names thus omitted. I must therefore think, that all these names of Jacob's sons were inserted by Moses; but have been dropped by the carelessness of transcribers. The accounts of each family might be begun by Moses, as the first is. Reuben, Jacob's first born, and the sons of Reuben: So Moses most probably wrote; Simeon, and the sons of Simeon; Levi, and the sons of Levi ; Judah, and the sons of Judah; and so in the accounts of all the rest; and the same word being repeated might be easily dropped by a hasty writer. It is very evident, that the transcribers have been careless in these catalogues; for the children of Leah are said by mistake to be thirty three, whereas there are but thirty-two, and without doubt Moses computed them no more than thirty-two; for he makes the whole number of the children of Jacob that came with him into Egypt to be sixty-six. Now thirty-two children of Leah, sixteen of Zilpah, eleven of Rachel (without Joseph and his two sons) and seven by Bilhah, make up exactly the number. If the children of Leah had been thirty-three, the number that came with Jacob into Egypt must have been sixty-seven, as may be seen by any one who will put together the several persons named in the catalogue. All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten; i. e. sixty-six as above-mentioned, and

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Jacob himself, and Joseph, and Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manassch; and thus many they are always computed to be in all places where they are mentioned in Scripture.. The LXX indeed suppose, that there were seventy-five of Jacob's family in Egypt, when he came thither. They render the latter part of the 27th verse, All the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were εdounnorla; Tevle, i. e. seventy-five. And thus they number them, Exodus Chap. i. ver. 5. and the number is the same in St. Stephen's speech," where they are said to be threescore and fifteen souls. As to the Septuagint, it is evident how we come to find the number seventyfive instead of seventy in Gen. xlvi. 27. for, 1. In our present copies of the Septuagint, there is a very large interpolation, of which not one word is to be found in any Hebrew copy. The Lxx give us the 20th verse of this Chapter thus: And there were sons born unto Joseph in the land of Egypt, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of Heliopolis bare unto him, Manasseh and Ephraim. After these words they add, And there were born sons unto Manasseh, which Syra his concubine bare unto him, Machir, and Machir begat Galaad; and the sons of Ephraim the brother of Manasseh were

Exod. i. 5. Deut. x. 22.

*

Acts vii. 14.

*If this be an interpolation in the Lxx, it must be very ancient; for all the MSS. of the Lxx, and ancient versions taken from it, retain the passage. In some of the MSS. and versions lately collated by Dr. Holmes, there are various readings, in some a word or name is omitted; but they all retain the passage.-EDIT.

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Sutalam and Taam, and the sons of Sutalam were Edom. And thus our present editions of the Septu agint compute seventy-five persons instead of seventy, by taking into the account five sons and grandsons of Ephraim and Manasseh, which are not in the Hebrew. 2. But these five persons were evidently not put into this catalogue by Moses; for the design of this catalogue was to give the names of the persons of Jacob's family, who came with him into Egypt, or who were there at the time when he came thither; but Ephraim and Manasseh could have no children born at this time, therefore their children's names cannot be supposed to be inserted by Moses in this place. Joseph was about thirty years old when he mar ried, and he was about forty, or forty-one when Jacob came into Egypt: so that Manassch, who was his elder son, could not be much above ten years old; and therefore it is an evident mistake in our present Septuagint copies to insert Joseph's grand-children, and their children, in this place. 3. It is not very difficult to guess how these additions were made to the LXX. I call them additions, for no one can suppose that the first translators of the Hebrew bible into Greek, could so palpably and erroneously deviate from the original. The owners of ancient manuscripts used frequently to make marginal refe rences, observations or notes in their manuscripts; and very probably some learned person might collect from Numbers xxvi. and 1 Chron. vii. that Manasseh and Ephraim had these sons, and grandsons, and remark it in the margin of his manuscript Septuagint, and some transcribers from that manuscript might mistake

Gen. xli. 45, 46.

the design; think it put there as an omission of the copyist, and so take it into the text; and by degrees, this accident happening very early when there were but few copies of the L taken, all subsequent transcripts came to be corrupted by it. 4. As to the 14th verse of chap. vii. of the Acts, I cannot conceive that St. Luke wrote threescore and fifteen souls; but it being pretty certain, that transcribers in the first ages of Christianity did sometimes make such small alterations as these, to make the New Testament accord with the copies they then had of the Lxx bible, (the LXX being more read by the christians of the first ages, than the Hebrew Scriptures) it seems most reasonable to suppose that the finding seventy-five and not seventy in the xlvith chapter of Genesis, and Exodus i. might alter the ancient reading of this passage in St. Stephen's speech, to make it accord with the LXX in the places referred to. 5. That the num ber seventy-five instead of seventy came into the Septuagint copies in the manner above-mentioned, might be confirmed from Josephus, who computes but seventy of Jacob's family in Egypt at this time, agrecing with the Hebrew, and perhaps even from the Lxx translation itself; for that very translation says in another place expressly, that they were but seventy persons, agreeing fully with the Hebrew, which may hint to us

i Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. 2. c. 7. Ita in omnibus Josephi exemplaribus tum hic, tum c. 9. § 3. nec aliter ejus Exscriptores, P. Comestor, Epitomator Cantuar. aliique. Hudson. not. in loc.

* Deut. x. 22. It must be acknowledged, that the Alexandrian MS has in this place εβδομηκοντα τσελε. the word πεε might be inserted to correct a supposed fault of other MSS.