BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Annotations
[C hapte r 9 ]
Annotation 11 (p. 131) ‘with the exception of a few details’: For example,
2 Kings 18.20 says, in the second person, amarta,‘you have said it, but
with your mouth only’, etc., whereas Isaiah 36.5 has amarti, which means,
‘ I have said it, these are certainly my words, that war needs strategy and
courage’. Again, 2 Kings 18.22 reads ‘but perhaps you will say’ in the
plural, whereas, in Isaiah’s version, it is in the singular. Moreover, in the
text of Isaiah these words (from 2 Kings 18.32) are not found: ‘a land of
olive oil and honey, so that you may live and not die; and do not listen to
Hezekiah’. 9 Many more such variant readings are encountered, and no
one will be able to decide which one is to be preferred.
Annotation 12 (p. 131) ‘noticeablyaltered’:For example, 2 Samuel 7.6 reads,
‘and I have been constantly travelling in a tabernacle and a tent’ whereas
1 Chronicles 17.5 has,‘and I have gone from tent to tent and from tabernacle
...’,whereobviouslymithalek has been changed to meóheĺ, oheĺ to el-oheĺ and
bemishkan to mimishkan. Again,2 Samuel 7.10 has ‘to a¥ict him’, whereas
255 1 Chronicles 17.9 says ‘to waste him’. Even on a ¢rst reading of these chapters,
anyone who is not completely obtuse or utterly mad will see many discrepancies
of this kind, including some of still greater signi¢cance.
Annotation 13 (p. 131) ‘That ‘‘time’’ must necessarily be related to some
other time’: It is clear from the context of the phrase itself that the
text refers to the time when Joseph was sold and no other. It may also be
inferred from the actual age of Judah, who at that point was in his twentysecond
year at the most, if we calculate from the story about him which
comes just before. For it emerges from the ¢nal verse of Genesis 29 that
Judah was born in the tenth year after the patriarch Jacob began to serve
Laban and Joseph 10 was born in the fourteenth year. Since Joseph himself
was hence 17 when he was sold, Judah at that point in time was 21 years
old, and no more.Those who believe that this long absence of Judah from
home occurred before Joseph’s sale are simply trying to calm their own
anxieties and have more worries than certainties about Scripture’s divinity.
Annotation 14 (p. 132) ‘On the other hand Dinah was scarcely seven years
old’: the view of some commentators that Jacob spent eight or ten years
9 ‘That is whyIdo not doubt that they are substitutedwords’[inFrench].
10 ‘At averyadvanced age’.
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