Armenia in comments -- Book: 2 Chronicles (t2Chron) Բ Մնացորդաց
Searched terms: chald
t2Chron 13::3 Abijah set the battle in array - The numbers in this verse and in the seventeenth seem almost incredible. Abijah's army consisted of four hundred thousand effective men; that of Jeroboam consisted of eight hundred thousand; and the slain of Jeroboam's army were five hundred thousand. Now it is very possible that there is a cipher too much in all these numbers, and that they should stand thus: Abijah's army, forty thousand; Jeroboam's eighty thousand; the slain, fifty thousand. Calmet, who defends the common reading, allows that the Venice edition of the Vulgate, in 1478; another, in 1489; that of Nuremberg, in 1521; that of Basil, by Froben, in 1538; that of Robert Stevens, in 1546; and many others, have the smaller numbers. Dr. Kennicott says: "On a particular collation of the Vulgate version, it appears that the number of chosen men here slain, which Pope Clement's edition in 1592 determines to be five hundred thousand, the edition of Pope Sixtus, printed two years before, determined to be only fifty thousand; and the two preceding numbers, in the edition of Sixtus, are forty thousand and eighty thousand. As to different printed editions, out of fifty-two, from the year 1462 to 1592, thirty-one contain the less number. And out of fifty-one MSS. twenty-three in the Bodleian library, four in that of Dean Aldrich, and two in that of Exeter College, contain the less number, or else are corrupted irregularly, varying only one or two numbers."
This examination was made by Dr. Kennicott before he had finished his collation of Hebrew MSS., and before De Rossi had published his Variae Lectiones Veteris Testamenti; but from these works we find little help, as far as the Hebrew MSS. are concerned. One Hebrew MS., instead of ארבע מאות אלף arba meoth eleph, four hundred thousand, reads ארבע עשר אלף arba eser eleph, fourteen thousand.
In all printed copies of the Hebrew, the numbers are as in the common text, four hundred thousand, eight hundred thousand, and five hundred thousand.
The versions are as follow: - The Targum, or Chald:ee, the same in each place as the Hebrew.
The Syriac in Ch2 13:3 has four hundred thousand young men for the army of Abijah, and eight hundred thousand stout youth for that of Jeroboam. For the slain Israelites, in Ch2 13:17, it has five hundred thousand, falsely translated in the Latin text quinque milia, five thousand, both in the Paris and London Polyglots: another proof among many that little dependence is to be placed on the Latin translation of this version in either of the above Polyglots.
The Arabic is the same in all these cases with the Syriac, from which it has been translated.
The Septuagint, both as it is published in all the Polyglots, and as far as I have seen in MSS. is the same with the Hebrew text. So also is Josephus.
The Vulgate or Latin version is that alone that exhibits any important variations; we have had considerable proof of this in the above-mentioned collations of Calmet and Kennicott. I shall beg liberty to add others from my own collection.
In the Editio Princeps of the Latin Bible, though without date or place, yet evidently printed long before that of Fust, in 1462, the places stand thus: Ch2 13:3. Cumque inisset certamen, et haberet bellicosissimos viros, et electorum Quadraginta milia: Iheroboam construxit e contra aciem Octoginta milia virorum; "With him Abia entered into battle; and he had of the most warlike and choice men forty thousand; and Jeroboam raised an army against him of eighty thousand men." And in Ch2 13:17 : Et corruerunt vulnerati ex Israel, Quinquaginta milia virorum fortium; "And there fell down wounded fifty thousand stout men of Israel." In the Glossa Ordinaria, by Strabo Fuldensis, we have forty thousand and eighty thousand in the two first instances, and five hundred thousand in the last. - Bib. Sacr. vol. ii., Antv. 1634.
In six ancient MSS. of my own, marked A, B, C, D, E, F. the text stands thus: -
A. - Cumque inisset Abia certamen, et haberet bellicosissimos viros, et electorum XL. MIL. Jeroboam instruxit contra aciem LXXX. MIL.
And in Ch2 13:17 : Et corruerunt vulnerati ex Israel L. MIL. virorum fortium. Here we have forty thousand for the army of Abijah, and eighty thousand for that of Jeroboam, and Fifty thousand for the slain of the latter.
B. -
Quadraginita milia Forty thousand Octoginta milia Eighty thousand Quinquiaginta milia Fifty thousand
The numbers being here expressed in words at full length, there can be no suspicion of mistake.
C. -
t2Chron 13::7
And there are gathered unto him (g) vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was (h) young and tenderhearted, and could not withstand them. (g) This word in the Chald:ee tongue is Racha, which our saviour uses, (Mat 5:22). (h) Meaning, in heart and courage. 2 Chronicles 13:9