Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/649

2Ki 8:26, and other passages, where the age is given at which Ishbosheth, David, and many of the kings of Judah began to reign, and also the number of years that their reign lasted, there can be no doubt that our verse was also intended to give the same account concerning Saul, and therefore that every attempt to connect this verse with the one which follows is opposed to the uniform historical usage. Moreover, even if, as a matter of necessity, the second clause of  1Sa 13:1 could be combined with 1Sa 13:2 in the following manner: He was two years king over Israel, then Saul chose 3000 men, etc.; the first half of the verse would give no reasonable sense, according to the Masoretic text that has come down to us. בּמלכו שׁאוּל בּן־שׁנה cannot possibly be rendered “jam per annum regnaverat Saul,” “Saul had been king for a year,” or “Saul reigned one year,” but can only mean “Saul was a year old when he became king.” This is the way in which the words have been correctly rendered by the Sept. and Jerome; and so also in the Chaldee paraphrase (“Saul was an innocent child when he began to reign”) this is the way in which the text has been understood.
It is true that this statement as to his age is obviously false; but all that follows from that is, that there is an error in the text, namely, that between בּן and שׁנה the age has fallen out, - a thing which could easily take place, as there are many traces to show that originally the numbers were not written in words, but only in letters that were used as numerals. This gap in the text is older than the Septuagint version, as our present text is given there. There is, it is true, an anonymus in the hexapla, in which we find the reading υἱὸς τριάκοντα ἐτῶν Σαούλ; but this is certainly not according to ancient MSS, but simply according to a private conjecture, and that an incorrect one. For since Saul already had a son, Jonathan, who commanded a division of the army in the very first years of his reign, and therefore must have been at least twenty years of age, if not older, Saul himself cannot have been less than forty years old when he began to reign. Moreover, in the second half of the verse also, the number given is evidently a wrong one, and the text therefore equally corrupt; for the rendering “when he had reigned two years over Israel” is opposed both by the parallel passages already quoted, and also by the introduction of the name Saul as the subject in 1Sa 13:2,