instead of אליך לדבּר (2Sa 7:20), which cannot be an explanation or interpretation of Samuel's text, is less difficult of explanation. The words in Samuel, “What can David say more unto Thee?” have in this connection the very easily understood signification, What more can I say of the promise given me? and needed no explanation. When, instead of this, we read in the Chronicle, “What more can Thy servant add to Thee in regard to the honour to Thy servant?” an unprejudiced criticism must hold this text for the original, because it is the more difficult. It is the more difficult, not only on account of the omission of לדבּר, which indeed is not absolutely necessary, though serving to explain יוסיף, but mainly on account of the unusual construction of the nomen כבוד with את־עבדּך, honour towards Thy servant. The construction יהוה את דּעה is not quite analogous, for כבוד is not a nomen actionis like דּעה; את־ כבד is rather connected with the practice which begins to obtain in the later language of employing את as a general casus obliquus, instead of any more definite preposition (Ew. §277, d, S. 683f., der 7 Aufl.), and is to be translated: “honour concerning Thy servant.” The assertion that את־עבדּך is to be erased as a later gloss which has crept into the text, cuts the knots, but does not untie them. That the lxx have not these words, only proves that these translators did not know what to make of them, and so just omitted them, as they have omitted the first clause of 1Ch 17:19. In 1Ch 17:19 also there is no valid ground for altering the עבדּך בּעבוּר of the Chronicle to make it correspond to דּברך בּעבוּר in Samuel; for the words, “for Thy servant's sake,” i.e., because Thou hast chosen Thy servant, give a quite suitable sense; cf. the discussion on 2Sa 7:21. In the second half of the verse, however, the more extended phrases of 2nd Samuel are greatly contracted.
Verses 21-27
The combining of ונוראות גּדלּות with שׁם לך לשׂוּם as one sentence, “to make Thee a name with great and fearful deeds,” is made clearer in 2nd Samuel by the interpolation of לכם ולעשׂות, “and for you doing great and fearful things.” This explanation, however, does not justify us in supposing that ולעשׂות has been dropped out of the Chronicle. The words ונוראות גּדלּות are either to be subordinated in a loose connection to the clause, to define the way in which God has made Himself a name (cf. Ew. §283), or connected with שׂוּם in a pregnant sense: “to make Thee a name, (doing) great and fearful things.” But, on the other hand, the converse expression in Samuel, “fearful things for Thy land, before
