1 Sam 14:41 - textual variants?

Teaching 1 Sam 14 yesterday and ran across verse 41.

ESV has “Therefore Saul said, "O LORD God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day? If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O LORD, God of Israel, give Urim. But if this guilt is in your people Israel, give Thummim." And Jonathan and Saul were taken, but the people escaped.”

NASB and NKJV has “Therefore Saul said to the LORD God of Israel, "Give a perfect lot." So Saul and Jonathan were taken, but the people escaped.”

The NET Bible has this note: The Hebrew textual tradition has accidentally omitted several words here. The present translation follows the LXX (as do several English versions, cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV). Word Biblical Comm has a similar note.

Question: what's the best way to research this variant? Best resources to look to? I have Metzger's Textual Comm on the NT but that's not much help here. I'd like to know a lot more about why some translations went one way while others went another.

Thanks!

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DMB

If you need a quick answer like you asked NET-Notes is very good at quickly getting at the problem. Here's a copy of the entry:

tc Heb “to the LORD God of Israel: ‘Give what is perfect.’” The Hebrew textual tradition has accidentally omitted several words here. The present translation follows the LXX (as do several English versions, cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV). See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 247-48, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 132.
sn The Urim and Thummim were used for lot casting in ancient Israel. Their exact identity is uncertain; they may have been specially marked stones drawn from a bag. See Exod 28:30; Lev 8:8, and Deut 33:8, as well as the discussion in R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 140.
45 tn Heb “went out.”

In terms of best resources to 'do the diry work', in the OT the first go-to is BHS Apparatus, and if the Septuagent is involved, the Septuaginta Apparatus Criticus are good. To go deeper on the LXX side, of course the Gottengen appartus are extensive.

Plus of course critical commentaries like WBC. But NET-Notes usually gets you down the road pretty far.

DMB

I forgot to add that the NET-Notes can be purchased separately without NET so it's inexpensive. The hebrew and LXX apparatus are both part of the SESB collections with several price points. The cheapest solution for you is likely in your commentaries.

Ben

This is excellent, though it predates some important textual discoveries.

http://www.logos.com/product/2133/notes-on-the-hebrew-text-of-the-books-of-samuel

Todd Phillips

UBS handbooks are another good starting place if you own them: A handbook on the first book of Samuel.

As is Driver's Notes on the Hebrew text and topography of the books of Samuel.

I'd like to know a lot more about why some translations went one way while others went another.

There is obviously some disagreement on whether or not the LXX reading should be adopted. Joyce Baldwin in her TOTC volume on Samuel says:

The text of the RSV has reconstructed the Hebrew using the LXX, but the NIV follows the Hebrew: ‘Then Saul prayed to the Lord, the God of Israel, “Give me the right answer” ’ .... In this instance there is too little reason to adopt the LXX, which could well reflect later practice, and we do not know how the lot operated at the time of Saul.

Whereas, the UBS Handbook states:

RSV, TEV, and many other modern translations (NRSV, REB, NAB, and NJB) follow the longer text of the Septuagint. CTAT gives an {A} rating to the text of the Septuagint, suggesting that the Hebrew contains an accidental omission. The scribe’s eye probably jumped from the first Israel to the second, thus omitting the material in between.

George Somsel

Question: what's the best way to research this variant? Best resources to look to?

Unfortunately, we don't have the quantity of manuscripts reflecting the actual text in the original language. You have been given some reasonable items to consider, but it sometimes comes down to conjectural emendation.

41.

הבה תמים] AV. ‘Give a perfect (lot):’ RV. ‘Shew the right:’ Keil, ‘Give innocence’ (of disposition, i. e. truth). All these suggested renderings of תמים are without support. תמים is ‘perfect,’ i.e. in a physical sense, of an animal, unblemished; in a moral sense, innocent, blameless. הבה תמים might mean ‘give one who is perfect:’ but this is not the sense which is here required: Saul does not ask for one who is perfect to be produced; and though he might ask for the one who is in the right to be declared, this would be expressed by צדיק (Dt. 25:1; 1 Ki. 8:32), not by תמים. LXX has for the two words: Τί ὅτι οὐκ ἀπεκρίθης τῷ δούλῳ σου σήμερον; ἢ ἐν ἐμοὶ ἢ ἐν Ἰωναθαν τῷ υἱῷ μου ἡ ἀδικία; Κύριε ὁ Θεὸς Ἰσραηλ, δὸς δήλους· καὶ ἐὰν τάδε εἴπῃ, δὸς δὴ τῷ λαῷ σου Ἰσραηλ, δὸς δὴ ὁσιότητα, whence the following text may be restored: לָמָּה לֹא עָנִיחָ אֶת־עַבְדְּךָ הַיּוֹם אִם יֶשׁ־בִּי אוֹ בִיהוֹנָתָן בְּנִי הֶעָוֹן הַוֶּה י״י אֱלּהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָבָה אוּרִים וְאִם יֶשְׁנוֹ בְעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל הָבָה תֻמִּים׃. The text thus obtained is both satisfactory in itself, and at once removes the obscurity and abruptness attaching to MT. The first clause corresponds with LXX exactly: in the second clause ἐὰν τάδε εἴπῃ δὸς δὴ cannot be followed; but δὸς δὴ (omitted in A) seems to be merely a rhetorical anticipation of the δὸς δὴ following; and considering that LXX render ישנו in v. 39 by a verb (ἀποκριθῇ), there is nothing arbitrary in supposing that τάδε εἴπῃ may represent ישנו here. For אִם יֶשׁ־בִּי cf. 20:8. Δῆλοι stands for אוּרִים ch. 28:6 and Nu. 27:21 (as δήλωσις, in Ex. 28:26. Lev. 8:8). The cause of the omission in MT. lies evidently in the occurrence of the same word ישראל before both למה לא and הבה תמים. The restored text (which is now generally accepted by scholars) shews (what has often been surmised independently) that the משפט האורים והתמים was a mode of casting lots: cf. הפילו v. 42, and note that וַיִּלָּכֵד, which p 118 immediately follows in v. 41 (but which in MT. stands unexplained), is the word regularly used of taking by lot, 10:20f. Jos. 7:14. 16.

Driver, Samuel Rolles. Notes on the Hebrew Text and Topography of the Books of Samuel, in loc. Oxford: Clarendon press, 1913.
Unfortunately the one source which we might have for an ancient witness to the text, i.e., the Dead Sea Scrolls, is itself in need of some help at this point.
14:41

　למה לא ענית את עבדך היום אם יש בי] או ב֯[יונתן בני העון יהוה אלהי ישראל הבה ארים ואם ישנו בעמך ישראל]

Note that much of the passage is bracketted indicating that it is a reconstruction.

David Knoll

While 4QSama cannot confirm the putative Hebrew Vorlage of the plus in LXX, space limitations and the survival of או ב confirm that 4QSama too included a similarly large plus in that location. It is probably missing in the Masoretic Text due to a homoioteleuton ישראל...ישראל. LXX/4QSama is preferable because of contextual and literary reasons.

David Paul

I don't see any reason to doubt the "limited" version the NASB gives. The conflated version sounds to me like people felt the need to "fill in the gaps" that exist more in their understanding than in the text itself. "Give a perfect lot" sounds exactly like Saul to me...telling God to give him the answer he wanted rather than just accepting what YHWH would say. By "perfect", Saul was referring to the Tummiym, which means "perfections". Saul had already asked people to "roll a stone" to him so he could inquire of God and had commanded that "the ark be brought" to him, rather than getting off his lazy, presumptious tail and going before YHWH. Imagine commanding God to come appear before you!! So Saul telling YHWH that he expected a certain answer is not only not a stretch, it is exactly what we ought to expect.

This line of understanding may also explain why 1 Sam. 28:6 says that YHWH refused to answer Saul "by 'Uriym"--since he had previously decided he didn't want to hear from it...he got his wish.

David Knoll

Evaluation of versions id of course subjective. What I want to emphasize is that the version is not conflated. A conflated version is a version which is comprised of two alternative versions which were preserved side by side.