Samaritan Torah, פַּרְשַׁת בְּהַעֲלָתְךָ

The Samaritan Torah continues its harmonisation of Exodus–Numbers with Deuteronomy by inserting Deuteronomy 1:6-8 after Num. 10:10, only as direct rather than reported speech:

The Lord said to Moses, "You have dwelt long enough in this mount: Turn and journey until you come to the Amorites' hill country, and all its neighbouring places in the Aravah, in the hills, and in the valley, in the ?south, and on the seashore, to the land of the Canaanites, and to the Lebanon, as far as the Great River, the River Euphrates. See, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which I swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and to their descendants after them."

וַיְדַבֵּר ה׳ אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵּאמֹר׃ רַב־לָכֶם שֶׁבֶת בָּהָר הַזֶּה׃ פְּנוּ וּסְעוּ לָכֶם וּבֹאוּ הַר הָאֱמֹרִי וְאֶל־כָּל־שְׁכֵנָיו בָּעֲרָבָה בָהָר וּבַשְּׁפֵלָה וּבַנּגף וּבְחוֹף הַיָּם אֶרֶץ הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַלְּבָנוֹן עַד־הַנָּהָר הַגָּדֹל נְהַר־פְּרָת׃ רְאוּ נָתַתִּי לִפְנֵיכֶם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ בֹּאוּ וּרְשׁוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לַאֲבֹתֵיכֶם לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב לָתֵת לָהֶם וּלְזַרְעָם אַחֲרֵיהֶם׃

Similarly Deut 1:20-23 is inserted before Num. 13:1. The interesting thing here is that the former is the passage in Deuteronomy which attributes the desire to send spies through the land to the people, and the latter that in Leviticus which attributes it to Divine command! Evidently the Samaritan Torah is seeking to reconcile the two by turning the latter into Divine sanction on the behaviour which the people have requested and Moses already approved: the insert ends, and the original text from Leviticus with God giving orders starts, after "The matter appeared good to Moses", based on the first half of Deut. 1:23 (but not the second half, in which Moses is already putting the plan into action).

The Samaritan text also introduces the passage from Deut. 1:27-33, about the people complaining about the spies' report, to the appropriate place in the story, between Num. 13:33 and 14:1; and Deut 1:42 after Num. 14:40; and lots more passages, I can't be bothered to annotate all of them.

Samaritan Torah notes         Jewish learning notes index

Shoddy Biblical Hebrew

It always narks me when I hear (for example) people talking about their time on Shnat. Shnat (שְׁנַת) is in the construct form; it means "year of". Year of what? Either provide the following word, or just say שָׁנָה "year".

I'm doubly narked now that I've discovered an example of this sort of language abuse in the Bible:

Psalms 16:2–3	תהילים טז ב–ג
You have said to the Lord, you are my Lord: my goodness extends not to you, but to the holy ones that are on the earth, and to the mighty of, in whom is all my delight.	אָמַרְתְּ לַה׳ אֲדֹנָי אָתָּה טוֹבָתִי בַּל־עָלֶיךָ׃ לִקְדוֹשִׁים אֲשֶׁר־בָּאָרֶץ הֵמָּה וְאַדִּירֵי כָּל־חֶפְצִי־בָם׃

What kind of shoddy Hebrew is this? And how the hell did it get into the Bible? Where was King David's copyeditor at the time? Can we decanonise this, please, until it's fixed?

(Actually, I can think of plenty equivalents in English, adjectives whose accompanying noun has been dropped, for example <racks brain> "commercial", short for "commercial break"; it's just that there I'm used to it and it doesn't irk me.)