Samaritan Torah, פַּרְשַׁת שְׁלַח לְךָ

Num. 13:16-17, coming immediately after the list of names of the spies, contains the passage in which Hoshea bin Nun is renamed Yehoshua (Joshua), despite already having been referred to as Joshua earlier in the Torah:

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In the Samaritan text here, there's no renaming, rather Moses is calling Joshua (who's so-named, not as Hoshea, a few verses beforehand) to give him orders:

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Num 13:19:( Read more... )

The KJV translates Num. 13:22 as, "They ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron". However, the Hebrew literally reads:

They ascended by the south, and he came to Hebron.

וַיַּעֲלוּ בַנֶּגֶב וַיָּבֹא עַד־חֶבְרוֹן

The Midrash picks up on this and says it was just Joshua who went to Hebron, to pay his respects at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The Samaritan text, however, unromantically corrects the grammar:

They ascended by the south, and they came to Hebron.

וַיַּעֲלוּ בַנֶּגֶב וַיָּבֹאוּ עַד־חֶבְרוֹן

When the people quail following the report of the spies, and try and stone Joshua and Caleb, God threatens to disinherit them, and Moses tries to talk God out of it, saying, inter alia (Num. 14:17-18):

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The reference is of course to the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy in Exodus 34:6-7, but there are words missing from this version. The Samaritan text restores some of them, and makes the same change as before:

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Num. 16:3 reads:

They gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, "You take too much upon yourselves, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you raise yourselves up over the congregation of the Lord?"

וַיִּקָּהֲלוּ עַל־מֹשֶׁה וְעַל־אַהֲרֹן וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֲלֵהֶם רַב־לָכֶם כִּי כָל־הָעֵדָה כֻּלָּם קְדֹשִׁים וּבְתוֹכָם ה׳ וּמַדּוּעַ תִּתְנַשְּׂאוּ עַל־קְהַל ה׳׃

The word for "holy" here is קְדֹשִׁים. In the Samaritan text this reads קדישים; influence of Aramaic, perhaps? (If so, that's definitely a later corruption; the only Aramaic words in the Torah are the two spoken by Laban in Gen. 31:47.)

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