THE SAMARITAN TENTH COMMANDMENT

   It is well known that there are two recensions of the Ten Commandments in the Pentateuch, the one in Exodus xx, 1ff., and the other in Deuteronomy v. 6ff. There are a good many differences in the Jewish text between the one and the other, which have given rise to many speculations and have led to divergent conclusions. The Samaritans have got over that difficulty by simply harmonizing the two texts; thus every difficulty has removed, as two texts now read almost alike; but this is as nothing compared to the very fundamental change by the addition of a long passage which is counted by them as the Tenth Commandment. It contains the vital dogmatic difference between Jews and Samaritans for the sanctity of Mount Garizim thus proclaimed by God in the grand revelation on Sinai. It stands on the same level with all the other Commandments which form the Covenant between God and Israel, the breaking of which was as heinous an act and as terrible a sin as that of breaking the other Commandments. The selection of Mount Garizim as the chosen spot where the memorial stones were to be placed, upon which the words of these Commandments were to be written, and where an altar was to be built and the sanctuary established, was thus no longer a mere stray Commandment found in various verses in Deuteronomy. This Commandment was, on the contrary, an essential portion of the Divine Revelation. The occurrence of similar verses in Deuteronomy was then, according to this recension, a mere repetition of the Commandment originally given on Mount Sinai, and then repeated by Moses with especial stress when they were approaching the borders of the land of Canaan. It would then be practically the first Commandment in order to be fulfilled as soon as they had taken possession of the land. For the original source was the Divine Revelation. To my mind sufficient attention has not been bestowed upon this cardinal fact, which is the corner-stone of the Samaritan dissidence, and the everlasting bone of contention to this very day. Round it turn all the disputations throughout the ages, and the Samaritans found their strength and justification in the fact that this formed part of the Ten Commandments. It may be that for this reason the reading of the Ten Commandments as part of the liturgy in Jerusalem was dropped after a time; the reason given was ‘because of the Minim.’ (See Talmud B. Berakhot f. 11 a.) These were probably the Samaritans, and the leaders in Jerusalem obviously intended to avoid drawing attention to the fundamental difference between the two sects. It is a curious fact, to which attention has already been drawn (p. 128), that this passage had been introduced into the Greek translation, although Origenes does not fail to note that it is absent from the Jewish text, and marks it with an asterisk. Still it is surprising strange that such an obvious anti-Jewish passage should have been admitted into the Greek text, and above all among the Ten Commandments, thus giving it such a sacred character and such prominent importance. It is no doubt an interpolation from the Samaritans, but still it remains a puzzle.

   This, however, does not exhaust the importance of the variants in the Samaritan text. The process of harmonizing has reached here its highest development. A number of verses have been added, and the blending of various texts into one has been carried out on a far more extensive scale than even in the Ten Commandments. It must not be forgotten that the verses which follow both in Exodus and in Deuteronomy are a direct continuation of the Revelation, and contain a full description of the incidents which happened immediately after the grand act, the discussions between Moses and the people, and the words which God spake to Moses on that occasion, containing also new Commandments. If one compares the two corresponding sections in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the discrepancies are still greater than between the two texts of the Commandments. Surely God could not have spoken differently in one case and differently in another when the same fact is recorded. Either the version in Exodus is the correct record or that in Deuteronomy. The answer to this question is given by the Samaritans, who join the two texts together, and make out of them one complete in Exodus. Thus every difficulty disappears and the text is now fully harmonized. It consists of Deuteronomy v. 21-5 ; Exodus xx. 19 ; Deuteronomy v. 26-9 ; Deuteronomy xviii. 16ff. ; Exodus xx. 20-6. This composite text has, furthermore, a transcendent value by the interpolation of the passage from Deuteronomy xvii, which becomes clear in the light of the explanation which I have given (pp. 90-2), when discussing the Samaritan principle of the future Redeemer. He was to be a prophet like unto Moses, and this part of their eschatology agreed in the main with the teaching found in the Apocryphal literature, and above all with the views entertained by the Sadducees, or rather the Sadokites, of the pre-Maccabean period. By inserting here this promise that a prophet like Moses will arise in the future, who will be sent by God, and to whose voice they are bidden to hearken, a unique importance has been given to it. It has been placed next to the Commandments as being uttered by God on the very solemn occasion. One cannot over-estimate the value just assigned to it, for it assumes a character of its own and becomes the basis of all the eschatological speculations which are later on crystallized in the belief of a Taheb. No wonder, therefore, that when these Messianic ideas and the outlook for happier times became one of the driving forces in the religious life of the Jews’ that the Samaritans should then have rested their belief on this clear pronouncement and Divine promise. They had to seek for a biblical justification for such belief, and nothing lay better to their hands than these words.

   The only question which remains which cannot be answered satisfactorily is how old this portion is in the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is older in any case than the Abisha Scroll, and if, as one may assume, it is as old as the Samaritan Tenth Commandment, which, as witnessed by the Septuagint, was already found in their text before the Greek translation, then it belongs indeed to a very high antiquity. To this points also the antiquity of the belief in, or dogma of, the Taheb so fully developed already before the beginnings of the Christian era (John iv. 25). Thus, the Samaritan recension of the Ten Commandments, with the concluding section, contains some of the fundamental dogmas of the Samaritans, and notably those which separate them from the Jews. For this reason I have reproduced here in facsimile two copies of the entire section, including the Tenth Commandment and the succeeding verses. One is taken from a modern scroll, and the other from the ancient parallel Pentateuch preserved in the Kinsha, which contains the Jewish and Samaritan recension side by side. A faithful copy was made for me many years ago by the late High Priest Jacob, and one can see thus at a glance the difference between these two recensions, which I have transliterated and translated here as well.

   Besides other slight changes and variations, one more deserves special attention. It shows how careful the Samaritans have been not to allow words to stand in the text, or, according to their statement, not allow words to be introduced, which would change the true meaning and cause even the slightest doubt concerning the Chosen Spot. In the Jewish recension verse 24 reads, “in all places where I will record my Name’; the Samaritan, however, reads, ‘in that place where I have caused my Name to be recorded’. Whilst the Jewish recension allows, as it were, many places to be recorded by God, the verb being in the future tense ‘I will record’, the Samaritan does not allow but one single place, The Chosen Place, which has been recorded by God, here the verb in the past tense, i.e. the place mentioned shortly before in the Tenth Commandment; the change, therefore, is very skillfully done, and shows great tenacity of purpose.

    Chaldaico. 1790. 545 pp. An  early edition   of the Samaritan Pentateuch. 1275. $40.    1923. 219 pp. 1305. $25.