# Textual Problem - help?



## steadfast7 (Oct 9, 2010)

Hi all,

what's your best explanation for this discrepancy in these parallel texts? Sure is a mind bender for me...

2Sa 8:4 And David took from him *1,700 horsemen*, and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung all the chariot horses but left enough for 100 chariots. 

1Ch 18:4 And David took from him 1,000 chariots, *7,000 horsemen*, and 20,000 foot soldiers. And David hamstrung all the chariot horses, but left enough for 100 chariots.


----------



## au5t1n (Oct 9, 2010)

Nova said:


> Hi all,
> 
> what's your best explanation for this discrepancy in these parallel texts? Sure is a mind bender for me...
> 
> ...


 
For 2 Sam. 8:4, the KJV has 1000 chariots and 700 horsemen. I assume the difference is in the textual base. Here's Matthew Henry on that verse, commenting on the AV's rendering:



> The horsemen are here said to be 700, but 1 Chron. xviii. 4 they are said to be 7000. If they divided their horse by ten in a company, as it is probable they did, the captains and companies were 700, but the horsemen were 7000. David houghed the horses, cut the sinews of their hams, and so lamed them, and made them unserviceable, at least in war, God having forbidden them to multiply horses, Deut. xvii. 16.


----------



## steadfast7 (Oct 9, 2010)

Thank Austin. but if the ESV has chosen the more reliable rendering, which we hope they have, then we're still left with 1700 vs. 7000 as the problem.


----------



## au5t1n (Oct 9, 2010)

Nova said:


> Thank Austin. but if the ESV has chosen the more reliable rendering, which we hope they have, then we're still left with 1700 vs. 7000 as the problem.


 
I am sure they would not intentionally choose a less reliable rendering, but it should be understood that picking the most reliable rendering is not exactly a walk in the park.

It could be argued that the Chronicles verse is internal evidence that the 1000/700 rendering in 2 Sam. 8:4 is the right one. I'll leave that to others who know more about it, though.


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Oct 11, 2010)

The Chronicler's numbers are frequently orders of magnitude above the parallel accounts. So far from being an indication of confusion (since its patent that the Chronicler has the earlier texts of Samuel and Kings at hand), it is an indication that he has a _reason_ for increasing the numbers.

What that reason is may be obscure. OK, but apparently believers for millennia have been content to seek for that explanation within the realm of revelation, and have not been too unsettled by the latter writer's intentional inflation.

It is also possible (as one of the other commentators have noted) that he was reckoning with the 1Sam text in a better way than we are today, and his complimentary text gives us a clearer picture of what is obscure in 1Sam. Samuel is among the most difficult of the OT texts, often requiring textual dexterity in treating it. After Moses, those writings are among the oldest in revelation, being the first prophetic writings preserved as revelation.


----------



## TimV (Oct 11, 2010)

Post more often, Pastor B.


----------

