2 Kings 4 and Qumran Orthography?

In reading 2 Kings 4 recently, I was struck by the unusual number of Kethib-Qere readings and their consistent pattern. Throughout the chapter, feminine pronouns commonly have an additional י at the end, as in Aramaic. This spelling is also commonly found in manuscripts from Qumran. Under other circumstances, the MT of 2 Kings 4 could have been said to have exhibited "Qumran orthography." Because there are so many examples in 2 Kings 4, Kutscher (Isaiah Scroll: 211) says this might be a remnant of the Northern Hebrew (Israelite) dialect, though these readings are not consistent even in 2 Kings 4. It is equally possible that the MT here has experienced the same type of textual corruption as is commonly found at Qumran, namely, the influence of the Aramaic-influenced dialect of later scribes. A number of cautions come to mind from these results.

1) It should not be lightly assumed that the orthography and peculiarities of the Qumran MSS are unique to this community. Their scribal practices almost certainly shared common characteristics with their non-sectarian peers.

2) Even the MT (despite its normally conservative orthography) is not entirely immune to influences from the dialects of later scribes.

Did Rehoboam Marry David's Grandson?

2 Chronicles 11:18, according to the Masoretic Text, says that Rehoboam took as wife Mahalath, the son of Jerimoth, the son of David. What we have here is an obvious textual error, where the original בת "daughter" was accidentally changed to בן "son" by a thoughtless scribe under the influence of the far more numerous genealogical statements regarding men in the OT. The Masoretes recognized this error in the written text of their manuscripts and corrected it with the proper "daughter" in the margins as a Qere reading. There are only a few medieval MT manuscripts which have "daughter" in the text itself. This gives me the opportunity to make a few points:

1) Sometimes common sense is the biggest help in evaluating the textual tradition. Here it is clear that Rehoboam's wife was not David's grandson. There is no need to defend the factually incorrect consonantal text of MT with some sort of awkward gender-neutral use of "son" contrary to convention (see even the end of the same verse which uses "daughter"). Textual corruption is far more likely.

2) The more difficult reading is not always to be preferred. If it is corrupt, it should be rejected.

3) The Qere (marginal notes to be read) often provides textual variants superior to the Kethib (the consonantal text written by the scribes).

4) The fact that the medieval manuscripts so strongly support the obviously corrupt reading may indicate that they all stem from a very restricted pool of parent manuscripts. This error is unlikely to have be made so broadly across the manuscript tradition unless it traced back to a very small pool of erroneous texts.

Messiah: Stripe or Stripes?

I was recently helping a friend of mine translate Isaiah 53:5, and came across the phrase וּבַחֲבֻרָתוֹ נִרְפָּא־לָנוּ "and by his stripe we are healed." He mentioned that another friend of his had made a significant theological point on the MT reading of חֲבֻרָתוֹ "his stripe" being singular. I pointed out, however, that the consonants could also be easily emended to the plural חֲבֻרֹתָיו "his stripes."

Though in most cases (as far as I can tell, all cases) the plural would have an extra י as in חברתיו, the two forms could easily have interchanged in the tradition. Ironically, in my reading in Ezekiel immediately thereafter, exactly such an interchange presented itself repeatedly. In Ezekiel 43:11, MT twice reads the singular phrase צורתו "its plan" as the Kethiv and the plural צורתיו "its plans" as the Qere. Furthermore, in both Ezekiel 43:11 and 44:5 MT has תורתו "its law" as the Kethiv and תורתיו "its laws" as the Qere. The same phenomenon can be found in Exod 28:28; 37:8; 39:4; Deut 5:10; 7:9; 8:2; 27:10; Josh 16:3; Ruth 3:14; 1 Sam 10:21; 26:7, 11, 16; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kings 16:19; Ezek 31:5; 33:13, 16; 40:6, 22, 26; 47:11; Amos 9:6. It is interesting that only once that I found, in 1 Kings 16:26, is the situation reversed with the plural in the Kethiv and singular in the Qere, showing a definite trend towards the plural in the Qere. This may show an understanding that haplography in such examples was more common than dittography. Perhaps noteworthy, however, is that this phenomenon apparently never occurs in the book of Isaiah.

After examining these other occurrences of the interchange between the תו and תיו endings, I was even more suspicious of the theological point based off of the singular חֲבֻרָתוֹ in Isaiah 53:5. Brief consideration of the LXX showed the singular reading τῷ μώλωπι αὐτοῦ "by his bruise," which slightly alleviated my fears. I decided to check the Great Isaiah Scroll 1QIsa(a) for curiosity's sake, and much to my surprise, it reads the plural חבורתיו! My suspicions (viz., my diagnostic conjectural emendation) were correct! The plural was indeed an ancient Hebrew variant that did not make its way into the Masorah of MT. 1QIsa(b), normally much closer to MT, had the singular חברתו.
All this to say, the singular "stripe" in Isa 53:5 may not be as significant as we make it out to be, or it may not even have been original. Perhaps we were healed by Messiah's "stripes" after all? One would be hard pressed to overthrow the singular reading with the single Qumran scroll, but I think this example proves that my cautious skepticism about basing significant theological points on textually dubitable minutiae is indeed warranted. It is the nature of language and exegesis that often important information must be drawn from the most precise of details, but this just goes to show that the exegete cannot naively assume the Leningrad Codex as his text without critically evaluating its readings for the given passage. Criticism of the text must precede exegesis of its theology, and any given theological induction from a text is at least as dubitable as its text.