2. The Samaritan Pentateuch.

Such names as these make me suspect the Samaritan version not to be of that antiquity which some would claim for it, making it almost as ancient as the days of Ezra.

IV. I suspect too, when we meet with places pretty well known of themselves, obscured by names most unknown, that, sometimes, the whole country is not to be understood, but some particular place of that country only.

The suspicion is grounded on the word Naphik for Egypt, and Salmaah for Euphrates. By Naphik, probably, they understood, not the whole land of Egypt, but Pelusium only, which is the very first entry into Egypt from Canaan. The reason of this conjecture is this: the word Anpak (as we have elsewhere observed) was writ over the gates of that city; and how near that word comes to Naphik, is obvious enough to any one.

It is possible, also, that the mention of the Kinites, immediately following, might bring Salmaah to mind; and so they might not call 'Euphrates' itself 'Salmaah,' but speaking of 'Euphrates' as washing some place called 'Salmah.' Ptolemy, in his chapter concerning the situation of Arabia Deserta, mentions Salma, in degr. 78.20.28.30: and it is numbered amongst six-and-twenty other cities, which he saith are 'near Mesopotamia.' If this be true, the Samaritan version hath something by which it may defend itself: for if those cities mentioned by Ptolemy were indeed 'near Mesopotamia' (the river Euphrates only running between), then may the Samaritan version be warranted while it renders "even to the river Euphrates," "even to the river of Salmaah," that is, "to the river Euphrates in that place where it washeth the sides of Salma."