MSS. from which they translated, or added of
themselves; the rest is made up of what are probably original phrases but
omitted from the Hebrew by the carelessness of copyists; yet none of these
differences is of importance save where the Greek corrects an irregularity
in the Hebrew metre, or yields sense when the Hebrew fails to do so.(8)

More instructive is the greater number of phrases and passages found in
the Hebrew Book, and consequently in our English Versions, but absent from
the Greek. Some, it is true, are merely formal--additions to a personal
name of the title _king_ or _prophet_ or of the names of a father and
grandfather, or the more frequent use of the divine title _of Hosts_ with
the personal Name of the Deity or of the phrase _Rede of the Lord_.(9)
Also the Greek omits words which in the Hebrew are obviously mistakes of a
copyist.(10) Again, a number of what are transparent glosses or marginal
notes on the Hebrew text are lacking in the Greek, because the translator
of the latter did not find them on the Hebrew manuscript from which he
translated.(11) Some titles to sections of the Book, or portions of
titles, absent from the Greek but found in our Hebrew text, are also later
editorial additions.(12) Greater importance, however, attaches to those
phrases that cannot be mere glosses and to the longer passages, wanting in
the Greek but found in the Hebrew, many of which upon internal evidence
must be regarded as late intrusions into the latter.(13) And occasionally
a word or phrase in the Hebrew, which spoils the rhythm or is irrelevant
to the sense, is not found in the Greek.(14)

Finally, there is one great difference of arrangement. The group of
Oracles on Foreign Nations which appear in the Hebrew as Chs. XLVI-LI are
in the Greek placed between verses 13 and 15(15) of Ch. XXV, and are
ranged in a different order--an obvious proof that at one time different
editors felt free to deal with the arrangement of the compilation as well
as to add to its contents.(16)

Modern critics differ as to the comparative value of these two editions of
the Book of Jeremiah, and there are strong advocates on either side.(17)
But the prevailing opinion, and, to my view, the right one, is that no
general judgment is possible, and that each case of difference between the
two witnesses must be decided by itself.(18) With this, however, we have
nothing at present to do. What concerns us now is the fact that the Greek
is not