פולמוס כיתתי או הבהרה פרשנית? מבט אחר על שמואל א ז 6 בגרסת תרגום השבעים

This short note argues, in contrast to the position articulated in the preceding article by Alexander Rofé, that the variant reading of 1 Sam 7:6 LXX (וישפכו לפני ה' על הארץ) represents an assimilation of the wording of 1 Sam 7 to that in Deut 12. Its purpose is to clarify an ambiguous and potentially problematic passage by the logic of analogy. Given the basic obscurity of the ritual described in the context of 1 Sam 7 and the ambiguity of its verbal formulation, it seems that this variant represents a straightforward deductive clarification of a problematic formulation on the basis of a parallel passage, without necessarily reflecting any knowledge of a putative dispute between Pharisees and Sadducees regarding water libations offered during Sukkoth. It would therefore represent not an exceptional and rare sectarian variant, but a general interpretive variant fully characteristic of deliberate variation within scriptural manuscripts in the late Second Temple period.