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Old 01-23-2009, 12:28 PM
pilgrim33ad
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Default Aramnaharaim, Aramzobah and Psalm 60 Intro: a question

In Psalm 60, the intro reads

Psa 60:1 [[To the chief Musician upon Shushaneduth, Michtam of David, to teach; when he strove with Aramnaharaim and with Aramzobah, when Joab returned, and smote of Edom in the valley of salt twelve thousand.]]

I am a KJV Only, Inerrant Word believer and have a site called warsofisrael.com and several others in which I have studied the wars in Kings , Chronicles and throughout the Bible in at least some depth. Every seeming indescrepancy I ever found, I always found an answer to, so please do not mistake me for someone trying to discredit the AV.

However, this morning in study I ran across something that does not match up, not in the Word of God per se, not in the Psalm (60) but in the intro added footnote, and I want to know if any of you have the text of the earliest version with the added note, or even Tyndale's or one of the other 'dales' at the time or even the Erasmus Greek regarding the following:

In the war(s) mentioned, David went to the Northern most reaches of Israel to 'recover his border at the Euphrates' and to fight with Syria, also known as Aram (hence 'aramzobah-zobah the king) and the area sometimes referred to as Aram,sometimes Syria, partly Nahor, and even 'Mesopotamia' notes two wars, one in which 18,000 were killed and one in which 10,000 are killed.

Here's the issue: the prelude to Psalm 60 says 'and smote of Edom 12,000
and the words for those Joab killed in the Valley of Salt are in Hebrew

shenayim, asar, eleph

shenayim which means 'two' , 'asar' which is used with another word to represent the teens, and eleph which means thousand or company.

Since the 12000 is only in the prefix, and does not match as far as I can tell with the figure 18k or 10k, I am wondering about this. The way the words are used, it could also mean 'the two (companies/troops) of thousands.

I know the KJV is inerrant, and the Word itself in 24 years I have never found an error in even when I thought I had. But this is a note, of sorts so I am wondering because the Hebrew even in the note would be accurate, but the English rendering does not as far as I am seeing line up with two casualty figures.

Does an earlier version of the KJV read any differently, or can someone shed light on the pre-notes in general in Psalms? Thanks. I know there is an answer.