There is evidence to show that it must have existed in several forms which differed more or less from that of the extant MSS.

It would be rash therefore to conclude at once, because we find a quotation differing from the present text of the LXX, that it differed from that which was used by the writer making the quotation.

In some cases this can be proved from the same writer making the same quotation more than once and differently each time, or from another writer making it in agreement with our present text.

But in other cases it seems probable that the writer had really a different text before him, because he quotes it more than once, or another writer quotes it, with the same variation.

This however is again an uncertain criterion; for the second writer may be copying the first, or he may be influenced by an unconscious reminiscence of what the first had written.