CHAPTER IV.

RESPECTING THE LANGUAGE OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, AND THE HELPS TO UNDERSTAND IT.

§ 68.

The language of the Old Testament. [a]

The Hebrew language, in which the protocanonical books, with the exception of some portions in Chaldee, (Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28. Ezr. iv. 8-vi. 19. vii. 11-27 and Jer. x. xi.) are written, is a dialect of the Shemites, but little, however, or not at all different from that of the descendants of Ham in Palestine or Phoenicia, that is to say, the Canaanites. This is shown from what remains of Punic or Phoenician in Africa (See PLAUT. Comed. T. III. Pænul. p. 73—81, Ed. Berol. 1807-1811; BOCHART in Canaan, L. II. cap. 1-7; or rather BELLERMAN Versuch einer Erklärung der Punischen Stellen in Pænulus des Plautus 1806-7.), and is confirmed by many places of Augustin* and Jerome. On this account the Hebrew language is called in Isa. xix. 18. the language of Canaan; from which it would seem, that Abraham, a descendant of Shem, coming from Ur of the Chaldees into Palestine, adopted the Canaanitish dialect, which differed but little from his own, and transmitted it to his posterity. In Isa. xxxvi. 11. II Kings xviii. 26. II Chron. xxxii. 18., it is called the Jewish, because at that time the use of it was almost exclusively confined to the kingdom of Judah. The name of Hebrew is never applied to it in the Bible, but is used in the New Testament, as also in Philo and Josephus, for the Aramæan, (John v. 2. xix. 13. Act. xxi. 40. xxii. 2. xxvi. 14.), because at that time this was the verna

* [In Lib. Judic. L. VII. cap. xvi.-Cont. Lit. Petilian. L. II. cap. civ.-In Joh. Tract. 15.-De Verb. Dom. Serm. 35.]

+ [Comm. in Jer. L. V. Cap. xxv.-Comm. in Jes. L. III. cap. vii. L. VIII. cap. xix.]

cular language of the Hebrews. In like manner the language of the Old Testament is now called Hebrew, because it was anciently the vernacular tongue of that people.

[a) On the subject of this and the following sections, comp. EICHH. § 10, 11. GESENIUS, Geschichte der Heb. Spr. und. Schrift § 4-27. Tr.]

§ 69. History of the Hebrew Language.

This language was very extensively propagated in ancient times by the Phoenicians, who possessed marts and colonies in many parts of Asia, and in almost all the coasts of Africa and Europe. See BOCHARTI Canaan, L. I. de Phonicum coloniis. It was understood also by the inhabitants of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Arabia, and Ethiopia, although other Shemitish dialects differing very little from the Hebrew were spoken by them. This language, therefore, cannot be said to have been restricted to a corner of the earth, and to have been inaccessible to the people of all other countries. On the contrary, the designation used for very remote nations is, that the Hebrews do not understand their language; Deut. xxviii. 49. Jer. v. 15.

Twenty-two hundred years before Christ, the Hebrew tongue was so far cultivated as to have become a written language. This is clear from the document in Gen. xxiii., written in the age of Abraham. It is therefore not at all surprising that 1600 years B. C. the Canaanites had their лр, Kirjath Sepher, that is, city of books, Jud. i.

11, 12. Jos. xv. 15, 49. The poetical pieces of the age of Moses, which are contained in Ex. xv. Deut. xxxii. xxxiii. Num. xxi. 18, 28— 30. xxiii. 1-10, 18-24. xxiv. 4-9, 16-24., show that this was the golden age of the language. That it was not altogether neglected in the time of the judges is proved by the poems referred to in Jos. x. 13. s., by the song of Deborah in Jud. v., and by the fable of Jotham in ix. 7-20. In the time of David it was in a very flourishing state, and the interval between his reign and that of Hezekiah may be called its silver age, towards the close of which however some foreign words, principally Aramæan, were introduced by the increasing intercourse with the Assyrians and Babylonians. This happened at an earlier period in the kingdom of Israel, upon the overthrow of which the

citizens who remained, coalescing with the colonists who had been introduced among them, mingled the Hebrew with the Aramæan, and thus gave rise to the Samaritan dialect.-From the time of Hezekiah to the Babylonish captivity, the purity of the language was still more neglected, and it was deformed by very many foreign terms; so that this may be called its iron age.-The Hebrews when carried into captivity, forgetting their ancient tongue, adopted the Aramaan, the vernacular language of the places in which they dwelt; so that subsequently, upon their return, some spoke Chaldee, and others Syriac. The former settled in Judea, the latter in Galilee. Among the cultivated part of the people the old language continued in use during some time, and in it the writers composed their works, until at last it became totally extinct. This last period may be styled its leaden age.

The learned, those especially who explained the law to the people in the synagogues, still preserved some knowledge of the Hebrew language, which was acquired and propagated in the schools to such an extent as to be written and spoken, but by no means in purity: for its deficiency in words was supplied from the Aramæan and Persian, and after some time from the Greek and Latin also. In this way, very similar to that by which the scholastic Latin of the middle ages was produced, arose the modern Hebrew, which we meet with in the Talmud. That it had been completely formed before the time of Christ and his apostles, is certain from many places of the New Testament. This dialect is called the Talmudic. In a more recent age it was further altered by new changes and foreign words, and this is what is styled the Rabbinic.

§ 70. Loss of the Hebrew Language.

The language of the ancient Hebrews has not indeed entirely perished, like those of so many other ancient nations, yet on the other hand its fate has not been so favourable as that of the Greek and Latin, which are not only extant in a great number of books, but have also preserved versions, lexicons, and scholiasts, from the very time that they were living languages; so that abundant testimonies can be adduced from those sources in relation to their respective usages. In the Hebrew all that remains is contained in a few small works, which scarcely comprehend two-thirds of the language. Very many words.

significations of words, and phrases, are lost; and what remain are destitute of any competent witness, such as a lexicographer, expositor, or scholiast of the age when the language was vernacular. Comp. SCHULTENS de defectibus ling. Heb. in his Orig. Heb., Lug. Bat. 1761, 4to p. 314-436.

§ 71. Difficulty of the Hebrew Language.

From the circumstances which have been stated arises the difficulty of the Hebrew language. For since the significations which any people may affix to sounds or words, and the sense which they may attach to sentences, is a historic fact which can be known only by those who use their language as vernacular, or by such as have been instructed by those to whom it was vernacular; the significations of words and the sense of expressions of any dead language, and consequently of the Hebrew, ought to be attested by witnesses of this description. But the Hebrew usage is quite destitute of evidence of this kind. The most ancient interpreters, the Alexandrine, lived two centuries after the language had ceased to be a living one; all the others were many centuries more modern. They are not therefore competent witnesses, and this is moreover proved by their frequent discrepancies and manifest errors.

§ 72. Knowledge of the Hebrew Language in Jewish and Christian Schools.

The Jewish teachers have indeed preserved a knowledge of the Hebrew language in their schools; but as witnesses of its ancient usage they became necessarily the more incompetent in proportion as the times in which they flourished were remote from the fact which they were to certify. Besides, they are very far from being unanimous in their decisions, or consistent with themselves, and they betray their ignorance by many glaring errors.

These guides whose fidelity could so little be trusted were followed by Christians, until in the 17th century some Protestants became doubtful respecting this authority of the Rabbies, and sought for principles more to be relied on, by the aid of which the Hebrew language might be learned. But BоHL, GOSSUET, NEUMANN, RUEMELIN, FORSTER, AVENAR, LESCHER, and some others, wandered into such

dangerous by-paths, that it would have been much better not to leave the beaten road. In this century however JOHN ERNEST GERHARD, (1647,) ANDR. SENNERT, (1658,) HOTTINGER, (1649 and 1659,) SCHINDLER, (1653,) CASTELL, (in his Lexicon Heptaglotton (1669,) JOHN F. NICOLAI, (1670,) JOHN WM. HILLINGER, (1670,) JOHN Le CLERC, and Pocock, did indeed recommend the cognate dialects, and LOUIS DE DIEU (1642,) in his Animadversiones in Libros V. F., the ancient versions, as means of illustrating the Hebrew. But very little benefit resulted, until in the beginning of the 18th century, ALBERT SCHULTENS, who was prepared for the undertaking by the most extensive erudition, showed, with immense labour, in his Origines Hebraica, in opposition to DRIESSEN, that it was only through the cognate dialects that a certain knowledge of the Hebrew language could be drawn. When however Schultens and his followers ran to extremes in seeking assistance from etymology, and neglected the Aramaan dialects and the ancient versions, JOHN DAVID MICHAELIS, in his Beurtheilung der Mittel welche man anwendet die Hebraische Sprache zu verstehen, 1754, marked out with greater care the principles of the interpretation of the Old Testament. Comp. MEYERS Gesch. der Schrifter. klär. III. 58-77.[a]

[a) See Germ. Introd. p. 254, 255. Tr.]

§ 73. Knowledge of the Hebrew Language which may be depended on.

Since, as has been shown, direct testimony respecting the usage of the Hebrew language, (that is, such as arises from the Hebrews themselves of the age when their language was living,) cannot be attained, it becomes necessary to resort to indirect. This is afforded by the cognate dialects, which in fact are at bottom the same as the Hebrew language, so that the signification of words and the sense of phrases and sentences which we find in them, should be admitted also in the Hebrew, particularly if these are supported by the connexion of the discourse, the subject, and the scope of the author. That the Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic or Abyssinian, Samaritan, Phoenician and Talmudic dialects are the same language as the Hebrew, any one who is acquainted with them will discover; for in all there are the same