a comparison of isolated words, the phrases must be compared, and this affords by far the most extensive field of investigation.

The best Lexicons of the dialects, as those of GOLIUS and GIGGEIUS for the Arabic, that of CASTELL, with the additions of MICHAELIS, for the Syriac, and that of BUXTORF for the Chaldee, are indeed of great service; yet the use of them alone is by no means sufficient. For 1) Lexicons are not always resorted to when they might be, or examined in the place where they ought to be, since the explanation is sometimes given under another word not thought of.-2) The Latin words by which the Oriental are rendered are often ambiguous and badly understood.-3) A lexicon does not always remove all doubt respecting the meaning of a word, or impress it deeply on the mind; but a word read in a regularly connected composition conveys an idea established by the series of discourse, and becomes deeply 'fixed in the memory, so that when a similar Hebrew word is met with it spontaneously occurs to the mind.4) Lastly, lexicons neither do nor can comprehend all the riches of a language, and all its phrases; much less can they determine the interior character of a language, and all its tropes, figures, and modes of speech. This must all be acquired from reading

books. Thus ¿ds to break, means also to wound, an example of which may be seen in I Cor. xi. 24. But this is a meaning not given in GOLIUS, though it occurs in ABDOLLATIF, Memor. Ægypti, p. 13; in my Chrestomathy, p. 117.

Although all the dialects are to be compared, they are not all equally rich, nor do they bring equal aid, or afford equal certainty. The richest is the Arabic, which has preserved very much that is lost from the Hebrew. It is also more implicitly to be relied on than the others, because it is even to this day the vernacular language in very extensive regions, and abounds with books of all kinds, many of which have been printed, and open to us a source from which we may draw largely. It contains also poems, from which the genius of oriental poetry is discovered, so that the poems of the Hebrews may

be properly understood and accurately estimated. Lexicons also, composed by orientals, are found in it. Of these, especially that of GJAUHARI has been abridged by GOLIUS, and GIGGEIUS has drawn largely from that of FIRUZABAD.

The Syriac dialect is the next in importance. For a century past it has ceased to be a living language, except in a few villages of Antilibanus; but it remains in many versions of the Bible, and in other writings, not a few of which are printed in Jos. ASSEMAN'S Bibliotheca Orientalis, 4 vols. folio. To these may be added the works of EPHRAIM, 3 vols. folio, STEPHEN ASSEMAN's Acts of the Martyrs, 2 vols. folio, and the Chronicle of ABULFARAGIUS, in 4to. There are extant also two Lexicons of the language, written by na- · tives, which are preserved in the library at Leyden, one composed by ISA BAR ALI of the 9th century, and the other by ISA BAR BAHLUL of the 10th, the publication of which has long been wished for, but hitherto in vain.

The Chaldee, or rather the Babylonian dialect, is vernacular in some villages of Mardin even in the present day. To us, however, it is extant only in parts of Daniel and Ezra, and in the Paraphrases. Besides, the Rabbins have introduced much into it which is not well supported, and therefore we cannot always safely trust it, unless its sister dialect, the Syriac, lend its aid.

These are the three principal dialects, the knowledge of which is necessary to every thorough theologian, who wishes to examine not with the eyes of others but with his own; to know, not merely from the statements of others, but from his own investigation. The interpreter who would resolve all the difficulties of the Bible, and illustrate all its obscurities, must consult also the other cognate dialects. These are 1) the Ethiopic or Abyssinian, which is to the present day vernacular in the province of Tigré. In BRUCE Reis. I. Th. S. 379, Anhang, S. 88.* CUHNE's translation. No printed works are extant, except those which have been mentioned in § 57.—2) The Samaritan, confined to the version of the Pentateuch.-3) The Talmudic, sufficiently rich indeed of itself, but uncertain on account of many significations forced upon the Hebrew words. This dialect

[BRUCE's Travels, Appendix, Vol. I. p. 493. Tr.]

therefore, is not to be used except where the others are inadequate. -4] The Phænician, Punic, and Palmyrene, only fragments of which are extant in inscriptions and coins, in the works of Augustin, and in some classical writers. The other oriental languages are not indeed cognate to the Hebrew, but still they afford no contemptible aid to the interpreter.[a]

(a) On the subject of this and the preceding sections, comp. Pareau Instit. Interp. Vet. Test. pp. 38-47. DE WETTE Einleit. § 31, 32, 33, 37. S. 58. ff. Bauer, Hermeneutica Sacra, § 19–25. pp. 96–144. Tr.]

§ 81. Etymology.

A comparison of dialects can hardly produce a happy result, unless attended by the light of etymology, that is, the investigation of the primary signification of words, and of the manner in which other significations have arisen. By the primary signification is meant, that which the inventors of the language originally affixed to a word. In order to assist in discovering this original meaning, the following observations ought to be attended to.

I. The inventors of language were not philosophers, who would have descended from genus to species. They were simple and uncultivated men, entirely dependent on their senses, who imposed names first upon those objects which struck their ears, eyes, and other senses with most frequency or vehemence. They imitated in the first place the sounds of things, and thus the sound itself produced by imitation was the appellation of the sounding object; as qiy, from the sound of, made by a flying bird; y, from the sound ba, produ

ced by water bursting from a fountain. Significations and words of this kind are called onomatopoetic, and very many such still remain in the Hebrew.Objects which produced no sound and yet made on the senses an impression more frequent or more vehement than others, as the human members and those of animals, received their names from their imaginary sound; and therefore the meaning of names of this kind, as of 7, hand, 417, foot, v, a sheep, ɔɔ, a dog,

and others of the same kind, are primary.[a] Comp. the preface to my Aramæan Grammar.

II. Those who invented language and those who afterwards enriched and polished it, did not always form new words in order to express new ideas acquired in the course of time, especially abstract ideas and ideas of objects which do not affect the senses. To such they often transferred old words, either because they observed, or thought they observed, some slight similitude or connexion of the new object with the old, or because some incidental circumstances occasioned the transfer. Hence the meanings of words in which they express abstract ideas, or ideas of objects not within the scope of the senses, are not primary, but derived.

III. In the course of time words were more frequently transferred from their primary significations to other meanings, often considerably remote, and even, by irony, directly contrary. Sometimes this was done merely for the sake of ornament, or on account of some allusion. This secondary meaning was so often used, that the original radical signification became unfrequent, or even altogether obsolete. The primary signification therefore is by no means the most common, but is generally of rare occurrence, and frequently out of use, and continuing only in some one derived noun, or distinguishable by some slight remains, or even totally lost. The use of Etymology therefore is exceedingly hazardous, and by no means successful in all cases. IV. The transferring of words to derived senses, adopted by Orientals, is very often totally different from that which the analogy of our languages would require. It is governed by their mode of thinking, and occasioned by the tropes and associations of ideas which have obtained currency among them. These are not at all the same with those of the natives of the west; and therefore our derivation of ideas from the primary one should be coincident with those circumstances which in this respect are peculiar to the Orientals.

[a) This appears to be one of the fancies which must result from any hypothesis respecting the origin of language, except that which assumes it to be divine. On the subject of the origin of language, see an able article in MAGEE on the Atonement, No. LIII., and compare the authors referred to at the end of the Number. Tr.]

§ 82. Etymology does not teach the true meaning, but only illus

trates it.

As the association of ideas may be endless, it is evident that words are susceptible of transfer to an almost indefinite variety of meanings, and in every language methods of transfer have been arbitrarily selected; so that, unless a man is omniscient, he cannot possibly divine all the associations of ideas or transfers of words which any people may have adopted. It is evident, then, that derivative meanings cannot be deduced with certainty from the primary idea; the possibility of any particular transfer being all that can be inferred. But although it follows from this that etymology can by no means teach the derived and commonly used ideas of words, it is not on this account to be considered as unproductive, for it yields the interpreter many and great advantages of another kind.- -1) It illustrates derived significations, and renders them clearer and distinct, as in ; to which might be added

&; 17, Comp.

ودع

.Comp ,הופיע

important where synonymes are joined together, one of which expresses more than another, as and oh in Isa. xli. 11. xlv. 16., and and "y in Job xvi. 19.- -3) The syntax, sometimes

anomalous, receives light from etymology; as, for instance, this shows why ay, to love, and, to choose, are construed with the prefixes

by

-T

,על

↳y and ɔ, D11, to spare, (Comp. cob and col) with by,

pn, (Comp.

حاص
(خاص

) with applied to the person.

Etymology is also of very great service to the memory, which retains with the more facility the various and sometimes widely diverging meanings of the same word, if it have in the primary signification a firm centre point, as it were, to which it can connect the other meanings by different lines and circles supplied by etymology.