presents it to the sight of man. In many of the blood in the human body, which words, two ideas are comprehended, because ceases in death: the passage is well worth they are found together in nature. It is considering. Hence also we have a name impossible for us, in many cases, from our for the human skull,* from the roundness of imperfect knowledge of things, to account its figure; and also for the thistle down, or for and reconcile the kindred senses of He-winged seed, because it is a light round body, brew words; but in many the reason of and has a rotation as it rolls along before the them is too plain to be contradicted. The wind. And I may add, what is as curious as word N RASH signifies the head, and it anything, that the root in question gives us signifies poison and the relation appears in the word 1 GeLeM, which signifies the nature, which has placed the most deadly of human fœtus or embryo; and with philopoisons in the head of the serpent: a crea- sophical propriety, because in that the body ture of great signification in Hebrew doc- is rolled up or folded together. From Gelem trine. I do not see that this reason is comes the word glomus a ball of thread, and assigned by the learned Mr. Parkhurst; but glomero to wind about or gather together. I find it in Marius-Sunt qui dicunt sic appellari, eo quod venenum sit in capite aspidis. The same word which signifies the hoarfrost, signifies to cover; because the hoarfrost is a sudden and universal covering spread over the face of the ground. The word also signifies an atonement; by which, as it appears from several passages of the Scripture, either the face of the person offended is understood to be covered, so that he no longer looks upon the offence; or the sin itself is so covered that it can no longer be seen, and even assumes a new appearance from the nature and quality of the covering; just as the face of the earth becomes white and pure when the hoar-frost is upon it: which conveys a very beautiful and pleasant idea of atonement and propitiation. All this is expressed by the word 5 CaPHAR; whence is plainly derived our English word cover. This term admits of an accident, which may seem to contradict our system of kindred ideas, but does really confirm it. The word which signifies hoar-frost does also signify pitch; the one as white as snow, the other as black as a coal: but the leading idea of covering is still preserved, for pitch is the most effectual covering in the world to keep out water and weather. In Gen. vi. 14. it is applied to the covering of Noah's ark; and the reader will find that the pitch and the covering are both expressed by the same word. How simple is the construction of that language which, beginning with the preposition by OL, upon or over, adds another letter, and turns it into a verb, ny OLaH, to ascend; which, becoming a noun, signifies a burnt offering; teaching us to consider it as an ascension, because the smoke and flame.of it goes up towards heaven, which cannot happen unless it is consumed by fire; on which much might be said! The barbarous people of Madagascar have a sacrifice which they call an Owley; retaining the very word of the Mosaic law. From the same root we have a word for the wild goat of the mountains, from its climbing upwards; also for the leaf of a tree, from its superior situation; whence, with the f, or digamma prefixed, we have the Latin folium. It furnishes us also with a word for stairs, because people ascend by them; and for a lord or ruler, because he is over others in alliance with which we have one of the names of God, hy Olion, because he is over all; and it is rendered by the word Altissimus in Latin, in English the Most High. : Compare this set of words with one another in Latin, and you will find neither root, branch, nor relation among them. Super has no alliance with scando; nor scando with gradus; nor gradus with folium; nor folium with altus; nor altus with rupicapra : every word, when compared with the rest, is an unrelated individual; and the case would be found the same in the Greek, or any other language of more modern use and invention: so that when I view the Hebrew language, such as I have now represented it to you (in too small a compass for the greatness of the subject), I am persuaded it must either have been originally given to man by his Creator, or framed by men the powers of whose minds were very different from our GaL is a root which, as a verb, signifies to roll round, or circulate; and, as a noun, any round thing. Hence it signifies to dance; because the motions of the dance were circular, to imitate the motions of the heavenly bodies. It signifies also to be glad; because gladness is that way expressed. And likewise a wheel, from its form and its revolution; and particularly the watering wheel of the East, which yields its water by a own. circulation: Solomon is supposed to have used this term in that famous allegory of Eccles. xii. with an allusion to the circulationment. ⚫ Hence the word Golgotha, in the New Testa But give me leave to forewarn you, that | in every word of it (so far as it is retained caution is to be used, and great experience is and preserved) and I have loved and admired requisite, in order to handle the Hebrew it ever since. You will do the same, if you with safety; otherwise you may chance to take half as much pains as I did; and, for your make that ridiculous which you intend to encouragement, you will have an advantage magnify. For want of knowing better, we which I had not, later years having produced may give the lead to a wrong idea; that that excellent work the Lexicon, Hebrew and which is not the radical one: and then we English, of Mr. Parkhurst; who has made shall be forced upon strange and unnatural it a magazine of general learning, antiquity, alliances; and, from our imperfect insight divinity, and natural history; and has illusinto many things, we may not be able to trated his Hebrew literature from the Greek discover that there is any leading idea at all. and Roman classics, and from useful authors, It is natural to follow with too much assur- ancient and modern, of every denomination. ance the alluring pursuits of etymology; and, In the modern Hebrew learning, you have if we are found to do it without temper- another advantage, and a great one it is; that ance or discretion, we shall find no mercy you are taken out of the hands of the Jews; from those who are not well affected to the who begin their teaching with the egregious originalities of learning and religion; who absurdity of an alphabet without vowels, to may therefore treat us with a smile, meaning make way for their Hebrew points, which it for the smile of superior wisdom: but folly are a modern invention, and overburthen you and ignorance are more given to smile than with an insupportable multiplicity of rules. wisdom and science. Their notions of the Hebrew are much of a size with their sense of divinity. That noble instrument of wisdom, in their hands, is like an instrument of astronomy in the hands of a child, or like a telescope with the blind. Trust yourself to Mr. Parkhurst, a good Christian, and he will take you by the hand at the first step, and carry you as far as you will wish to go in CHRISTIAN HEBREW. That your success may be such as I augurate from a foreknowledge of your capacity and application, is the sincere wish of, Dear Sir, I have said enough to convince you, that the study of Hebrew, if you use it properly, will abundantly repay your labor; that it is even necessary and essential, if you would be, what I may call (to speak after the Hebrew style) a radical scholar, and see into the originals of things both sacred and profane that it is related to itself by associations and images, not merely curious, but often very beautiful and instructive: in short, that it communicates knowledge of the best kind under a singular form, no where else to be met with. I could have multiplied my examples in abundance; for there was a time of my life when I sat for half a year together to compare the Hebrew language with itself Your affectionate friend, and obedient, humble servant, W. JONES. |