CHAPTER 23.

THAT THE ISRAELITES SPOKE EGYPTIAN IN EGYPT, AND ONLY ACQUIRED THE HEBREW OR CANAANITISH LANGUAGE BY A LONG RESIDENCE IN CANAAN.

That any living language, whatsoever, should have remained in the same state, from the creation to the time of Moses, is a thing in itself of the utmost improbability

I find this remark in the Celtic Researches, page 91, and as the learned author proceeds in a train of thought which is closely in harmony with my present line of argument, I continue to quote those passages which are most applicable, omitting others which do not so immediately concern the subject.

But we have been accustomed to regard the Hebrew as a sacred, and consequently, as an incorruptible language.

That sacredness of character, which this language really possesses, must have been derived purely from the circumstance of its having been the vehicle of divine communication. Before it became the language of prophecy, and of the law, I can conceive of no inherent stamp of sacredness, with which it could have been distinguished. What idea can we form of this language being sacred per se? It had not, surely, been the language of angels before the formation of man. It was nothing more than a medium for the expression of human ideas and perceptions, and for communicating information to human intellects. And why should one human language be in itself more sacred than another? Why should the primitive language, in this respect, be placed before the most modern ?

These observations cannot be disputed: we may examine the language of the Old Testament in the same manner as any other ancient or modern language, and test it by all the various modes which criticism can supply. When therefore we find that the Hebrew nation, which comes into contact with Europeans for the first time in the

age of Alexander the Great, about 300 years before Christ, claim for their sacred books an antiquity of 1200 years precedent to that date, it becomes necessary to enquire how far the mutability of all human languages is consistent with such claims.

On the authority of the Old Testament itself, it appears that the Hebrews derive their name from their ancestor Heber, one of whose descendants, Abraham, left his native country Chaldæa, and settled in the land of Canaan. Now

We have a complete demonstration, Gen. xxxi, 47, * that the great stock of the family of Heber, which remained in Mesopotamia, spoke the Chaldaic and not the Hebrew dialect.

Laban, who had been brought up in the house of his fathers, denominates the heap of witness, certainly in his native tongue, Jegar SahaThis name is evidently composed of three

. יגרשהדותא,dutha דיתא or דת A witness, and שהד A heap יגר,Chaldaic words

An appointment. Had Moses literally transcribed all the words of Laban, he could not have furnished us with a more satisfactory proof of the language he used.

Jacob, on the other hand, who had been born in a foreign country and had lived there from his infancy, till he was upwards of seventy years of age, describes the same heap in a language different from that of his relations. He calls it, using two Hebrew terms, one of which implies a heap and the other a witness or testimony. The name is synonymously recorded in both languages, and, therefore, undoubtedly in the languages which Laban and Jacob respectively used. The Hebrew was not then the general dialect of the children of Heber.

And it is equally clear that it was not peculiar to his family. The prophet Isaiah, chap. xix, emphatically calls it the language of Canaan. †

* And Jacob said unto his brethen, Gather stones: and they took stones, and made an heap, and they did eat there upon the heap. And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed; GEN. xxxi, 46. 47. Bishop Patrick says, "The one is a Syriac, the other a Hebrew name, both having the same signification." Syriac and Chaldaic may be considered as the same language.

+ In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts; one shall be called The city of destruction. ISAIAH xix, 18.

In addition to this sacred testimony, we have the names of men and places amongst the old Canaanites, in the time of Abraham, in pure Hebrew. We have Phoenician inscriptions, the fragment of the Punic language in the Pænulus of Plautus, and the remains of that language in the island of Malta, as undeniable proofs, that the Hebrew was the genuine language of the house of Canaan, which preserved it with little variation to a late age.

This language could by no means have been communicated by Abraham to the natives of the country. It is certain that he found it, and very probable that he learnt it there. In his conversation with the inhabitants, he must have used their language. It is easy and natural for a stranger to acquire the language of the people amongst whom he settles, especially if it differs from his own only as a dialect. But it is an absolute impossibility for several independent kingdoms suddenly to accommodate themselves to the dialect of a single sojourner: and the language of the old Canaanites, and of the posterity of Abraham, at least, the house of Jacob, was the same.

The native tongue of Abraham must have been that which was spoken by his family, in Chaldæa and Mesopotamia.-The former name of this

,רמא or רמה very patriarch seems to be referable to the Chaldaic

to be dejected or cast down, rather than to the Hebrew, Exalted,

Lofty.

He had been born in the declining years of his father. His lot was only that of a younger son. His own wife was barren, and he had long been cast down, as to the hope of a progeny. He consequently seems to have been regarded in his native country as a dry branch. No separate patrimony had been assigned to him. His residence was in a city which had received the name of his brother Haran. This must have been an afflicting circumstance, in an age when the sons regularly shared the paternal estate, and became the heads of families, and the chiefs of the little cities and it seems to have weighed heavy upon Abraham's heart. "Lord God," says he, "what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless!— Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in mine house is mine heir." He had hoped to become the father of a family; but from that hope he was cast down. To the mortifying epithet which reminded him of his affliction, his new Hebrew name, A father of Multitudes, which was conferred upon him several years after he had been in the land of Canaan, must have presented a very pleasing contrast. To the title of Exalted father, it would have been no contrast at all.

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Thus, then, Laban who had always lived in the land of Chaldæa, naturally spoke the language of his kindred and nation, whilst Jacob, who had been educated in the land of Canaan, as naturally spoke the language of that country. It is a popular error to suppose that Jacob was a young man, when he fled to his cousin Laban, that he might escape from his brother Esau. He was, in fact, nearly a hundred years old, as may be seen by comparing the dates, given in the margins of our Bibles; and consequently the language of Canaan, i. e. the Hebrew language, would be familiar to his ear. His father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham, had been settled nearly two hundred years in the land which their posterity afterwards occupied.

Jacob, after parting from Laban, would naturally resume the use of his paternal language, and all his family and tribe would learn it also. Otherwise he could not have associated with the people of Canaan, in the manner described in the Bible, where no mention is made of an interpreter to intervene between them. But we need not suppose that his family lost the use of the Chaldaic, for Jacob had lived about 20 years in Chaldæa,

where he married Chaldean or Aramoan wives [Rachel, Leah, and their two handmaids] and here his children were born and partly educated. These children could have heard the Hebrew only from their father's mouth, even if we suppose that he used it in conversing with them. Their mother tongue was the Chaldaic, the same which was spoken in the family of their grandfather Laban. Jacob, with his household, again returned into the land of Canaan. Here the young men married wives who spoke the Canaanitish language. So that, when the whole family went down into Egypt, about 33 years after their return from Mesopotamia, they must have carried with them both the Chaldaic language and that of Canaan.

But, as the latter was the dialect most familiar to Jacob himself, and perhaps the only dialect of the younger and more numerous branches, it prevailed over the other &c.

If this argument should be thought to rest too much on

probability, with no other fact to support it than the diversity of name, which Laban and Jacob give to the same pillar,-confessedly two names taken from different languages or dialects, yet we now come to an ascertained fact, which leads to an inference of much importance to our argument. When the sons of Jacob first went down to Egypt to buy corn, the services of an interpreter were required to enable them to transact their business. It is clear, therefore, that the language of the Egyptians and the Hebrews were different, the one from the other. But, when Jacob went to dwell in Egypt, his tribe consisted of sixty-six persons only, and as from this time to the Exodus, a period of more than 400 years,* they continued to reside in Egypt, it becomes almost a physical certainty that they lost the use of their native tongue, Hebrew, and adopted that of the people, among whom they dwelt.

There is an important passage in the book of Nehemiah, shewing how soon a language is lost when a small number of persons fix themselves for permanent residence in a strange country.

In those days also saw I [i. e. Nehemiah] Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. NEHEMIAH Xiii, 23, 24.

Let us see what facts may be brought forward from the books of Genesis and Exodus, in support of the assertion, above made, that the Israelites in Egypt exchanged their native language for that of the Egyptians.

We read that, when the Hebrews arrived in Egypt, they came into the land of Goshen, the province of Egypt, which travellers, coming from Canaan by the usual

* See page 148, where it is proved that there is no authority for reducing the length of the Egyptian residence from 430 to 215 years.