That the English reader may form some idea of the wide difference that existed between the Hebrew characters and the Chaldee, I here give a specimen of the real Hebrew, or true handwriting of the Holy Ghost. The passage is Deut. iv. 1, 2:—
ועתהישראלשמעאלהחקיםואלהמשפטיםאשראנכימלמדאתכםלעשותלמעןתחיוובאתםוירשתםאתהארץאשריהוהאלהיאבתיכםנתןלכםלאתספועלהדבראשראנכימצוהאתכםולאתגרעוממנולשמר
These pious gambols of black snails were turned by Ezra, when he obliged God, into square black characters like these:—
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ[1]
What are usually regarded as the Hebrew letters are not the Hebrew letters at all, but a comparatively modern Syriac substitute of an uncertain date.
Let us try a line of English on Jehovah's plan of writing, our, however, venturing to write from left to right—not, as he did, from right to left:—
Nthbgnnnggdcrtdthhvnndthrthndmdn—fhmslfbntcrtnglnggbhchhcdrcrdthvnt.
That would be Jehovah's way of putting:—
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and made an — of himself by not creating a language by which he could record the event.
I ask any sane man whether this sort of thing is a written language at all. It may possibly be an aid to memory and a clue to conjecture; but, even as such, the aid to memory
- ↑ ha-arets
the earth ve-eth
and it hasshamayim
the heavens eth
them elohim
gods bara
created Bereshith
In the beginning
(Read from right to left.)
