User:Ubufox/0
HEBREW GRAMMAR
AS EDITED AND ENLARGED BY THE LATE
E. KAUTZSCH
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE
SECOND ENGLISH EDITION
REVISED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TWENTY-EIGHTH GERMAN EDITION (1909) BY
A. E. COWLEY
WITH A FACSIMILE OF THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION BY J. EUTING, AND
A TABLE OF ALPHABETS BY M. LIDZBARSKI
OXFORD
GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI CAPE TOWN IBADAN
Geoffrey Cumberlege, Publisher to the University
SECOND ENGLISH EDITION 1910
REPRINTED LITHOGRAPHICALLY IN GREAT BRITAIN
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD, 1946, 1949, 1952, 1956
FROM CORRECTED SHEETS OF THE SECOND EDITION
The translation of the twenty-sixth German edition of this grammar, originally prepared by the Rev. G. W. Collins and revised by me, was published in 1898. Since that date a twenty-seventh German edition has appeared; and Prof. Kautzsch was already engaged on a twenty-eighth in 1908 when the English translation was becoming exhausted. He sent me the sheets as they were printed off, and I began revising the former translation in order to produce it as soon as possible after the completion of the German. The whole of the English has been carefully compared with the new edition, and, it is hoped, improved in many points, while Prof. Kautzsch's own corrections and additions have of course been incorporated. As before, the plan and arrangement of the original have been strictly followed, so that the references for sections and paragraphs correspond exactly in German and English. Dr. Driver has again most generously given up time, in the midst of other engagements, to reading the sheets, and has made numerous suggestions. To him also are chiefly due the enlargement of the index of subjects, some expansions in the new index of Hebrew words, and some additions to the index of passages, whereby we hope to have made the book more serviceable to students. I have also to thank my young friend, Mr. Godfrey R. Driver, of Winchester College, for some welcome help in correcting proofs of the Hebrew index and the index of passages. בן חכם ישמח אב. Many corrections have been sent to me by scholars who have used the former English edition, especially the Rev. W. E. Blomfield, the Rev. S. Holmes, Mr. P. Wilson, Prof. Witton Davies, Mr. G. H. Skipwith, and an unknown correspondent at West Croydon. These, as well as suggestions in reviews, have all been considered, and where possible, utilized. I am also much indebted to the Press-readers for the great care which they have bestowed on the work.
Finally, I must pay an affectionate tribute to the memory of Prof. Kautzsch, who died in the spring of this year, shortly after finishing the last sheets of the twenty-eighth edition. For more than thirty years he was indefatigable in improving the successive editions of the Grammar. The German translation of the Old Testament first published by him in 1894, with the co-operation of other scholars, under the title Die Heilige Schrift des A Ts, and now (1910) in the third and much enlarged edition, is a valuable work which has been widely appreciated: the Apocryphen und Pseudepigraphen des A Ts, edited by him in 1900, is another important work: besides which he published his Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen in 1884, two useful brochures Bibelwissenschaft und Religionsunterricht in 1900, and Die bleibende Bedeutung des A Ts in 1903, six popular lectures on Die Poesie und die poetischen Bücher des A Ts in 1902, his article 'Religion of Israel' in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, v. (1904), pp. 612-734, not to mention minor publications. His death is a serious loss to Biblical scholarship, while to me and to many others it is the loss of a most kindly friend, remarkable alike for his simple piety and his enthusiasm for learning.
Sept. 1910.
The present (twenty-eighth) edition of this Grammar,[1] like the former ones, takes account as far as possible of all important new publications on the subject, especially J. Barth's Sprachwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Semitischen, pt. i, Lpz. 1907; the important works of C. Brockelmann (for the titles see the heading of § 1; vol. i of the Grundriss was finished in 1908); P. Kahle's Der masoretische Text des A Ts nach der Überlieferung der babylonischen Juden, Lpz. 1902 (giving on p. 51 ff. an outline of Hebrew accidence from a Babylonian MS. at Berlin); R. Kittel's Biblia Hebraica, Lpz. 1905 f., 2 vols. (discriminating between certain, probable, and proposed emendations; see § 3 g, end); Th. Nöldeke's Beiträge zur semit. Sprachwissenschaft, Strassburg, 1904; Ed. Sievers' Metrische Studien (for the titles of these striking works see § 2 r). The important work of J. W. Rothstein, Grundzüge des hebr. Rhythmus, &c. (see also § 2 r), unfortunately appeared too late to be used. The two large commentaries edited by Nowack and Marti have been recently completed; and in P. Haupt's Polychrome Bible (SBOT.), part ix (Kings) by Stade and Schwally was published in 1904.
For full reviews of the twenty-seventh edition, which of course have been considered as carefully as possible, I have to thank Max Margolis (in Hebraica, 1902, p. 159 ff.), Mayer Lambert (REJ. 1902, p. 307 ff.), and H. Oort (Theol. Tijdschrift, 1902, p. 373 ff.). For particular remarks and corrections I must thank Prof. J. Barth (Berlin), Dr. Gasser, pastor in Buchberg, Schaffhausen, B. Kirschner, of Charlottenburg, (contributions to the index of passages), Pastor Köhler, of Augst, Dr. Liebmann, of Kuczkow, Posen, Prof. Th. Nöldeke, of Strassburg, Pastor S. Preiswerk junior, of Bâle, Dr. Schwarz, of Leipzig, and Prof. B. Stade, of Giessen (died in 1906). Special mention must be made of the abundant help received from three old friends of this book, Prof. P. Haupt, of Baltimore, Prof. Knudtzon, of Kristiania, and Prof. H. Strack, of Berlin, and also, in connexion with the present edition, Prof. H. Hyvernat, of the University of Washington, who has rendered great service especially in the correction and enlargement of the indexes. I take this opportunity of thanking them all again sincerely. And I am no less grateful also to my dear colleague Prof. C. Steuernagel for the unwearying care with which he has helped me from beginning to end in correcting the proof-sheets.
Among material changes introduced into this edition may be mentioned the abolition of the term Šewâ medium (§ 10 d). In this I have adopted, not without hesitation, the views of Sievers. I find it, however, quite impossible to follow him in rejecting all distinctions of quantity in the vowels. It is no doubt possible that such matters may in the spoken language have worn a very different appearance, and especially that in the period of nearly a thousand years, over which the Old Testament writings extend, very great variations may have taken place. Our duty, however, is to represent the language in the form in which it has been handed down to us by the Masoretes; and that this form involves a distinction between unchangeable, tone-long, and short vowels, admits in my opinion of no doubt. The discussion of any earlier stage of development belongs not to Hebrew grammar but to comparative Semitic philology.
The same answer may be made to Beer's desire (ThLZ. 1904, col. 314 f.) for an 'historical Hebrew grammar describing the actual growth of the language on a basis of comparative philology, as it may still be traced within the narrow limits of the Old Testament'. Such material as is available for the purpose ought indeed to be honestly set forth in the new editions of Gesenius; but Beer seems to me to appraise such material much too highly when he refers to it as necessitating an 'historical grammar'. In my opinion these historical differences have for the most part been obliterated by the harmonizing activity of the Masoretes.
Halle,
July, 1909.
Page 42, line 13 from below, for note 1 read note 3.
Page 63, § 15 p. [See also Wickes, Prose Accentuation, 130 f., 87 n. (who, however, regards the superlinear, Babylonian system as the earlier); and Ginsburg, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 76, 78. In Ginsburg’s Hebrew Bible, ed. 2 (1908), pp. 108 f., 267 f., the two systems of division are printed in extenso, in parallel columns—the 10 verses of the superlinear (Babylonian) system consisting (in Exodus) of v. (as numbered in ordinary texts), and the 12 verses of the sublinear (Palestinian) system, consisting of v..—S. R. D.]
Page 65, note 1, for אָֽ֫נָּא read אָֽנָּ֫א (as § 105 a).
[Editions often vary in individual passages, as regards the accentuation of the first syllable: but in the 7 occurrences of אנא, and the 6 of אנה, Baer, Ginsburg, and Kittel agree in having an accent on both syllables (as אָ֣נָּ֗א) in Gn 50, Ex 32, ψ 116, and Metheg on the first syllable and an accent on the second syllable (as אָֽנָּ֣ה) in 2 K 20=Is 38, Jon 1, 4, ψ 116, 118, Dn 9, Ne 1, except that in ψ 116 Ginsburg has אָנָּ֥ה.—S. R. D.]
Page 79, § 22 s, before הִרְּדִיפֻהוּ insert exceptions to b are. After Jer 39 add ψ 52; and for Ez 9 read Ezr 9.
[So Baer (cf. his note on Jud 20; also on Jer 39, and several of the other passages in question): but Ginsburg only in 10 of the exceptions to b, and Jacob ben Ḥayyim and Kittel only in 5, viz. Jer 39, Pr 11, 15, ψ 52, Ezr 9.—S. R. D.]
Page 111, line 12, for הַהוּה read הַהוּא.[2]
Page 123, § 45 e, add: Cf. also מַהְפֵּכָה followed by את, Is 13, Am 4 (§ 115 d).
Page 175, § 67. See B. Halper, 'The Participial formations of the Geminate Verbs' in ZAW. 1910, pp. 42 ff., 99 ff., 201 ff. (also dealing with the regular verb).
Page 177, at the end of § 67 g the following paragraph has been accidentally omitted:
Rem. According to the prevailing view, this strengthening of the first radical is merely intended to give the bi-literal stem at least a tri-literal appearance. (Possibly aided by the analogy of verbs פ״ן, as P. Haupt has suggested to me in conversation.) But cf. Kautzsch, ‘Die sog. aramaisierenden Formen der Verba ע״ע im Hebr.’ in Oriental. Studien zum 70. Geburtstag Th. Nöldekes, 1906, p. 771 ff. It is there shown (1) that the sharpening of the 1st radical often serves to emphasize a particular meaning (cf. יִגָּר, but יְגֹרֵ֫הוּ, יָחֵל and יַחֵל, יִסֹּב and יָסֹב, יִשֹּׁם and תֵּשַׁם), and elsewhere no doubt to dissimilate the vowels (as יִגָּר, יִדַּל, never יָגַר, יָדַל, &c.): (2) that the sharpening of the 1st radical often appears to be occasioned by the nature of the first letter of the stem, especially when it is a sibilant. Whether the masoretic pronunciation is based on an early tradition, or the Masora has arbitrarily adopted aramaizing forms to attain the above objects, must be left undecided.
Page 193, the second and third paragraphs should have the marginal letters d and e respectively.
Page 200, § 72 z, line 2, after Est 2 add 4.
Page 232, § 84a s, add שֹׁמֵמָה 2 S 13.
Page 236, § 85 c, add הַנְזָקָה Ezr 4.
Page 273, § 93 qq end, add מוֹסֵרוֹת Jer 5, רִבֵּעִים, שִׁלֵּשִׁים Ex 20, שֹׁמֵמוֹת Is 49, שֹׁמֵמִים La 1 (cf. König, ii. 109).
The following abbreviations have occasionally been used for works and periodicals frequently quoted:—
| AJSL. | = | American Journal of Semitic Languages. |
| CIS. | = | Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. |
| Ed.Mant. | = | Biblia Hebraica ex recensione Sal. Norzi edidit Raphael Ḥayyim Basila, Mantuae 1742-4. |
| Jabl. | = | Biblia Hebraica ex recensione D. E. Jablonski, Berolini, 1699. |
| JQR. | = | Jewish Quarterly Review. |
| KAT.3 | = | Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, 3rd ed. by H. Zimmern and H. Winckler, 2 vols., Berlin, 1902 f. |
| Lexicon | = | A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, based on the Thesaurus and Lexicon of Gesenius, by F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, Oxford, 1906. |
| NB. | = | J. Barth, Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen. Lpz. 1889-94. |
| NGGW. | = | Nachrichten der Göttinger Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. |
| OLZ. | = | Orientalistische Literaturzeitung. Vienna, 1898 ff. |
| PRE. | = | Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed. by A. Hauck. Lpz. 1896 ff. |
| PSBA | = | Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology. London, 1879 ff. |
| REJ. | = | Revue des Études Juives. Paris, 1880 ff. |
| Sam. | = | The (Hebrew) Pentateuch of the Samaritans. |
| SBOT. | = | Sacred Books of the Old Testament, ed. by P. Haupt. Lpz. and Baltimore, 1893 ff. |
| ThLZ. | = | Theologische Literaturzeitung, ed. by E. Schürer. Lpz. 1876 ff. |
| VB. | = | Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, ed. by A. Jeremias and H. Winckler. Lpz. 1907 ff. |
| ZA. | = | Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete, ed. by C. Bezold. Lpz. 18S6 ff. |
| ZAW. | = | Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, ed. by B. Stade, Giessen, 1881 ff., and since 1907 by K. Marti. |
| ZDMG. | = | Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Lpz. 1846 ff., since 1903 ed. by A. Fischer. |
| ZDPV. | = | Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästinavereins, Lpz. 1878 ff., since 1903 ed. by C. Steuernagel. |
CONTENTS
Clicking a page number will take you to a side-by-side view of the scanned page and the digitized text.
Clicking a section name will take you to the full section, without the scanned page view.
(image of the Siloam inscription in ancient script)
[תם.] הנקבה . וזה . היה . דבר . הנקבה . בעוד . . .
הגרזן . אש . אל . רעו . ובעוד . שלש . אמת . להנ[קב] . . קל . אש . ק
רא . אל . רעו . כי . הית . זדה . בצד . מימן . . . . . . ובים . ה
נקבה . הכו . החצבם . אש . לקרת . רעו . גרזן . על . גרזן . וילכו
המים . מן . המוצא . אל . הברכה . במאתים . ואלף . אמה . ומ(א)
ת . אמה . היה . גבה . הצר . על . ראש . החצב[ם]
Rem.—Line 1 probably began with תם, cf. § 145 o, since there is hardly room for תַּמָּה.
Line 2. The reading להנקב is supported by the fact that a trace of the top of the ק is visible; cf Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, i. 53. The next word was probably, as P. Haupt suggests, וישמע, the imperf. consec. Qal or Nipḥʿal.
Line 3. זדה, not found in the Old Testament, most probably means a cleft, crack, but the etymology and consequently the pronunciation of it [זִדָּה?] are still doubtful.
.djvu-23.png)
B. Stade, Lehrb. der hebr. Gramm., Lpz. 1879, § 2 ff.; E. König, Hist.-krit. Lehrgeb. der hebr. Spr., i. Lpz. 1881, § 3; H. Strack, Einl. in das A.T., 6th ed., Munich, 1906, p. 231 ff. (a good bibliography of all the Semitic dialects); Th. Nöldeke, article 'Semitic Languages', in the 9th ed. of the Encycl. Brit. (Die semit. Sprachen, 2nd ed., Lpz. 1899), and Beitr. sur sem. Sprachwiss., Strassb., 1904; W. Wright, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages, Cambr. 1890; H. Reckendorf, 'Zur Karakteristik der sem. Sprachen,' in the Actes du Xme Congrès internat. des Orientalistes (at Geneva in 1894), iii. 1 ff., Leiden, 1896; O. E. Lindberg, Vergl. Gramm. der sem. Sprachen, i A: Konsonantismus, Gothenburg, 1897; H. Zimmern, Vergl. Gramm. der sem. Sprachen, Berlin, 1898 ; E. König, Hebräisch und Semitisch: Prolegomena und Grundlinien einer Gesch. der sem. Sprachen, &c., Berlin, 1901; C. Brockelmann, Semitische Sprachwissenschaft, Lpz. 1906, Grundriss der vergl. Gramm. der sem. Sprachen, vol. i (Laut- und Formenlehre), parts 1-5, Berlin, 1907 f. and his Kurzgef. vergleichende Gramm. (Porta Ling. Or.) Berlin, 1908.—The material contained in inscriptions has been in process of collection since 1881 in the Paris Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. To this the best introductions are M. Lidzbarski's Handbuch der Nordsem. Epigraphik, Weimar, 1898, in 2 parts (text and plates), and his Ephemeris zur sem. Epigraphik (5 parts published), Giessen, 1900 f. [G. A. Cooke, Handbook of North-Semitic Inscriptions, Oxford, 1903].
a 1. The Hebrew language is one branch of a great family of languages in Western Asia which was indigenous in Palestine, Phoenicia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Assyria, and Arabia, that is to say, in the countries extending from the Mediterranean to the other side of the Euphrates and Tigris, and from the mountains of Armenia to the southern coast of Arabia. In early times, however, it spread from Arabia over Abyssinia, and by means of Phoenician colonies over many islands and sea-boards of the Mediterranean, as for instance to the Carthaginian coast. No comprehensive designation is found in early times for the languages and nations of this family; the name Semites or Semitic[3] languages (based upon the fact that according to Gn 10 almost all nations speaking these languages are descended from Shem) is, however, now generally accepted, and has accordingly been retained here.[4] b 2. The better known Semitic languages may be subdivided[5] as follows:—
1. The South Semitic or Arabic branch. To this belong, besides the classical literary language of the Arabs and the modern vulgar Arabic, the older southern Arabic preserved in the Sabaean inscriptions (less correctly called Himyaritic), and its offshoot, the Geʿez or Ethiopic, in Abyssinia.
II. The Middle Semitic or Canaanitish branch. To this belongs the Hebrew of the Old Testament with its descendants, the New Hebrew, as found especially in the Mishna (see below, § 3 a), and Rabbinic; also Phoenician, with Punic (in Carthage and its colonies), and the various remains of Canaanitish dialects preserved in names of places and persons, and in the inscription of Mêšaʿ, king of Moab.
c III. The North Semitic or Aramaic branch. The subdivisions of this are—(1) The Eastern Aramaic or Syriac, the literary language of the Christian Syrians. The religious books of the Mandaeans (Nasoraeans, Sabians, also called the disciples of St. John) represent a very debased offshoot of this. A Jewish modification of Syriac is to be seen in the language of the Babylonian Talmud. (2) The Western or Palestinian Aramaic, incorrectly called also 'Chaldee'.[6] This latter dialect is represented in the Old Testament by two words in Gn 31, by the verse Jer 10, and the sections Dn 2; Ezr 4 to 6, and Ezr 7 as well as by a number of non-Jewish inscriptions and Jewish papyri (see below, under m), but especially by a considerable section of Jewish literature (Targums, Palestinian Gemara, &c.). To the same branch belongs also the Samaritan, with its admixture of Hebrew forms, and, except for the rather Arabic colouring of the proper names, the idiom of the Nabataean inscriptions in the Sinaitic peninsula, in the East of Palestine, &c.
For further particulars about the remains of Western Aramaic (including those in the New Test., in the Palmyrene and Egyptian Aramaic inscriptions) see Kautzsch, Gramm. des Biblisch-Aramäischen, Lpz. 1884, p. 6 ff.
d IV. The East Semitic branch, the language of the Assyrio-Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions, the third line of the Achaemenian inscriptions.
On the importance of Assyrian for Hebrew philology especially from a lexicographical point of view cf. Friedr. Delitzsch, Prolegomena eines neuen hebr.-aram. Wörterbuchs zum A.T., Lpz. 1886; P. Haupt, 'Assyrian Phonology, &c.,' in Hebraica, Chicago, Jan. 1885, vol. i. 3; Delitzsch, Assyrische Grammatik, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1906.
If the above division into four branches be reduced to two principal groups, No. 1, as South Semitic, will be contrasted with the three North Semitic branches.[7]
e All these languages stand to one another in much the same relation as those of the Germanic family (Gothic, Old Norse, Danish, Swedish; High and Low German in their earlier and later dialects), or as the Slavonic languages (Lithuanian, Lettish; Old Slavonic, Serbian, Russian; Polish, Bohemian). They are now either wholly extinct, as the Phoenician and Assyrian, or preserved only in a debased form, as Neo-Syriac among Syrian Christians and Jews in Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, Ethiopic (Geʿez) in the later Abyssinian dialects (Tigre, Tigriña, Amharic), and Hebrew among some modern Jews, except in so far as they attempt a purely literary reproduction of the language of the Old Testament. Arabic alone has not only occupied to this day its original abode in Arabia proper, but has also forced its way in all directions into the domain of other languages.
The Semitic family of languages is bounded on the East and North by another of still wider extent, which reaches from India to the western limits of Europe, and is called Indo-Germanic[8] since it comprises, in the most varied ramifications, the Indian (Sanskrit), Old and New Persian, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, as well as Gothic and the other Germanic languages. With the Old Egyptian language, of which Coptic is a descendant, as well as with the languages of north-western Africa, the Semitic had from the earliest times much in common, especially in grammatical structure; but on the other hand there are fundamental differences between them, especially from a lexicographical point of view; see Erman, 'Das Verhältnis des Aegyptischen zu den semitischen Sprachen,' in the ZDMG. xlvi, 1892, p. 93 ff., and Brockelmann, Grundriss, i. 3.
f 3. The grammatical structure of the Semitic family of languages, as compared with that of other languages, especially the Indo-Germanic, exhibits numerous peculiarities which collectively constitute its distinctive character, although many of them are found singly in other languages. These are—(a) among the consonants, which in fact form the substance of these languages, occur peculiar gutturals of different grades; the vowels are subject, within the same consonantal framework, to great changes in order to express various modifications of the same stem-meaning; (b) the word-stems are almost invariably triliteral, i.e. composed of three consonants; (c) the verb is restricted to two tense-forms, with a peculiarly regulated use; (d) the noun has only two genders (masc. and fem.); and peculiar expedients are adopted for the purpose of indicating the case-relations; (e) the oblique cases of the personal pronoun, as well as all the possessive pronouns and the pronominal object of the verb, are denoted by forms appended directly to the governing word (suffixes); (f) the almost complete absence of compounds both in the noun (with the exception of many proper names) and in the verb; (g) great simplicity in the expression of syntactical relations, e.g. the small number of particles, and the prevalence of simple co-ordination of clauses without periodic structure. Classical Arabic and Syriac, however, form a not unimportant exception as regards the last-mentioned point.
g 4. From a lexicographical point of view also the vocabulary of the Semites differs essentially from that of the Indo-Germanic languages, although there is apparently more agreement here than in the grammar. A considerable number of Semitic roots and stems agree in sound with synonyms in the Indo-Germanic family. But apart from expressions actually borrowed (see below, under i), the real similarity may be reduced to imitative words (onomatopoetica), and to those in which one and the same idea is represented by similar sounds in consequence of a formative instinct common to the most varied families of language. Neither of these proves any historic or generic relation, for which an agreement in grammatical structure would also be necessary.
Comp. Friedr. Delitzsch, Studien über indogermanisch-semitische Wurzelverwandtschaft, Lpz. 1873; Nöldechen, Semit. Glossen zu Fick und Curtius, Magdeb. 1876 f.; McCurdy, Aryo-Semitic Speech, Andover, U. S. A., 1881. The phonetic relations have been thoroughly investigated by H. Möller in Semitisch und Indogermanisch, Teil i, Konsotianten, Copenhagen and Lpz. 1907, a work which has evoked considerable criticism.
h As onomatopoetic words, or as stem-sounds of a similar character, we may compare, e.g. לָקַק, לָחַךְ λείχω, lingo, Skt. lih, Eng. to lick, Fr. lécher, Germ. lecken; גָּלַל (cf. אָגַל, עָגַל) κυλίω, volvo, Germ. quellen, wallen, Eng. to well; גָּרַד, חָרַט, חָרַת χαράττω, Pers. khârîdan, Ital. grattare, Fr. gratter, Eng. to grate, to scratch, Germ. kratzen; פָּרַק frango, Germ. brechen, &c.; Reuss, Gesch. der hl. Schriften A.T.'s, Braunschw. 1881, p. 38, draws attention moreover to the Semitic equivalents for earth, six, seven, horn, to sound, to measure, to mix, to smell, to place, clear, to kneel, raven, goat, ox, &c. An example of a somewhat different kind is am, ham (sam), gam, kam, in the sense of the German samt, zusammen, together; in Hebrew אָמַם (whence אֻמָּה people, properly assembly), עִם (with) samt, גַּם also, moreover, Arab. גּמע[9] to collect; Pers. ham, hamah (at the same time); Skt. samâ (with), Gk. ἅμα (ἅμφω), ὁμός, ὁμόῦ (ὅμιλος, ὅμαδος), and harder ἅμφω, Lat. cum, cumulus, cunctus; with the corresponding sibilant Skt. sam, Gk. σύν, ξύν, ξυνός = κοινός, Goth. sama, Germ. samt, sammeln; but many of these instances are doubtful.
i Essentially different from this internal connexion is the occurrence of the same words in different languages, where one language has borrowed directly from the other. Such loan-words are—
(a) In Hebrew: some names of objects which were originally indigenous in Babylonia and Assyria (see a comprehensive list of Assyrio-Babylonian loan-words in the Hebrew and Aramaic of the Old Testament in Zimmern and Winckler, KAT.3 ii. p. 648 ff.), in Egypt, Persia, or India, e.g. יְאֹר (also in the plural) river, from Egyptian yoor, generally as the name of the Nile (late Egypt. yaro, Assyr. yaruʾu), although it is possible that a pure Semitic יאר has been confounded with the Egyptian name of the Nile (so Zimmern); אָ֫חוּ (Egyptian) Nile-reed (see Lieblein, 'Mots égyptiens dans la Bible,' in PSBA. 1898, p. 202 f.); פַּרְדֵּס (in Zend pairidaêza, circumvallation = παράδειδος) pleasure-garden, park; אֲדַרְכּוֹן daric, Persian gold coin; תֻּכִּיִּים peacocks, perhaps from the Malabar tôgai or tôghai. Some of these words are also found in Greek, as כַּרְפַּס (Pers. karbâs, Skt. karpâsa) cotton, κάρπασος, carbasus. On the other hand it is doubtful if קוֹף corresponds to the Greek κῆπος, κῆβος, Skt. kapi, ape.
(b) In Greek, &c.: some originally Semitic names of Asiatic products and articles of commerce, e.g. בּוּץ βύσσος, byssus; לְבֹנָה, λίβανος, λιβανωτός, incense; קָנֶה κάνη, κάννα, canna, cane; כַּמֹּן κύμινον, cuminum, cumin; קְצִיעָה κασσία, cassia; גָּמָל κάμηλος, camelus; עֵֽרָּבוֹן[10] ἀρραβών, arrhabo, arrha, pledge. Such transitions have perhaps been brought about chiefly by Phoenician trade. Cf. A. Müller, 'Semitische Lehnworte im älteren Griechisch,' in Bezzenberger's Beitrage zur Kunde der Indo-germ. Sprachen, Göttingen, 1877, vol. i. p. 273 ff.; E. Ries, Quae res et vocabula a gentibus semiticis in Graeciam pervenerint, Breslau, 1890; Muss-Arnolt, 'Semitic words in Greek and Latin,' in the Transactions of the American Philological Association, xxiii. p. 35 ff.; H. Lewy, Die semitischen Fremdwörter im Griech., Berlin, 1895; J. H. Bondi, Dem hebr.-phöniz. Sprachzweige angehör. Lehnworter in hieroglyph, m. hieratischen Texten, Lpz. 1886.
k 5. No system of writing is ever so perfect as to be able to reproduce the sounds of a language in all their various shades, and the writing of the Semites has one striking fundamental defect, viz. that only the consonants (which indeed form the substance of the language) are written as real letters,[11] whilst of the vowels only the longer are indicated by certain representative consonants (see below, § 7). It was only later that special small marks (points or strokes below or above the consonants) were invented to represent to the eye all the vowel-sounds (see § 8). These are, however, superfluous for the practised reader, and are therefore often wholly omitted in Semitic manuscripts and printed texts. Semitic writing, moreover, almost invariably proceeds from right to left.[12]
With the exception of the Assyrio-Babylonian (cuneiform), all varieties of Semitic writing, although differing widely in some respects, are derived from one and the same original alphabet, represented on extant monuments most faithfully by the characters used on the stele of Mêšaʿ, king of Moab (see below, § 2 d), and in the old Phoenician inscriptions, of which the bronze bowls from a temple of Baal (CIS. i. 22 ff. and Plate IV) are somewhat earlier than Mêšaʿ. The old Hebrew writing, as it appears on the oldest monument, the Siloam inscription (see below, § 2 d), exhibits essentially the same character. The old Greek, and indirectly all European alphabets, are descended from the old Phoenician writing (see § 5 i).
l See the Table of Alphabets at the beginning of the Grammar, which shows the relations of the older varieties of Semitic writing to one another and especially the origin of the present Hebrew characters from their primitive forms. For a more complete view, see Gesenius' Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta, Lips. 1837, 4to, pt. i. p. 15 ff., and pt. iii. tab. 1-5. From numerous monuments since discovered, our knowledge of the Semitic characters, especially the Phoenician, has become considerably enlarged and more accurate. Cf. the all but exhaustive bibliography (from 1616 to 1896) in Lidzbarski's Handbuch der Nordsemitischen Epigraphik, i. p. 4 ff., and on the origin of the Semitic alphabet, ibid., p. I73ff., and Ephemeris (see the heading of § 1 a above), i. pp. 109 ff., 142, 261 ff., and his 'Altsemitische Texte', pt. i, Kanaanäische Inschriften (Moabite, Old-Hebrew, Phoenician, Punic), Giessen, 1907.—On the origin and development of the Hebrew characters and the best tables of alphabets, see § 5 a, last note, and especially § 5 e.
m 6. As regards the relative age of the Semitic languages, the oldest literary remains of them are to be found in the Assyrio-Babylonian (cuneiform) inscriptions,[13] with which are to be classed the earliest Hebrew fragments occurring in the old Testament (see § 2).
The earliest non-Jewish Aramaic inscriptions known to us are that of זכר king of Hamath (early eighth cent. B.C.), on which see Nöldeke, ZA. 1908, p. 376, and that found at Teima, in N. Arabia, in 1880, probably of the fifth cent. B.C., cf. E. Littmann in the Monist, xiv. 4 [and Cooke, op. cit., p. 195]. The monuments of Kalammus of Samʾal, in the reign of Shalmanezer II, 859-829 B.C. (cf. A. Šanda, Die Aramäer, Lpz. 1902, p. 26), and those found in 1888-1891 at Zenjîrlî in N. Syria, including the Hadad inscription of thirty-four lines (early eighth cent. B.C.) and the Panammu inscription (740 B.C.), are not in pure Aramaic. The Jewish-Aramaic writings begin about the time of Cyrus (cf. Ezr 6), specially important being the papyri from Assuan ed. by Sayce and Cowley, London, 1906 (and in a cheaper form by Staerk, Bonn, 1907), which are precisely dated from 471 to 411 B.C., and three others of 407 B.C. ed. by Sachau, Berlin, 1907.
Monuments of the Arabic branch first appear in the earliest centuries A.D. (Sabaean inscriptions, Ethiopic translation of the Bible in the fourth or fifth century, North-Arabic literature from the sixth century A.D.).
It is, however, another question which of these languages has adhered longest and most faithfully to the original character of the Semitic, and which consequently represents to us the earliest phase of its development. For the more or less rapid transformation of the sounds and forms of a language, as spoken by nations and races, is dependent on causes quite distinct from the growth of a literature, and the organic structure of a language is often considerably impaired even before it has developed a literature, especially by early contact with people of a different language. Thus in the Semitic group, the Aramaic dialects exhibit the earliest and greatest decay, next to them the Hebrew-Canaanitish, and in its own way the Assyrian. Arabic, owing to the seclusion of the desert tribes, was the longest to retain the original fullness and purity of the sounds and forms of words.[14] Even here, however, there appeared, through the revolutionary influence of Islam, an ever-increasing decay, until Arabic at length reached the stage at which we find Hebrew in the Old Testament.
Fuller proof of the above statements belongs to the comparative Grammar of the Semitic languages. It follows, however, from what has been said: (1) that the Hebrew language, as found in the sacred literature of the Jews, has, in respect
to its organic structure, already suffered more considerable losses than the Arabic, which appears much later on the historical horizon; (2) that, notwithstanding this fact, we cannot at once and in all points concede priority to the latter; (3) that it is a mistake to consider with some that the Aramaic, on account of its simplicity (which is only due to the decay of its organic structure), is the oldest form of Semitic speech.See Gesenius, Gesch. der hebr. Sprache u. Schrift, Lpz. 1815, §§ 5–18; Th. Nöldeke’s art., ‘Sprache, hebräische,’ in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexikon, Bd. v, Lpz. 1875; F. Buhl, ‘Hebräische Sprache,’ in Hauck’s Realencycl. für prot. Theol. und Kirche, vii (1899), p. 506 ff.; A. Cowley, ‘Hebrew Language and Literature,’ in the forthcoming ed. of the Encycl. Brit.; W. R. Smith in the Encycl. Bibl., ii. London, 1901, p. 1984 ff.; A. Lukyn Williams, ‘Hebrew,’ in Hastings’ Dict. of the Bible, ii. p. 325 ff., Edinb. 1899.
a 1. The name Hebrew Language usually denotes the language of the sacred writings of the Israelites which form the canon of the Old Testament. It is also called Ancient Hebrew in contradistinction to the New Hebrew of Jewish writings of the post-biblical period (§ 3 a). The name Hebrew language (לָשׁוֹן עִבְרִית γλῶσσα τῶν Ἑβραίων, ἑβραϊστί) does not occur in the Old Testament itself. Instead of it we find in Is 19 the term language of Canaan,[15] and יְהוּדִית in the Jews’ language 2 K 18 (cf. Is 36) Neh 13. In the last-cited passage it already agrees with the later (post-exilic) usage, which gradually extended the name Jews, Jewish to the whole nation, as in Haggai, Nehemiah, and the book of Esther.
b The distinction between the names Hebrew (עִבְרִים Ἑβραῖοι) and Israelites (בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל) is that the latter was rather a national name of honour, with also a religious significance, employed by the people themselves, while the former appears as the less significant name by which the nation was known amongst foreigners. Hence in the Old Testament Hebrews are only spoken of either when the name is employed by themselves as contrasted with foreigners (Gn 40, Ex 2 3 &c., Jon 1) or when it is put in the mouth of those who are not Israelites (Gn 39 41 &c.) or, finally, when it is used in opposition to other nations (Gn 14 43, Ex 2 21). In 1 S 13 and 14 the text is clearly corrupt. In the Greek and Latin authors, as well as in Josephus, the name Ἑβραῖοι, Hebraei,[16] &c., alone occurs. Of the many explanations of the gentilic עִבְרִי, the derivation from עֵבֶר a country on the other side with the derivative suffix ־ִי (§ 86 h) appears to be the only one philologically possible. The name accordingly denoted the Israelites as being those who inhabited the ʿeber, i.e. the district on the other side of the Jordan (or according to others the Euphrates), and would therefore originally be only appropriate when used by the nations on this side of the Jordan or Euphrates. We must, then, suppose that after the crossing of the river in question it had been retained by the Abrahamidae as an old-established name, and within certain limits
(see above) had become naturalized among them. In referring this name to the patronymic Eber, the Hebrew genealogists have assigned to it a much more comprehensive signification. For since in Gn 10 (Nu 24 does not apply) Shem is called the father of all the children of Eber, and to the latter there also belonged according to Gn 11 and 10 Aramean and Arab races, the name, afterwards restricted in the form of the gentilic ʿibrî exclusively to the Israelites, must have originally included a considerably larger group of countries and nations. The etymological significance of the name must in that case not be insisted upon.[17]
c The term ἑβραϊστί is first used, to denote the old Hebrew, in the prologue to Jesus the son of Sirach (about 130 B.C.), and in the New Testament, Rv 9. On the other hand it serves in John 5, 19 perhaps also in 19 and Rv 16 to denote what was then the (Aramaic) vernacular of Palestine as opposed to the Greek. The meaning of the expression ἑβραῒς διάλεκτος in Acts 21, 22, and 26 is doubtful (cf. Kautzsch, Gramm. des Bibl.-Aram., p. 19 f.). Josephus also uses the term Hebrew both of the old Hebrew and of the Aramaic vernacular of his time.
The Hebrew language is first called the sacred language in the Jewish-Aramaic versions of the Old Testament, as being the language of the sacred books in opposition to the lingua profana, i.e. the Aramaic vulgar tongue.
d 2. With the exception of the Old Testament (and apart from the Phoenician inscriptions; see below, f–h), only very few remains of old Hebrew or old Canaanitish literature have been preserved. Of the latter—(1) an inscription, unfortunately much injured, of thirty-four lines, which was found in the ancient territory of the tribe of Reuben, about twelve miles to the east of the Dead Sea, among the ruins of the city of Dîbôn (now Dîbân), inhabited in earlier times by the Gadites, afterwards by the Moabites. In it the Moabite king Mêšaʿ (about 850 B.C.) recounts his battles with Israel (cf. 2 K 3), his buildings, and other matters.[18] Of old Hebrew: (2) an inscription
- ↑ The first edition appeared at Halle in 1813 (202 pp. small 8vo); twelve more editions were published by W. Gesenius himself, the fourteenth to the twenty first (1845-1872) by E. Rödiger, the twenty-second to the twenty-eighth (1878-1910) by E. Kautzsch. The first abridged edition appeared in 1896, the second at the same time as the present (twenty-eighth) large edition. The first edition of the 'Übungsbuch' (Exercises) to Gesenius-Kautzsch's Hebrew Grammar appeared in 1881, the sixth in 1908.
- ↑ Critical annotation: Technical note: Already corrected in the scanned page.—A. E. A.
- ↑ First used by Schlözer in Eichhorn's Repertorium für bibl. u. morgenl. Literatur, 1781, p. 16 1.
- ↑ From Shem are derived (Gn 10) the Aramaean and Arab families as well as the Hebrews, but not the Canaanites (Phoenicians), who are traced back to Ham (vv.), although their language belongs decidedly to what is now called Semitic. The language of the Babylonians and Assyrians also was long ago shown to be Semitic, just as Aššur (Gn 10) is included among the sons of Shem.
- ↑ For conjectures as to the gradual divergence of the dialects (first the Babylonian, then Canaanite, including Hebrew, lastly Aramaic and Arabic) from primitive Semitic, see Zimmern, KAT.3, ii. p. 644 ff.
- ↑ In a wider sense all Jewish Aramaic is sometimes called 'Chaldee'.
- ↑ Hommel, Grundriss der Geogr. und Gesch. des alten Orients, Munich, 1904, p. 75 ff., prefers to distinguish them as Eastern and Western Semitic branches. Their geographical position, however, is of less importance than the genealogical relation of the various groups of dialects, as rightly pointed out by A. Jeremias in Th.LZ. 1906, col. 291.
- ↑ First by Klaproth in Asia Polyglotta, Paris, 1823; cf. Leo Meyer in Nachrichien d. Gött. Gesellschaft, 1901, p. 454.
- ↑ Critical annotation: In Arabic script: جمع.
- ↑ Critical annotation: It is unclear why this word is spelled here with a Dagesh in ר and with a Mèthĕg.—A. E. A.
- ↑ So also originally the Ethiopic writing, which afterwards represented the vowels by small appendages to the consonants, or by some other change in their form. On the Assyrio-Babylonian cuneiform writing, which likewise indicates the vowels, see the next note, ad fin.
- ↑ The Sabaean (Himyaritic) writing runs occasionally from left to right, and even alternately in both directions (boustrophedon), but as a rule from right to left. In Ethiopic writing the direction from left to right has become the rule; some few old inscriptions exhibit, however, the opposite direction. The cuneiform writing also runs from left to right, but this is undoubtedly borrowed from a non-Semitic people. Cf. § 5 d, note 3.
- ↑ According to Hilprecht, The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, i. p. ii ff., the inscriptions found at Nippur embrace the period from about 4000 to 450 b. c.
- ↑ Even now the language of some of the Bèdawîs much purer and more archaic than that of the town Arabs. It must, however, be admitted that the former exalted estimate of the primitiveness of Arabic has been moderated in many respects by the most recent school of Semitic philology. Much apparently original is to be regarded with Nöldeke (Die semit. Spr., p. 5 [=Encycl. Brit., ed. 9, art. Semitic Languages, p. 642]) only as a modification of the original. The assertion that the Arabs exhibit Semitic characteristics in their purest form, should, according to Nöldeke, be rather that ‘the inhabitants of the desert lands of Arabia, under the influence of the extraordinarily monotonous scenery and of a life continually the same amid continual change, have developed most exclusively some of the principal traits of the Semitic race’.
- ↑ That Hebrew in its present form was actually developed in Canaan appears from such facts as the use of yām (sea) for the west, nègeb (properly dryness, afterwards as a proper name for the south of Palestine) for the south.
- ↑ The Graeco-Roman form of the name is not directly derived from the Hebrew עִבְרִי, but from the Palestinian Aramaic ʿebrāyā, ‘the Hebrew.’
- ↑ We may also leave out of account the linguistically possible identification of the ʿIbriyyîm with the Ḫabiri who appear in the Tell-el-Amarna letters (about 1400 B.C.) as freebooters and mercenaries in Palestine and its neighbourhood.
- ↑ This monument, unique of its kind, was first seen in August, 1868, on the spot, by the German missionary F. A. Klein. It was afterwards broken into pieces by the Arabs, so that only an incomplete copy of the inscription could be made. Most of the fragments are now in the Louvre in Paris. For the history of the discovery and for the earlier literature relating to the stone, see Lidzbarski, Nordsemitische Epigraphik, i. pp. 103 f., 415 f., and in the bibliography (under Me), p. 39 ff. The useful reproduction and translation of the inscription by Smend and Socin (Freiburg in Baden, 1886) was afterwards revised and improved by Nordlander, Die Inschrift des Königs Mesa von Moab, Lpz. 1896; by Socin and Holzinger, ‘Zur Mesainschrift’ (Berichte der K. Sächsischen Gesell. d. Wiss., Dec. 1897); and by Lidzbarski, ‘Eine Nachprüfung der Mesainschrift’ (Ephemeris, i. 1, p. 1 ff.; text in his Altsemitischs Texte, pt. 1, Giessen, 1907); J. Halévy, Revue Sémitique, 1900, pp. 236 ff., 289 ff., 1901, p. 297 ff.; M. J. Lagrange, Revue biblique internationale, 1901, p. 522 ff.; F. Prätorius in ZDMG. 1905, p. 33 ff., 1906, p. 402. Its genuineness was attacked by A. Löwy, Die Echtheit der Moabit. Inschr. im Louvre (Wien, 1903), and G. Jahn in Das Buch Daniel, Lpz. 1904, p. 122 ff. (also in ZDMG. 1905, p. 723 ff.), but without justification, as shown by E. König in ZDMG. 1905, pp. 233 ff. and 743 ff. [Cf. also Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, Oxford, 1890, p. lxxxv ff.; Cooke, op. cit., p. 1 ff.]