the Pentateuch. The same may be said of the use of the form na'r, as of both sexes, for either youth, or young woman, which last is na'arah1; na'r is used in the same manner in Job i. 19, Ruth ii. 21, and may be compared to the Arabic forms ba'l and zowj (husband or wife), and others, which can only be distinguished by the context. Idioms of less importance may be also found in other books, as the second mood or imperative feminine without h()2, and more particularly the defective forms of writing cited by Jahn and Rosenmüller, which ought never to have been employed to determine a question of date. All these minor distinctions can, in fact, prove nothing for or against the Mosaic hypothesis, but merely that, in general, every author has modes of expression peculiar to himself, which even his contemporaries may not be inclined to adopt; some forms may have been attempts at innovation which were subsequently abandoned, while others may be regarded as provincialisms; and we might easily discover a number of such trifling distinctions in every book of the Old Testament (particularly in Job, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Psalms), which certainly serve to prove the unity of the particular composition in which they occur, or, by comparison with similar forms in some document of an ascertained date, might enable us to conjecture the probable period of its origin, but can in no case be sufficient to fix it on one particular author. The indefatigable Jahn has collected a list of those words which are either peculiar to the Pentateuch or only re-appear in a few other books3. Taken as a whole, it is little remarkable for the 1 Deut. xxii. 19, [a young unmarried woman or damsel.] 2 See Gen. iv. 23; xix. 33; xxvi. 35, &c. 3 In Bengel's Archiv, ii. and iii. THE PENTATEUCH. 45 depth of its criticism; and, if we exclude all that may be referred to the ordinary usages of language, only tends to overthrow the very theory it is intended to support. When we learn, for instance, that 'aden (foot or basis) occurs more than forty times in the Pentateuch, and also in the Song of Solomon, v. 15; soleth (meal) forty-four times, and in the books of Kings, Chronicles, and Ezekiel, ten times; that sheber (grain) is found also in the Proverbs and Nehemiah; degel (standard) in the Song of Solomon; bat'a' (to speak without consideration), in the Pentateuch and Proverbs xii. 18; gerah (the smallest weight), only in the Pentateuch and Ezekiel xlv. 12, and hin (a small measure), also in Ezekiel iv. 11; k ́ěsiť'ah (a piece of money) only in the Pentateuch and Job xlii. 11. (which book Jahn, however, attributes to Moses), and that pere' (the wild ass) is also employed in this latter book as the image of unbounded freedom,-what else can we infer, than that these and other words of the same description were current at a later period? From Genesis alone a considerable number of words and forms may be adduced, which either follow the inflexions of the later dialects, or are only to be found in the books written after the Captivity. We subjoin a small gleaning in the note1, 1e'd, a mist, Gen. ii. 6. 'amer, he said, absol. iv. 8. 'atzal, to reserve, xxvii. 36. bathar, to divide, xv. 10. dagah,to multiply like fish,xlviii. 16. dothin, Dothan, xxxvii. 17. he', lo! xlvii. 23. zud, to boil, xxv. 29. ze ah, sweat, iii. 19. chanat, to embalm, 1. 2. tachah, a shot, xxi. 16. ya'an'asher, because that, xxii. 16. yakad, to bow, xxiv. 26. yakum, a subsisting thing, vii. 4. karah, to dig, l. 5. la'at, to feed, xxv. 30. migdanoth, precious, xxiv. 53. [ne'oth. and for fuller information must refer to the commentary itself1. In many cases we meet for the first time in the Pentateuch with modes of expression belonging to a later period; thus in Joel, for instance, and the older writers, tsum is used for to fast;' whereas the Pentateuch, and other books after the time of the Captivity, conform with the more ascetic spirit of the time, and employ the phrase 'inah nephesh (to afflict the soul) in order to point out its merit2. Yaresh (to inherit) occurs but rarely in the older documents, but is very common in the Pentateuch; and the Niphal of this verb, to expel from possession, become poor, starve, occurs only in Genesis xlv. 113, and in the Proverbs: indeed, if only a single instance occurred in the Pentateuch, like that in Genesis xxxviii. 21, where k'edeshah (a holy woman) is used for a 'harlot,' it would be completely decisive against the time of Moses, because it would be ne'oth, to consent, xxxiv, 15. nabelah, to confound, xi. 7. nakal, to conspire, xxxvii. 18. naishani, has made me forget, xli. 51. pitzél, to peel, xxx. 38. nathan, to give; for sum, to place, rachat, a gutter, xxx. 38. i. 17. sanvérim, blindness, xix. 11. palal, to think, xlviii. 11. sachat, to press, xl. 11. 1 Compare Gesenius, Hist. Hebr. Lang. p. 32, and Schumann, Prolegg. p. xlvi. 2 Levit. xvi. 29, 31; xxiii. 27, 32. Num. xxix. 7; xxx. 14. Deut. viii. 3. See Credner on Joel, p. 149. 3 [thi-varesh, thou comest to poverty, Gen. xlv. 11.] Consult also Schumann's Prolegomena, p. xlviii., on chitekem (the dread of you), Gen. ix. 2, and on yibatzer (shall be restrained), Gen. xi. 6. THE PENTATEUCH. 47 absurd to look among a wandering tribe for consecrated concubines devoted to the pleasures of the priests. For much new light upon the Hebrew dialects, particularly the Aramaan, we are indebted to the critical inquiries of Hirzel, which have reduced the exaggerated estimates of the biblical Chaldaisms within their proper limits1. Many peculiarities, it would appear, have descended to the Hebrew and its sister languages, from some common and more ancient source, and might be termed Arabicisms, or more generally Archaisms, with full as much propriety as Chaldaisms. As an instance, we may mention the termination of the second and third person of both numbers in the second mood in un2, and other forms of the same kind3, which are still employed, though rarely except in poetry*. Others may have belonged to the idioms of the vulgar tongue; as sh (V) (who) used as a relative pronoun [for 'asher], hé (lo) for hinneh, &c. When we consider, therefore, that we possess no knowledge of the local dialects of the Hebrew language (which, it must be borne in mind, was confined to a small extent of country) beyond the interchange of a few consonants", or the occasional modification of a vowel6,-that further, 1 De Chaldaismi Biblici Origine, &c. (Lips. 1830.) 2 Yachserun (there shall lack), and yimatzeʼun (there shall be found), Gen. xviii. 28, 29; tho’merun (shall ye speak), Gen. xxxii. 4. 3 Gen. xi. 6; xxiv. 26; xxx. 38, 39. 4 Compare heveh, be, and dagan, corn, Gen. xxvii. 28, 29. "It was so, that when these Ephraimites, which were escaped, said, Let me go over [the passage of the Jordan]; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth, [a current or stream of water] : and he said Sibboleth; for he could not frame [his mouth] to pronounce it right."-Judges xii. 5, 6. 6 Compare Nehemiah xiii. 23, 24." Jews that had married wives of the Aramæan dialect, as such, was little known to the Hebrews at the early period1 of their history, but acquired a visible influence over the writings of the people towards its close, and that the so-called Aramaisms of the Pentateuch are found to recur in precisely the very latest productions of their literature2; nay, that a sentence of the purest Aramæan is actually cited in Genesis3,-we are very far from thinking that the proofs derived from the more recent character of the language of the Pentateuch (quite apart from its historical relations) lose any of the force we have ascribed to them. The author of the Pentateuch is evidently well acquainted with the kindred dialects, even the Arabic, and repeatedly employs them to explain the meaning of names then in use1. 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."-Buxtorf. Lex. Talm. Galil. 1 "Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it and speak not to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people, that are on the wall."-Isaiah xxxvi. 11. 2 As the masculine form vayéchamnah for the feminine vatéchamnah, they should conceive, Gen. xxx. 38: the masculine ya'modenah for the feminine tha'modenah, they shall stand up. Dan. viii. 22; ya, [a Chaldaic form] in Daniel and the Targum. 3 And Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha (a heap of witness), but Jacob called it Galeed."-Gen. xxxi. 47. [Mr. Greenfield, in his English-Hebrew book of Genesis, a most valuable work, says, in a note on this passage, that the expression 'Jegar-sahadutha' is pure Chaldee (i.e. Aramæan) or Syriac, and is the most ancient expression which we possess of those languages; from which, Mr. Greenfield adds, we may infer, that they were nearly coeval with the Hebrew. Galeed is the pure Hebrew for a heap of witness.] 4" Thus the name Eve is called Chavah or 'living', because she was the mother of all living."-Gen. iii. 20. [Yapht or Japhet means to |