la’-a-da (la‘dah): A descendant of Judah (1Ch 4:21).

la,’-a-dan.

See LADAN.

The story of that later period in Laban’s life is so interwoven with the career of Jacob that little need here be added to what is said of Laban in JACOB, III, 2 (which see). By the time of Jacob’s arrival he is already a very old man, for over 90 years had elapsed since Rebekah’s departure. Yet even at the end of Jacob’s 20 years’ residence with him he is represented as still energetic and active (Ge 31:19,23), not only ready for an emergency like the pursuit after Jacob, but personally superintending the management of his huge flocks.

His home is in Haran, "the city of Nahor," that is, the locality where Nahor and his family remained at the time when the rest of Terah’s descendants emigrated to Canaan (Ge 11:31; 12:5). Since Haran, and the region about it where his flocks fed, belonged to the district called Aram (see PADDAN-ARAM; MESOPOTAMIA), Laban is often called "the Aramean" (English Versions of the Bible, "the Syrian," from Septuagint 5 ho Suros); see Ge 25:20; 28:5; 31:20,24. It is uncertain how far racial affinity may be read into this term, because the origin and mutual relationships of the various groups or strata of the Sere family are not yet clear. For Laban himself it suffices that he was a Semite, living within the region early occupied by those who spoke the Sere dialect that we call Aramaic. This dialect is represented in the narrative of Genesis as already differentiated from the dialect of Canaan that was Jacob’s mother-tongue; for "the heap of witness," erected by uncle and nephew before they part (Ge 31:47), is called by the one Jegar-saha-dutha and by the other Galeed—phrases which are equivalent in meaning, the former Aramaic, the latter Hebrew. (Ungnad, Hebrdische Grammatik, 1912, section 6 puts the date of the differentiation of Aramaic from "Amurritish" at "about 1500 BC"; Skinner, "Genesis," ICC, argues that Ge 31:47 is a gloss, following Wellhausen, Dillmann, et al.)

J. Oscar Boyd

lab’-a-na (Labana, 1 Esdras 5:29): Called Lebanah in Ezr 2:45.

la’-ber (yeghia‘, ‘amal; kopos): The word (noun and verb) denoting hard work or "toil" (thus in the Revised Version (British and American) of De 26:7; Jos 7:3; Re 2:2) represents several Hebrew and Greek words, chiefly those above. Occasionally, as in Hab 3:17 (ma‘aseh), it stands for "fruit of labor." Sometimes, in conjunction with "travail," it refers to childbirth (Ge 35:16,17, yaladh; compare 1Th 2:9; 2Th 3:8). Examples of the word in the ordinary sense are: of yeghia‘, Ge 31:42; Job 39:11,16; Ps 128:2; of ‘amal, common in Ec 1:3,8; 2:10,11,18, etc.; of kopos, 1Co 15:58 ("your labor is not vain," etc.); 1Th 1:3 ("work of faith and labor of love"; compare Heb 6:10); 1Ti 5:17 ("labor in the word and in teaching").

See WORK; SLAVERY.

James Orr

lak’-u-nus (Lakkounos; the King James Version Lacunus): One of the sons of Addi who returned with Ezra and had married a foreign wife (1 Esdras 9:31). The name does not, as might have been expected, occur in Ezr 10:30. See note on the passage (in Lange’s Commentary) as to the reconciliation of the lists in 1 Esdras and Ezra.

las (pathil, variously rendered in Ge 38:18,25; Ex 39:3; Nu 15:38; 19:15; Jud 16:9; Eze 40:3): In modern English the noun "lace" usually denotes a delicate ornamental fabric, but in the word in the sense of "that which binds" is still in perfectly good use, especially in such combinations as "shoelace" etc. It is this latter significance that is found in Ex 28:28 ("They shall bind .... with a lace of blue"); 28:37; 39:21,31, and in Sirach 6:30 the King James Version, klosma (the Revised Version (British and American) "riband").

las-e-de-mo’-ni-anz (Spartidtai; once only Lakedaimonioi, 2 Macc 5:9): The inhabitants of Sparta or Lacedaemon with whom the Jews claimed some kinship and formed alliances (1 Macc 12:2,5,6,20,21; 14:20,23; 15:23; 2 Macc 5:9). The alliance mentioned in 1 Macc 12:5-23 is based, among other grounds, on that of a common descent of Jews and Lacedaemonians from Abraham, for which the only probable presumption—suggested by Ewald—is the similarity of names, "Pelasgi" and Peleg son of Eber (Ge 10:25; 11:16). This has been reasonably objected to, and perhaps the most that can be said on this point is that the belief in some relationship between the Jews and the Lacedaemonians seems to have prevailed when 1 Macc was written. The alliance itself is said to have been formed (1 Macc 12:20) between Areus, king of the Lacedaemonians and Onias the high priest; but it is not easy to make out a consistent chronology for the transaction. For the renewal of the alliance (circa 144 BC) by Jonathan (1 Macc 12:5-18) and again by Simon (1 Macc 14:16-23), something can be said, as the Greeks had finally been deprived of independence in 146 BC, and Sparta was only obliged to lend assistance to Rome and may be supposed to have been doing so in helping the Jews against Syria. It is possible, too, that as against Syrian Hellenism the Jews were anxious to show that they had the assistance of distinguished Greeks, though the actual power of Sparta was much reduced from that of former times. The facts, at least of the alliance and the correspondence, seem to be sufficiently attested, though it is not easy to reconcile all the particulars. Josephus (Ant., XII, iv, 10; XIII, v, 8; XIV, xii, 2,3) gives the correspondence at greater length than the writer of the Maccabees.

J. Hutchison

la’-kish (lakhish; Septuagint Lachis (Jos 15:39), Maches):

1. Location:

A town in the foothills of the Shephelah on the border of the Philistine plain, belonging to Judah, and, from the mention of Eglon in connection with it, evidently in the southwestern portion of Judah’s territory. Eusebius, Onomasticon locates it 7 miles from Eleutheropolis (Beit Jibrin) toward Daroma, but as the latter place is uncertain, the indication does not help in fixing the site of Lachish. The city seems to have been abandoned about 400 BC, and this circumstance has rendered the identification of the site difficult. It was formerly fixed at Umm Lakis, from the similarity of the name and because it was in the region that the Biblical references to Lachish seem to indicate, but the mound called Tell el-Hesy is now generally accepted as the site. This was first suggested by Conder in 1877 (PEFS, 1878, 20), and the excavations carried on at the Tell by the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1890-93 confirmed his identification. Tell el-Hesy is situated on a wady, or valley, of the same name (Wady el Hesy), which runs from a point about 6 miles West of Hebron to the sea between Gaza and Askelon. It is a mound on the very edge of the wady, rising some 120 ft. above it and composed of debris to the depth of about 60 ft., in which the excavations revealed the remains of distinct cities which had been built, one upon the ruins of another. The earliest of these was evidently Amorite, and could not have been later than 1700 BC, and was perhaps two or three centuries earlier (Bliss, Mound of Many Cities). The identification rests upon the fact that the site corresponds with the Biblical and other historical notices of Lachish, and especially upon the discovery of a cuneiform tablet in the ruins of the same character as the Tell el-Amarna Letters, and containing the name of Zimridi, who is known from these tablets to have been at one time Egyptian governor of Lachish. The tablets, which date from the latter part of the 15th or early part of the 14th century BC, give us the earliest information in regard to Lachish, and it was then an Egyptian dependency, but it seems to have revolted and joined with other towns in an attack upon Jerusalem, which was also an Egyptian dependency. It was perhaps compelled to do so by the Khabiri who were then raiding this region. The place was, like Gaza, an important one for Egypt, being on the frontier and on the route to Jerusalem, and the importance is seen in the fact that it was taken and destroyed and rebuilt so many times.

2. History:

We first hear of it in the history of Israel when Joshua invaded the land. It was then an Amorite city, and its king, Japhia, joined the confederacy formed by Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, to resist Joshua. They were defeated in the remarkable battle at Gibeon, and the five confederate kings were captured and put to death at Makkedah (Jos 10$ passim; Jos 12:11). Lachish was included in the lot of Judah (15:39), and it was rebuilt, or fortified, by Rehoboam (2Ch 11:5,9). It was besieged by Sennacherib in the reign of Hezekiah and probably taken (2Ki 18:13) when he invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem, but the other references to the siege leave it doubtful (2Ki 18:14,17; 19:8; 2Ch 32:9; Isa 36:2; 37:8). The Assyrian monuments, however, render it certain that the place was captured. The sculptures on the walls of Sennacherib’s palace picture the storming of Lachish and the king on his throne receiving the submission of the captives (Ball, Light from the East, 190-91). This was in 701 BC, and to this period we may assign the enigmatical reference to Lachish in Mic 1:13, "Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O inhabitant of Lachish: she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion." The cause of the invasion of Sennacherib was a general revolt in Phoenicia, Palestine, and Philistia, Hezekiah joining in it and all asking Egypt for aid (Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, chapter ix). Isaiah had warned Judah not to trust in Egypt (Isa 20:5,6; 30:1-5; 31:1), and as Lachish was the place where communication was held with Egypt, being a frontier fortress, perhaps even having an Egyptian garrison, it would be associated with the "sin" of the Egyptian alliance (HGHL, 234).

The city was evidently rebuilt after its destruction by Sennacherib, for we find Nebuchadnezzar fighting against it during his siege of Jerusalem (Jer 34:7). It was doubtless destroyed by him, but we are informed by Nehemiah (11:30) that some of the returned Jews settled there after the captivity. It is very likely that they did not reoccupy the site of the ruined city, but settled as peasants in the territory, and this may account for the transference of the name to Umm Lakis, 3 or 4 miles from Tell el-Hesy, where some ruins exist, but not of a kind to suggest Lachish (Bliss, op. cit). No remains of any importance were found on the Tell indicating its occupation as a fortress or city later than that destroyed by the king of Babylon, but it was occupied in some form during the crusades, Umm Lakis being held for a time by the Hospitallers, and King Richard is said to have made it a base of operations in his war with Saladin (HGHL). The Tell itself, if occupied, was probably only the site of his camp, and it has apparently remained since that time without inhabitants, being used for agricultural purposes only.

See further, PALESTINE EXPLORATION, III, 1.

H. Porter

(forms of chacer, "to lack," ayin, "nought"): This word in its various forms has the usual meaning of "want," "need," "deficiency." There is but little change in the use of the word in the different versions. Sometimes one of the common synonyms is exchanged for the word itself, e.g. in the Old Testament, 1Sa 21:15 the Revised Version (British and American) has "lack" ("Do I lack madmen?") where the King James Version has "need of"; Pr 5:23, "for lack," instead of "without"; 6:32, "void of" for "lacketh"; 10:21, "lack" for "want"; 31:11, "lack" for "need"; Isa 59:15, "lacking" for "faileth." In the New Testament "lack" is the translation of hustereo, literally, "to be behind," and endees, "in want." In Lu 8:6, the Revised Version (British and American) reads "had no" instead of "lacked" in the King James Version. In 2Co 11:9, the Revised Version gives "my want" for "which was lacking to me" in the King James Version; in Col 1:24 "that which is lacking" for "that which is behind"; Jas 2:15 "lack" for "destitute." It will readily be seen that sometimes the slight variation helps to explain the meaning.

G. H. Gerberding

la-ku’-nus.

See LACCUNUS.

In the Old Testament this word occurs as the translation of na‘ar, "young person," "child," "servant," the Revised Version (British and American) properly substituting "servant" in 2Ki 4:19; Jud 16:26 is another passage where either sense of the original word may be intended. The word occurs in the New Testament in Joh 6:9 as the translation of paidarion; in Ac 20:12, pais (the King James Version "young man").

la’-dan (la‘dan, the King James Version, Laadan):

(1) A descendant of Ephraim, and an ancestor of Joshua (1Ch 7:26).

(2) A Levite of the family of Gershon (1Ch 23:7,8,9; 26:21), also called LIBNI (which see).

lad’-a-num (loT): Ge 37:25 the Revised Version margin; elsewhere MYRRH (which see).

lad’-er.

See SIEGE, 4, (e).

(He klimax (apo tes klimakos) Turou): Not mentioned in the Old Testament or the New Testament, but in Apocrypha (1 Macc 11:59), where it is said that Antiochus VI, after having confirmed Jonathan in the high-priesthood, appointed his brother Simon captain over the territory included between the Ladder of Tyre and the borders of Egypt. The Ladder has been located at different points on the coast between Tyre and Acre, such as the Ras el-‘Abyadh ("Promontorium Album" of the ancient geographers), about 7 miles South of Tyre, and Ras en-Naqurah, about 6 miles farther South, and Ras el-Musheirifeh, a little farther on. These are capes jutting westward into the sea from the ridge which runs parallel to the general line of the coast. These capes project more than a mile into the sea, and present a very bold and precipitous front from 200 to 300 ft. in height. The ascent on either side of the promontory is very steep, and at Ras el-‘Abyadh steps were cut in the white rock, which led to the identification of this point with the Ladder, but a reference to Josephus (B J, II, x, 2) leads to a different conclusion. He locates it 100 stadia North of Acre, which corresponds fairly well with the southern limit of the whole promontory, which is about 12 miles North of Acre, but not at all with Ras el-‘Abyadh. The altitude of el Musheirifeh is greater than that of el-‘Abyadh and may have had steps cut in it similar to the latter. It is more probable that the Ladder of Tyre was here, or at en-Naqurah, but the term applied to the whole promontory, which offered a serious obstacle to the passage of armies, or even caravans, since the approach is precipitous on either side, and at Ras el-‘Abyadh the road skirts the edge of a sheer precipice, where a misstep would hurl one into the sea some 200 ft. below. The application of the term to the whole promontory seems to be indicated by Josephus, since he speaks of it as one of the mountains which encompass the plain of Ptolemais (Acre) and the highest of all. This would not be true of any one of the three capes mentioned, but would be if the hills behind, which form their base, were included. That it was designated as the Ladder of Tyre rather than of Acre was probably due to the fact that the promontory is nearer the former city (see Thomson, LB, II, edition 1882; SWP, name-lists, under the word).

H. Porter

lad, lad’-ing: "To lade" in the sense of "to load" is retained by the Revised Version (British and American) in nearly all passages where the word occurs in the King James Version (but compare the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) reading of Ps 68:19; Isa 46:1), "They laded us with such things" (Ac 28:10 the King James Version). The epithithemi, "to put on," is rendered by the Revised Version (British and American), "They put on board such things." Lu 11:46 the Revised Version (British and American) reads "ye load" instead of the King James Version "ye lade."

Lading (phortion) is found in Ac 27:10 in its usual meaning, "the lading of a ship."

la’-di: This word should be taken in the sense of "mistress" in Isa 47:5,7 (Hebrew gebhereth) (so the American Standard Revised Version). In Jud 5:29; Eat 1:18 it is the translation of another Hebrew word (sarah), best rendered "princess" (so the Revised Version (British and American) in Esther, but not in Judges). In 2 Joh 1:1,5 it is the translation of kuria, which some interpreters regard as a proper name.

See CYRIA; JOHN, THE EPISTLES OF; ELECT LADY.

la’-el (la’el, "belonging to God"): Father of Eliasaph, the prince of the father’s house of the Gershonites (Nu 3:24).

la’-had (lahaah): A descendant of Judah (1Ch 4:2).

la-hi’-roi, la-hi-ro’-i, la’hi-roi (lachay ro’i).

See BEER-LAHAI-ROI.

la’-mam (lachmam): A town in the Judean Shephelah (Jos 15:40, the Revised Version margin "Lahmas") possibly the modern el-Lachm, 2 1/2 miles South of Beit Jibrin.

la’-mas.

See LAHMAM.

la’-mi (lachmi): According to 1Ch 20:5, the brother of Goliath of Gath.

See ELHANAN.

la’-ish (layish):

(1) A city in the upper Jordan valley, apparently colonized by the Sidonians, which was captured by the Danires and called DAN (which see) (Jud 18:7, etc.; Isa 10:30 the King James Version). In Jos 19:47 the name appears as "Leshem."

(2) A Benjamite, father of Palti or Paltiel, to whom Michal, David’s wife, was given by Saul (1Sa 25:44; 2Sa 3:15).

la-i’-sha, la’-ish-a (layshah, the King James Version, Laish): A place named in Isa 10:30 with Gallim and Anathoth. It should apparently be sought on the North of Jerusalem. Some would identify Gallim with Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. Conder suggests ‘Isawiyeh on the eastern slope, to the North-Northeast of the Mount of Olives.

lak (limne): The word is used (Lu 5:1,2; 8:22,23,33) of the Lake of Gennesaret or Sea of Galilee, and (Re 19:20; 20:10,14,15; 21:8) of the "lake of fire and brimstone." Lakes are not abundant in Syria and Palestine. The Dead Sea, which might be called a lake, is in most places in English Versions of the Bible called the Salt Sea. It is called by the Arabs Bachr Lut, Sea of Lot. It is a question whether the Waters of Merom (Jos 11:5,7) can be identified with the Chuleh, a marshy lake in the course of the Upper Jordan, North of the Sea of Galilee. East of Damascus on the edge of the desert there are saltish lakes in which the water of the rivers of Damascus (see 2Ki 5:12) is gathered and evaporates. In the Lebanon West of Ba‘albek is the small Lake Yammuneh, which is fed by copious springs, but whose water disappears in the latter part of the summer, being drained off by subterranean channels. The Lake of Kums on the Orontes is artificial, though ancient. On the lower Orontes is the Lake of Antioch.

Alfred Ely Day

(limne tou puros): Found in Re 19:20; 20:10,14(bis), 15. Re 21:8 has "the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone." The brimstone in connection with "the lake of fire" occurs also in Re 19:20 and 10, the latter being a backward reference to the former passage. In Re 20:14 the words, "This is the second death, even the lake of fire" are either a gloss originally intended to elucidate 20:15 through a reference to 20:6, or, if part of the text, formed originally the close of 20:15, whence they became displaced on account of the identity of the words once immediately preceding them in 20:15 with the words now preceding them in 20:14. The "lake of fire" can be called "the second death" only with reference to the lost among men (20:15), not with reference to death and Hades (20:14). In all the above references "the lake of fire" appears as a place of punishment, of perpetual torment, not of annihilation (20:10). The beast (19:20); the pseudo-prophet (19:20; 20:10); the devil (20:10); the wicked of varying description (20:15; 21:8), are cast into it. When the same is affirmed of death and Hades (20:14), it is doubtful whether this is meant as a mere figure for the cessation of these two evils personified, or has a more realistic background in the existence of two demon-powers so named (compare Isa 25:8; 1Co 15:26,54 ff; 2 Esdras 7:31). The Scriptural source for the conception of "the lake of fire" lies in Ge 19:24, where already the fire and the brimstone occur together, while the locality of the catastrophe described is the neighborhood of the Dead Sea. The association of the Dead Sea with this fearful judgment of God, together with the desolate appearance of the place, rendered it a striking figure for the scene of eschatological retribution. The two other Old Testament passages which have "fire and brimstone" (Ps 11:6; Eze 38:22) are dependent on the Ge passage, with which they have the figure of "raining" in common. In Re 21:8, "their part" seems to allude to Ps 11:6, "the portion of their cup." In Enoch 67:4 ff the Dead Sea appears as the place of punishment for evil spirits. Of late it has been proposed to derive "the lake of fire" from "the stream of fire" which destroys the enemies of Ahura in the Zoroastrian eschatology; so Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis, 1906, 433, 434. But the figures of a stream and a lake are different; compare 2 Esdras 13:9-11, where a stream of fire proceeds from the mouth of the Messiah for the destruction of His enemies. Besides, the Persian fire is, in part, a fire of purification, and not of destruction only (Bousset, 442), and even in the apocalyptic Book of Enoch, the fires of purification and of punishment are not confounded (compare Enoch 67:4 with 90:20). The Old Testament fully explains the entire conception.

Geerhardus Vos

ge-nes’-a-ret.

See GALILEE, SEA OF.

lak’-um (laqqum; the King James Version, Lakum): An unidentified town on the border of Naphtali, named with Adami, Nekeb and Jabneel, apparently nearer the Jordan (Jos 19:33).

See ELI, ELI, LAMA, SABACHTHANI.

lam:

(1) The most used word is kebhes, "a young ram"; compare Arabic kebsh, "ram"; often of sacrifices; (feminine) kabhsah, or kibchsah, "ewe lamb" (2Sa 12:3); by transposition kesebh, and feminine kisbah (Ge 30:40; Le 3:7; 5:6).

(2) kar, "lamb" (De 32:14; 1Sa 15:9; 2Ki 3:4).

(3) seh, "one" of the flock (Ge 22:7; Le 5:7).

(4) tso’n, "sheep," "goats," "flock"; compare Arabic da’n, "sheep" (Ex 12:21); and ben tso’n (Ps 114:4).

(5) Taleh, "young lamb"; compare Arabic Tali, "young lamb"; and Tela’im (1Sa 7:9; Isa 40:11; 65:25).

(6) ‘immerin (Ezr 6:9,17; 7:17).

(7) arnas, accusative plural (Lu 10:3); diminutive arnion (Joh 21:15; Re 5:6, etc.).

(8) amnos (Joh 1:29,36; Ac 8:32; 1Pe 1:19).

See SHEEP.

Alfred Ely Day

(ho amnos tou theou): This is a title specially bestowed upon our Lord by John the Baptist (Joh 1:29-36), "Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" In Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs an apocryphal book, probably of the 2nd century—we have the term used for the Messiah, "Honor Judah and Levi, for from them shall arise for you the Lamb of God, saving all nations by grace." But the term does not seem to have been of any general use until it received its distinctly Christian significance. It has been generally understood as referring to the prophetic language of Jer 11:19, and Isa 53:7.

1. Sacrificial Sense of the Term:

It is far more probable, however, that the true source of the expression is to be found in the important place which the "lamb" occupies in the sacrifices, especially of the Priestly Code. In these there was the lamb of the daily morning and evening sacrifice. How familiar this would be to the Baptist, being a member of a priestly family! On the Sabbath the number of the offerings was doubled, and at some of the great festivals a still larger number were laid upon the altar (see Ex 29:38; Nu 28:3,9,13). The lamb of the Passover would also occupy a large place in the mind of a devout Israelite, and, as the Passover was not far off, it is quite possible that John may have referred to this as well as to other suggested ideas connected with the lamb. The sacrificial significance of the term seems to be far more probable than the mere comparison of the character of our Lord with meekness and gentleness, as suggested by the words of the prophets, although these contain much more than the mere reference to character (see below). That this became the clearly defined conception of apostolic teaching is clear from passages in Paul and Peter (1Co 5:7; 1Pe 1:18 f). In the Book of Revelation the reference to the Lamb occurs 27 times. The word here used differs from that in John. The amnos of the Gospel has become the arnion of the Apocalypse, a diminutive form suggestive of affection. This is the word used by our Lord in His rebuke and forgiveness of Peter (Joh 21:15), and is peculiarly touched therefore with an added meaning of pathetic tenderness. Westcott, in his Commentary on Joh 1:29, refers to the conjecture that there may have been flocks of lambs passing by on their way to Jerusalem to be used at the feast. This is possible, but fanciful. As applied to Christ, the term certainly suggests the meekness and gentleness of our Lord’s nature and work, but could not have been used by John without containing some reference to the place which the lamb bore in the Judaic ritualism.

2. As Variously Understood:

The significance of the Baptist’s words has been variously understood. Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom, among the ancients, Lucke, DeWette, Meyer, Ewald, Alford, among the moderns, refer it to Isa 53:7; Grotius, Bengel, Hengstenberg, to the paschal lamb; Baumgarten-Crusius, etc., to the sin offering; Lange strongly urges the influence of the passage in Isa 53, and refers to John’s description of his own mission under the influence of the second part of Isaiah, in which he is supported by Schaff. The importance of the Isaiah-thought is found in Mt 8:17; Ac 8:32; 1Pe 2:22-25.

3. As Set Forth by Isaiah:

It is to be observed that the Septuagint in Isa 53:7 translates the Hebrew word for sheep (seh), by the Greek word for lamb. In 53:10, the prophet’s "suffering one" is said to have made "his soul an offering for Isaiah sin," and in 53:4 "he hath borne our griefs," where bearing involves the conception of sin offering, and as possessing justifying power, the idea of "‘taking away." John indeed uses not the Septuagint word (pherein), but (airein), and some have maintained that this simply means "put away" or "support," or "endure." But this surely loses the suggestion of the associated term "lamb," which John could not have employed without some reference to its sacrificial and therefore expiatory force. What Lange calls a "germ perception" of atonement must certainly have been in the Baptist’s mind, especially when we recall the Isaiah-passages, even though there may not have been any complete dogmatic conception of the full relation of the death of Christ to the salvation of a world. Even the idea of the bearing of the curse of sin may not be excluded, for it was impossible for an Israelite like John, and especially with his surroundings, to have forgotten the significance of the paschal lamb, both in its memorial of the judgment of Egypt, as well as of the deliverance of Israel. Notwithstanding every effort to take out of this striking phrase its deeper meanings, which involve most probably the combination of all the sources above described, it must ever remain one of the richest mines of evangelical thought. It occupies, in the doctrine of atonement, a position analogous to that brief word of the Lord, "God is a Spirit" (Joh 4:24), in relation to the doctrine of God.

The Lamb is defined as "of God," that is, of Divine providing. See Isa 53; Re 5:6; 13:8. Its emphatic and appointed office is indicated by the definite article, and whether we refer the conception to a specific sacrifice or to the general place of a lamb in the sacrificial institution, they all, as being appointed by and specially set apart for God, suggest the close relation of our Lord to the Divine Being, and particularly to His expiatory sacrifice.

L. D. Bevan

lam (piceach, nakheh; cholos):

(1) The condition of being unable or imperfectly able to walk, which unfitted any descendant of Aaron so afflicted for service in the priesthood (Le 21:18), and rendered an animal unsuitable for sacrifice (De 15:21). The offering of animals so blemished was one of the sins with which Malachi charges the negligent Jews of his time (Mal 1:8-13).

(2) Those who suffered from lameness, such as Mephibosheth, whose limbs were injured by a fall in childhood (2Sa 4:4; 9:3). In the prophetic description of the completeness of the victory of the returning Israelites, it is predicted that the lame shall be made whole and shall leap like a hart (Jer 3:18; Isa 35:6). The unfitness of the lame for warfare gives point to the promise that the lame shall take the prey (Isa 33:23). Job in his graphic description of his helpfulness to the weak before his calamity says, "And feet was I to the lame" (Job 29:15). The inequality of the legs of the lame is used in Pr 26:7 as a similitude of the ineptness with which a fool uses a parable.

In the enigmatical and probably corrupt passage describing David’s capture of Jerusalem, the lame and blind are mentioned twice. In 2Sa 5:6 it was a taunt on the part of the Jebusites that even a garrison of cripples would suffice to keep out the Israelites. The allusion in 5:8 may be read, "Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites let him .... slay both the lame and blind, which hate David’s soul" as it is in Septuagint. The Vulgate (Jerome’s Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) says, "David had offered a reward on that day to the man who should smite the Jebusite and reach the water pipes of the houses, and remove the blind and lame who hated David’s soul." It is possible, however, that Budde’s emendation is more correct and that it is a threat against the indiscriminate slaughter of the Jebusites: "Whoso slayeth a Jebusite shall bring his neck into peril; the lame and blind are not hated of David’s soul." The proverbial saying quoted in 5:8 cannot be correct as rendered in the King James Version, for we read in Mt 21:14 that the lame came to our Lord in the temple and were healed.

The healing of the lame by our Lord is recorded in Mt 11:5; 15:30,31; 21:14; Lu 7:22; 14:13. For the apostolic miracles of healing the lame, see CRIPPLE. In Heb 12:13 the Christians are counseled to courage under chastisement, lest their despair should cause that which is lame to be "turned out of the way."

Alexander Macalister

la’-mek (lemekh; Lamech, "a strong youth"?):

(1) The name is first mentioned in Ge 4:18-24. Here Lamech, the son of Methushael, is named as the last of the descendants of Cain. He was the father of Jabel, Jubal, Tubal-cain, and Naamah. As the husband of two wives, namely, Adah and Zillah, he furnishes the first recorded instance of polygamy. It is very instructive to note that this "father of polygamy" at once becomes the first blustering tyrant and a braggadocio; we are fully permitted to draw this conclusion from his so-called "swordlay" (Ge 4:23 f). He does not put his trust in God, but in the weapons and implements invented by his sons, or rather these instruments, enhancing the physical and material powers of man, are his God. He glories in them and misconstrues the Divine kindness which insured to Cain freedom from the revenge of his fellow-men.

(2) Another Lamech. is mentioned in Ge 5:25,28 (compare 1Ch 1:3; Lu 3:36), the son of Methuselah and the father of Noah. His words (Ge 5:29) show the great difference between this descendant of Seth and the descendant of Cain. While the one is stimulated to a song of defiance by the worldly inventions of his sons, the other, in prophetical mood, expresses his sure belief in the coming of better times, and calmly and prayerfully awaits the period of comfort and rest which he expected to be ushered in by his son Noah.

William Baur

la’-meth: The 12th letter of Hebrew alphabet; transliterated in this Encyclopedia as "1". It came also to be used for the number 30. For name, etc., see ALPHABET.

la-ment’.

See MUSIC.

lam-en-ta’-shun.

See BURIAL, III, 2; IV, 4, 5, 6.

lam-en-ta’-shunz, —The Lamentations of Jeremiah:

1. Name:

This is a collective name which tradition has given to 5 elegies found in the Hebrew Canon that lament the fate of destroyed Jerusalem. The rabbis call this little book ‘Ekhah ("how"), according to the word of lament with which it begins, or qinoth. On the basis of the latter term the Septuagint calls it threnoi, or Latin Threni, or "Lamentations."

2. Form:

The little book consists of 5 lamentations, each one forming the contents of a chapter. The first 4 are marked by the acrostic use of the alphabet. In addition, the qinah ("elegy") meter is found in these hymns, in which a longer line (3 or 4 accents) is followed by a shorter (2 or 3 accents). In La 1 and 2 the acrostic letters begin three such double lines; in La 4, however, two double lines. In La 3 a letter controls three pairs, but is repeated at the beginning of each line. In La 5 the alphabet is wanting; but in this case too the number of pairs of lines agrees with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, i.e. 22. In La 2; 3 and 4, the letter ‘ayin (‘) follows pe (p), as is the case in Ps 34. Lamentations 1, however, follows the usual order.

3. Contents:

These 5 hymns all refer to the great national catastrophe that overtook the Jews and in particular the capital city, Jerusalem, through the Chaldeans, 587-586 BC. The sufferings and the anxieties of the city, the destruction of the sanctuary, the cruelty and taunts of the enemies of Israel, especially the Edomites, the disgrace that befell the king and his nobles, priests and prophets, and that, too, not without their own guilt, the devastation and ruin of the country—all this is described, and appeal is made to the mercy of God. A careful sequence of thought cannot be expected in the lyrical feeling and in the alphabetical form. Repetitions are found in large numbers, but each one of these hymns emphasizes some special feature of the calamity. Lamentations 3 is unique, as in it one person describes his own peculiar sufferings in connection with the general calamity, and then too in the name of the others begins a psalm of repentance. This person did not suffer so severely because he was an exceptional sinner, but because of the unrighteousness of his people. These hymns were not written during the siege, but later, at a time when the people still vividly remembered the sufferings and the anxieties of that time and when the impression made on them by the fall of Jerusalem was still as powerful as ever.

4. Author:

Who is the author of these hymns? Jewish tradition is unanimous in saying that it was Jeremiah. The hymns themselves are found anonymously in the Hebrew text, while the Septuagint has in one an additional statement, the Hebrew style of which would lead us to conclude that it was found in the original from which the version was made. This statement reads: "And it came to pass, after Israel had been taken away captive and Jerusalem had been laid waste, that Jeremiah sat weeping, and uttered this lamentation over Jerusalem and said." The Targum also states that Jeremiah was the author. The rabbis and the church Fathers have no doubts on the subject. Jerome (compare on Zec 12:11) thinks that 2Ch 35:25 refers to these hymns. The same is said by Josephus (Ant., X, v, 1). If this were the case, then the writer of Chronicles would have regarded La as having been written because of the death of Josiah. But this misunderstanding is not to be ascribed to him. It was easily possible that he was acquainted with lamentations of such a nature, but which afterward were lost. At all events, Jeremiah was by nature adapted to the composition of such elegies, as is proved by his book of prophecies.

Only in modern times has the authorship of these hymns by Jeremiah been seriously called into question; and it is now denied by most critics. For this they give formal and material reasons: The language of these lamentations shows many similarities to the discourses of Jeremiah, but at the same time also many differences. The claim that the alphabetical scheme is not worthy of Jeremiah is a prejudice caused by the taste of our times. Hebrew poets had evidently been making use of such methods for a long time, as it helps materially in memorizing. At the time of the first acute suffering on account of the destruction of Jerusalem, in fact, he would probably not have made use of it. But. we have in this book a collection of lamentations’ written some time after this great catastrophe. The claim has also been made that the views of Jeremiah and those of the composer or the composers of these poems differ materially. It is said that Jeremiah emphasizes much more strongly the guilt of the people as the cause of the calamity than is done in these hymns, which lament the fate of the people and find the cause of it in the sins of the fathers (La 5:7), something that Jeremiah is said not to accept (Jer 31:29 f). However, the guilt of the people and the resultant wrath of God are often brought out in these hymns; and Jeremiah does not deny (31:29 f) that there is anything like inherited guilt. He declares rather that in the blessed future things would be different in this respect. Then, too, we are not to forget that if Jeremiah is the author of these patriotic hymns, he does not speak in them as the prophet and the appointed accuser of his people, but that he is at last permitted to speak as he humanly feels, although there is no lack of prophetical reminiscences (of La 4:21 f). In these hymns he speaks out of the heart that loves his Jerusalem and his people, and he utters the priestly prayer of intercession, which he was not allowed to do when announcing the judgment over Israel. The fact that he also evinces great reverence for the unfortunate king and his Divinely given hereditary dignity (La 4:20), although as a prophet he had been compelled to pronounce judgment over him, would not be unthinkable in Jeremiah, who had shown warm sympathies also for Jehoiachim (22:24,28). A radical difference of sentiment between the two authors is not to be found. On the other hand, a serious difficulty arises if we claim that Jeremiah was not the author of Lamentations in the denunciations of Lamentations over the prophets of Jerusalem (2:14; 4:13). How could the great prophet of the Destruction be so ignored if he himself were not the author of these sentiments? If he was himself the author we can easily understand this omission. In his book of prophecies he has spoken exactly the same way about the prophets. To this must be added, that La 3 forces us to regard Jeremiah as the author, because of the personal sufferings that are here described. Compare especially La 3:14,37 f, 53 ff, 61,63. What other person was during the period of this catastrophe the cynosure of all eyes as was the prophet, especially, too, because he was guiltless? The claim that here, not an individual, but the personified nation is introduced as speaking, is altogether improbable, and in some passages absolutely impossible (La 3:14,48).

This little book must accordingly be closely connected with the person of Jeremiah. If he himself is the author, he must have composed it in his old age, when he had time and opportunity to live over again all the sufferings of his people and of himself. It is, however, more probable, especially because of the language of the poems, that his disciples put this book in the present shape of uniform sentential utterances, basing this on the manner of lamentations common to Jeremiah. In this way the origin of Lamentaions 3 can be understood, which cannot artificially be shaped as his sayings, as in this case the personal feature would be more distinctly expressed. It was probably compiled. from a number of his utterances.

In the Hebrew Canon this book is found in the third division, called kethabhim, or Sacred Writings, together with the Psalms. However, the Septuagint adds this book to Jeremiah, or rather, to the Book of Baruch, found next after Jerusalem. The Hebrews count it among the 5 meghilloth, or Rolls, which were read on prominent anniversary days. The day for the Lamentation was the 9th of Abib, the day of the burning of the temple. In the Roman Catholic church it is read on the last three days of Holy Week.

LITERATURE.

Comms. of Thenius, Ewald, Nagelsbach, Gerlach, Keil, Cheyne, Oettli, Lohr, Budde; article by Robertson Smith on "Lamentations" in EB.

C. von Orelli

lamp’-stand (nir, ner, lappidh, Phoenician lampadh, whence lampas; luchnos is also used): Ner or nir is properly "light" or "a light-giving thing," hence, "lamp," and is so rendered in the Revised Version (British and American), but often "candle" in the King James Version. Its use in connection with the tabernacle and the temple (Ex 25:37 ff; 2Ch 4:20 f), where oil was employed for light (Ex 35:14; Le 24:2), shows that this is its proper meaning. Lappidh is properly "a torch" and is thus rendered generally in the Revised Version (British and American), but "lamp" in Isa 62:1, where it is used as a simile. the King James Version renders it "lamp" usually, but "torch" in Na 2:3 f; Zec 12:6. In Job 12:5 the Revised Version (British and American) renders it "for misfortune," regarding it as composed of the noun pidh, and the preposition l-. Lampas in Greek corresponds to it, but luchnos is also rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) "lamp," while the King James Version gives "candle," as in Mt 5:15 and corresponding passages in the other Gospels.

1. Forms and History:

Lamps were in use in very remote times, though we have few allusions to them in the early history of Egypt. There are indications that they were used there. Niches for lamps are found in the tombs of Tell el-Amarna (Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Tell el-Amarna Letters, Part IV, 14). Lampstands are also represented (ibid., Part III, 7). Torches were of course used before lamps, and are mentioned in Ge (15:17 the Revised Version (British and American)), but clay lamps were used in Canaan by the Amorites before the Israelites took possession. The excavations in Palestine have furnished thousands of specimens, and have enabled us to trace the development from about 2000 BC onward. The exploration carried out at Lachish (Tell Hesy) and Gezer (Tell Jezer) by the Palestine Exploration Fund has given ample material for the purpose, and the numerous examples from tombs all over Palestine and Syria have supplied a great variety of forms.

2. Figurative Use:

"Lamp" is used in the sense of a guide in Ps 119:105; Pr 6:23, and for the spirit, which is called the lamp of Yahweh in man (Pr 20:27), and it of course often signifies the light itself. It is used also for the son who is to succeed and represent his father (1Ki 15:4), and it perhaps is employed in this sense in the phrase, "The lamp of the wicked shall be put out" (Job 21:17; Pr 13:9; and perhaps Job 18:6).

The early Canaanite or Amorite lamp was a shallow, saucer-like bowl with rounded bottom and vertical rim, slightly pointed or pinched on one side where the lighted end of the wick was placed. This form continued into Jewish times, but was gradually changed until the spout was formed by drawing the rim of the sides together, forming a narrow open channel, the remainder of the rim being rolled outward and flattened, the bottom being also flattened. This was the early Hebrew pattern and persisted for centuries. The open bowl was gradually closed in, first at the spout, where the rim of one side was lapped over the other, and finally the whole surface was closed with only an orifice in the center for receiving the oil, and at the same time the spout was lengthened. This transformation is seen in lamps of the Seleucid period, or from around 300 BC. These lamps have usually a circular foot and sometimes a string-hole on one side. The next development was a circular bowl with a somewhat shorter spout, sometimes being only a bulge in the rim, so that the orifice for the wick falls in the rim, the orifice for filling being quite small at the bottom of a saucer-like depression in the center of the bowl. There is sometimes a loop handle affixed on the side opposite to the spout. Sometimes the handle is horizontal, but commonly vertical. This form is called Roman, and the bowl is often ornamented with mythological human or animal figures (Fig. 5). Other forms are elongated, having numerous wick holes (Fig. 6). The mythological and animal forms were rejected by the Jews as contrary to their traditions, and they made lamps with various other designs on the bowl, such as vine leaves, cups, scrolls, etc. (Figs. 7-11). One very marked Jewish design is the seven-branched candlestick (Ex 25:32) of the temple (Fig. 12). The lamps of the parable of the Ten Virgins were probably similar to these (Mt 25:1 ). The latest form of the clay lamp was what is called Byzantine, the bowl of which has a large orifice in the center and tapers gradually to the spout (Fig. 13); they are ornamented commonly with a palm branch between the central orifice and the wickhole, or with a cross. Sometimes there is an inscription on the margin (Fig. 13). The words on this read Phos ku(riou) pheni pasin Kale,"the light of the Lord shines to all (beautifully?)." Others read, "The Lord is my light"; "beautiful light," etc. These inscriptions determine the period as being Christian. In Roman times, and earlier also, bronze was much used for the finer lamps, often with covers for the orifice and sometimes with chain and ring for hanging. Very elaborate designs in this material occur.

These terra-cotta lamps are found in the tombs and burial places throughout Palestine and Syria, and they were evidently deposited there in connection with the funeral rites. Very few are found in Canaanite tombs, but they become numerous in later times and especially in the early Christian centuries. The symbolism in their use for funeral purposes is indicated by the inscriptions above mentioned (see PEFS, 1904, 326 ff; Explorations in Palestine, by Bliss. Maclister and Wunsch, 4to, published by the Palestine Exploration Fund). These lamps were used by the peasants of the country down to recent times, when petroleum has superseded olive oil for lighting. The writer has seen lamps of the Jewish and Roman period with surface blackened with recent usage. Olive oil was commonly used, but terebinth oil also (Thomson, LB, III, 472).

H. Poster

lamp’-sa-kus.

See SAMPSAMES.

lans, lan’-ser, lan’-set. See ARMOR, III, 4, (3); 1Ki 18:28 the Revised Version (British and American) "lances."

((1) ‘erets;

(2) ‘adhamah;

(3) sadheh,

"a piece of land";

(4) ge, "earth";

(5) agros, "field";

(6) chora, "region";

(7) chorion, diminutive of chora;

(8) xeros, "dry land";

(9) ‘ezrach, "native" the King James Version "born in the land," "born among you," the Revised Version (British and American) "home-born" (Le 19:34; 14:16; Nu 15:30); "like a green tree in its native soil" (Ps 37:35)):

‘Erets occurs hundreds of times and is used in much the same way as ‘adhamah, which also occurs often: e.g. "land of Egypt," ‘erets mitsrayim (Ge 13:10), and ‘adhmath mitsrayim (Ge 47:20). The other words occur less often, and are used in the senses indicated above.

See COUNTRY; EARTH.

Alfred Ely Day

LAND-CROCODILE (Revised Version (British and American))]

land-crok’-o-dil (koach; Septuagint chamaileon, Le 11:30; the King James Version Chameleon): Koach is found only here, meaning an animal, the fifth in the list of unclean "creeping things." Elsewhere is it translated "strength" or "power," and it has been thought that here is meant the desert monitor, Varanus griseus, a gigantic lizard, which is common in Egypt and Palestine, and which attains the length of 4 ft. "Chameleon," which the King James Version has here, is used by the Revised Version (British and American) for tinshemeth (the King James Version "mole"), the eighth in the list of unclean "creeping things" (compare nasham, "to breathe"; translated "swan" in Le 11:18 margin). While it is by no means certain what animal is meant, there could be no objection to "monitor" or "desert monitor." "Land-crocodile" is objectionable because it is not a recognized name of any animal.

See CHAMELEON; LIZARD.

Alfred Ely Day

See AGRARIAN LAWS.

land’-mark (gebhul, literally, "boundary"): The boundary may have been marked, as at present, simply by a furrow or stone. The iniquity of removing a landmark is frequently insisted on (De 19:14; 27:17; Pr 22:28; 23:10; Job 24:2 gebhulah), its removal being equivalent to theft.

lan (rhume): An alley or bypath of a city. Occurs once in Lu 14:21, "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city"; elsewhere translated "street," e.g. Mt 6:2; Ac 9:11; Ecclesiasticus 9:7; Tobit 13:18.

lan’-gwaj (Greek).

See ARAMAIC LANGUAGE also:

I. THE VERNACULAR "KOINE" THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

1. The Old Point of View

2. The Revolution

3. The Proof of the New Position

(1) The Papyri

(2) The Ostraka

(3) The Inscriptions

(4) Modern Greek

(5) Historical and Comparative Grammar

4. Characteristics of the Vernacular "Koine"

II. LITERARY ELEMENTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

III. THE SEMITIC INFLUENCE

IV. INDIVIDUAL PECULIARITIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS

V. THE "KOINE" GREEK SPOKEN BY JESUS

LITERATURE

I. The Vernacular "Koine" the Language of the New Testament.

1. The Old Point of View:

The ghost of the old Purist controversy is now laid to rest for good and all. The story of that episode has interest chiefly for the historian of language and of the vagaries of the human intellect. See Winer-Thayer, Grammar of the Idiom of the New Testament, 1869, 12-19, and Schmiedel’s Winer, sectopm 2, for a sketch of this once furious strife. In the 17th century various scholars tried to prove that the Greek of the New Testament was on a paragraph with the literary Attic of the classic period. But the Hebraists won the victory over them and sought to show that it was Hebraic Greek, a special variety, if not dialect, a Biblical Greek The 4th edition of Cremer’s Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek (translated by W. Urwick, 1892) quotes, with approval, Rothe’s remark (Dogmatik, 1863, 238):

"We may appropriately speak of a language of the Holy Ghost. For in the Bible it is evident that the Holy Spirit has been at work, moulding for itself a distinctively religious mode of expression out of the language of the country which it has chosen as its sphere, and transforming the linguistic elements which it found ready to hand, and even conceptions already existing, into a shape and form appropriate to itself and all its own." Cremer adds: "We have a very clear and striking proof of this in New Testament Greek."

This was only twenty years ago and fairly represented the opinion of that day. Hatch in 1889 (Essays in Biblical Greek, 34) held that with most of the New Testament words the key lay in the Septuagint. But Winer (Winer-Thayer, 20) had long ago seen that the vernacular koine was "the special foundation of the diction of the New Testament," though he still admitted "a Jewish-Greek, which native Greeks did not entirely understand" (p. 27). He did not see the practical identity of New Testament Greek with the vernacular koine—("common" Greek), nor did Schmiedel in the 8. Auflage of Winer (I. Theil; II. Theil, erstes Heft, 1894-97). In the second edition of his Grammar of New Testament Greek (English translation by Thackeray, 1905, 2), Blass sees the dawn of the new day, though his book was first written before it came. Viteau (Etude sur le grec du Nouveau Testament, I, Le verbe, 1893, II, Le sujet, 1896) occupies wholly the old position of a Judaic Greek. An extreme instance of that view is seen in Guillemard’s Hebraisms in the Greek Testament (1879).

2. The Revolution:

A turn toward the truth comes with H. A. A. Kennedy’s Sources of the New Testament Greek (1895). He finds the explanation of the vocabulary of both the Septuagint and the New Testament to be the vernacular which he traces back to Aristophanes. It is a good exercise to read Westcott’s discussion of the "Language of the NT" in DB, III (1888), and then turn to Moulton, "Language of the New Testament," in the 1-vol HDB. Westcott says: "The chief peculiarities of the syntax of the New Testament lie in the reproduction of Hebrew forms." Moulton remarks: "There is no reason to believe that any New Testament writer who ever lived in Palestine learned Greek only as a foreign language when he went abroad." Still better is it to read Moulton, "New Testament Greek in the Light of Modern Discovery" in Cambridge Biblical Essays (1909, 461-505); Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (1911); or Angus, "The koine, the Language of the New Testament," Princeton Review, January, 1910, 42-92. The revolution has come to stay. It is now clear that the Greek of the New Testament is not a jargon nor a patois. In all essential respects it is just the vernacular koine of the 1st century AD, the lingua franca of the Greek-Roman empire, the legacy of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the East. This world-speech was at bottom the late Attic vernacular with dialectical and provincial influences. It was not a decaying tongue, but a virile speech admirably adapted to the service of the many peoples of the time. The able article in volume III of HDB on the "Language of the New Testament" by Dr. J. H. Thayer appeared in 1900, and illustrates how quickly an encyclopedia article may become out of date. There is a wealth of knowledge here displayed, as one would expect, but Thayer still speaks of "this species of Greek," "this peculiar idiom, .... Jewish Greek," though he sees that its basis is "the common or spoken Greek." The last topic discussed by him is "Problems." He little thought that the biggest "problem" so near solution was the character of the language itself. It was Adolph Deissmann, then of Heidelberg, now of Berlin, who opened the new era in the knowledge of the language of the New Testament. His Bibelstudien (zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften zur Geschichte der Sprache, des Schrifttums und der Religion des hellenistischen Judentums und des Urchristentums) appeared in 1895. In this epoch-making volume he proved conclusively from the papyri and the inscriptions that many of the seeming Hebraisms in the Septuagint and the New Testament were common idioms in the vernacular koine. He boldly claimed that the bulk of the Hebraisms were falsely so termed, except in the case of translating Greek from the Hebrew or Aramaic or in "perfect" Hebraisms, genuine Greek usage made more common by reason of similarity to the Semitic idiom. In 1897 he produced Neue Bibelstudien, sprachgeschichtliche Beitrage zumeist aus den Papyri und Inschriften zur Erklarung des Neuen Testaments.

In 1901 (2nd edition in 1903) these two volumes were translated as one by A. Grieve under the title Bible Studies. Deissmann’s other volumes have confirmed his thesis. The most important are New Light on the New Testament (1907), The Philology of the Greek Bible (1908), Licht vom Osten (1908), Light from the Ancient East (translation by Strachan, 1910), Paul in the Light of Social and Religious History (1912). In Light from the Ancient East, Deissmann illustrates the New Testament language with much detail from the papyri, ostraka and inscriptions. He is now at work on a new lexicon of the New Testament which will make use of the fresh knowledge from these sources.

The otherwise helpful work of E. Preuschen, Vollstandiges griechisch-deutsches Handworterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der ubrigen urchristlichen Literatur (1908-10), fails to utilize the papyri and inscriptions while drawing on the Septuagint and the New Testament Apocrypha and other early Christian literature. But this has been done by Ebeling in his Griechisch-deutsches Worterbuch zum New Testament, 1913. The next step was made by A. Thumb, the great philologian, in his Griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus; Beitrage zur Geschichte und Beurteilung der "koine," 1901, in which the real character of the koine was for the first time properly set forth.

Winer and Blass had both lamented the need of a grammar of the koine, and that demand still exists, but Thumb went a long way toward supplying it in this volume. It is to be hoped that he will yet prepare a grammar of the koine. Thumb’s interests cover the whole range of comparative philology, but he has added in this field "Die Forschungen fiber die hellenistische Sprache in den Jahren 1896-1901," Archiv fur Papyrusforschung, II, 396 f; "Prinzipienfragen der Koina-Forschung," Neue Jahrb. fur das kl. Alt., 1906; "Die sprachgeschichtliche Stellung des biblischen Griechisch," Theologische Rundschau, V, 85-99.

The other most important name to add is that of J. Hope Moulton, who has the credit of being the first to apply the new knowledge directly to the New Testament Greek His Grammar of New Testament Greek, I, Prolegomena (1906, 2nd edition, 1906, 3rd edition, 1908, German translation in 1911, Einleitung in die Sprache des New Testament) is a brilliant piece of work and relates the Greek of the New Testament in careful detail to the vernacular koine, and shows that in all important points it is the common Greek of the time and not a Hebraic Greek. Moulton probably pressed his point too far in certain respects in his zeal against Hebraisms, but the essential position of Deissmann and Moulton is undoubtedly sound.

Moulton had previously published the bulk of this material as "Grammatical Notes from the Papyri," The Expositor, 1901, 271-82; 1903, 104-21, 423-39; The Classical Review, 1901, 31-37, 434-41; 1904, 106-12, 151-55; "Characteristics of New Testament Greek, " The Expositor, 1904.

In 1909 appeared his essay, Greek in the Light of Modern Discovery (see above). Since 1908, The Expositor has had a series of papers by J.H. Moulton and George Milligan called "Lexical Notes from the Papyri," which are very useful on the lexical side of the language. Thus the study is fairly launched on its new career. In 1900, A.T. Robertson produced a Syllabus on the New Testament Greek Syntax from the standpoint of comparative philology, which was rewritten in 1908, with the added viewpoint of the papyri researches, as A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament (2nd edition, 1909, 3rd edition, 1912; translations in Italian in 1910, German and French in 1911, Dutch in 1912). In October, 1909, S. Angus published a good article in the Harvard Theological Review on "Modern Methods in New Testament Philology," followed in January, 1910, by another in the Princeton Review on "The koine, the Language of the New Testament." The new knowledge appears also in Jakob Wackernagel, "Die griechische Sprache" (pp. 291-318, 2nd edition, of Die griechische und lateinische Literatur und Sprache, 1907). L. Radermachcr has set forth very ably "die sprachlichen Vorgange in ihrem Zusammenhang," in his Neutestamentliche Grammatik: Das Griechisch des Neuen Testaments im Zusammenhang mit der Volkssprache. It is in reality the background of the New Testament Greek and is a splendid preparation for the study of the Greek New Testament. A full discussion of the new knowledge in grammatical detail has been prepared by A.T. Robertson under the title A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. Moulton and Schmiedel are planning also to complete their works.

3. The Proof of the New Position:

The proof of the new position is drawn from several sources:

(1) The Papyri.

These rolls have lain in the museums of the world many years and attracted little attention. For lists of the chief collections of the papyri see Moulton, Prolegomena, 259-62; Milligan, Selections from the Greek Papyri, xi, xii; Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemaerzeit; Lautund Wortlehre, vii-x; Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 20-41; Robertson, Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Bibliography. New volumes of papyri as a result of recent explorations in Egypt are published each year. See PAPYRUS, and in the other encyclopedias under the word. Most of the papyri discovered belong to the period of the koine (the first three centuries BC and AD in round numbers), and with great wealth of illustration they show the life of the common people of the time, whether in Egypt or Herculaneum (the two chief regions represented). There are various degrees of culture shown, as can be seen in any of the large volumes of Grenfell and Hunt, or in the handbooks of Lietzmann, Griechische Papyri (1905), and of Milligan, Greek Papyri (1910). They come from the scrap-heaps of the long ago, and are mainly receipts, contracts, letters of business or love, military documents, etc. They show all grades of culture, from the illiterate with phonetic spelling to the man of the schools. But we have here the language of life, not of the books. In a most startling way one notes the similarities of vocabulary, forms, and syntax between the language of the papyri of the 1st century AD and that of the New Testament books. As early as 1778, F.W. Sturz, made use of the Charta Borgiana, "the first papyrus ever brought to Europe" (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 39), and in 1841 Thiersch likewise saw the value of the papyri for the philology of the Septuagint. But the matter was not pressed. Lightfoot threw out a hint about the value of letters of the people, which was not followed till Deissmann saw the point; compare Moulton, Prol., 242. It is not necessary here to illustrate the matter at length. Deissmann takes up in detail the "Biblical" words in Thayer’s Lexicon, and has no difficulty in finding most of them in the papyri (or inscriptions). Thus plerophoreo, is shown to be common in the papyri. See Deissmann, Bible Studies and Light from the Ancient East, for extensive lists. The papyri show also the same meanings for many words once thought peculiar to the Bible or the New Testament. An instance is seen in the official sense of presbuteros, in the papyri, 5 ho presbuteros les komes (Pap. Lugd. A 35 f), "without doubt an official designation" (Deissmann, Bible Studies, 155). So adelphos, for members of the community, anastrophe, for manner of life, antilempsis, "help," leitourgia, "public service," paroikos, "sojourner," etc. (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 107). R. Helbing (Grammatik der Septuaginta, 1908) and H. John Thackeray (A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, 1909) have applied the new knowledge to the language of the Septuagint, and it has been discussed with much ability in the first volumes. The use of the papyri for grammatical purposes is made easier by the excellent volume of E. Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemaerzeit; Laut- und Wortlehre (1906), though his "Syntax," is still a desideratum. Useful also is G. Cronert, Memoria Graeca Herculanensis (1903).

(2) The Ostraka.

The literature on this subject is still small in bulk. In 1899 Ulrich Wilcken published Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien, and in 1902 W.E. Crum produced his book of Christian ostraka called Coptic Ostraca from the Collections of the Egypt Exploration Fund, the Cairo Museum, and Others. This was followed in 1905 by H.R. Hall’s Coptic and Greek Texts of the Christian Period from Ostraka, Stelae, etc. These broken pieces of pottery were used by the lowest classes as writing material. It was very widely used because it was so very cheap. Wilcken has done more than anyone else to collect and decipher the ostraka. Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 46) notes that Cleanthes the Stoic "wrote on ostraka or on leather" because too poor to buy papyrus. So he quotes the apology of a Christian for using potsherd for a letter: "Excuse me that I cannot find papyrus as I am in the country" (Crum, Coptic Ostraca, 55). The use of apecho, on an ostrakon for a receipt in full, illustrates well the frequent use of this word in the New Testament (Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 111).

(3) The Inscriptions.

Here caution must be used since many of the inscriptions give, not the vernacular, but the literary language. The official (legal and military) decrees often appear in very formal style. But a number do preserve the vernacular idiom and often have the advantage of being dated. These inscriptions are chiefly on stone, but some are on metal and there are a few wax tablets. The material is vast and is constantly growing. See list of the chief collections in Deissmann’s Light from the Ancient East, 10-20. Boeckh is the great name here. As early as 1779 Walch (Observationes in Matt. ex graecis inscriptionibus) made use of Greek inscriptions for New Testament exegesis, and R.A. Lipsius says that his father (K.H.A. Lipsius, author of Grammatische Untersuchungen uber die biblische Gracitat) "contemplated a large grammar of the Greek Bible in which he would have availed himself of the discoveries in modern epigraphy" (Deissmann, Light, etc., 15). Schmiedel has made good use of the inscriptions so far in his revision of Winer; H.A.A. Kennedy (Sources of New Testament Greek, 1895), H. Anz (Subsidia ad Cogn., etc., 1894), R. Helbing (Grammatik der Septuaginta, 1908), J. Psichari (Essai sur le Grec de la Septante, 1908), H. John Thackeray (A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, 1909), and R. Meister (Prol. zu einer Grammatik der Septuaginta, 1907) turned to good account the inscriptions for the linguistic problems of the Septuagint, as indeed Hatch (Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889) had already done. W. Dittenberger added some valuable "Grammatica et orthographica" to his Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae (2 volumes, 1903, 1905). See also E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, Greek Historical Inscriptions (1901), and Hicks’s paper "On Some Political Terms Employed in the New Testament," Classical Review, 1887, 4 ff, 42 ff. W. M. Ramsay’s Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (2 volumes, 1895, 1897) and his other works show keen insight in the use of the inscriptions. Deissmann’s Bible Studies (1895, 1901) applied the knowledge of the inscriptions to the Septuagint and to the New Testament. In his Light from the Ancient East (1910) copious use is made of the inscriptions for New Testament study. Moulton (Prol., 1906, 258 f, for lists) is alive to the value of the inscriptions for New Testament grammar, as indeed was Blass (Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, 1896) before him.

Compare further, G. Thieme, Die Inschriften von Magnesia am Maander und das Neue Testament (1906); T. Nageli, Der Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus (1905), and J. Rouffiac, Recherches sur les caracteres du Grec dans le New Testament d’apres les Inscr. de Priene (1911). Special treatises or phases of the grammar of the inscriptions appear in Meisterhans-Schwyzer, Grammatik der attischen Inschriften (1900); Nachmanson, Laute und Formen der magnetischen Inschriften (1896); Schweizer, Grammatik der pergamenischen Inschriften (1898).

Moulton and Milligan have drawn freely also on the inscriptions for their "Lexical Studies" running in The Expositor (1908 and the years following). The value of the inscriptions for the Greek of the New Testament is shown at every turn. For instance, prototokos, is no longer a "Biblical" word. It appears in a metrical inscription (undated) of Trachonitis on a tomb of a pagan "high priest" and "friend of the gods" (Deissmann, Light, etc., 88); compare Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca, etc., number 460. Even agape, occurs on a pagan inscription of Pisidia (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2, 57). See, further, W.H.P. Hatch’s "Some Illustrations of New Testament Usage from Greek Inscriptions of Asia Minor," Journal of Biblical Literature, 1908, 134-146.

(4) Modern Greek.

As early as 1834 Heilmeier saw that the modern Greek vernacular went back to the koine (Moulton, Prologoumena, 29), but it is only in recent years that it was clearly seen that the modern Greek of the schools and usually in the newspapers is artificial, and not the real vernacular of today. Mullach’s work (Grammatik der griechischen Vulgarsprache, 1856) was deficient in this respect. But Jannaris’ Historical Greek Grammar (1897) carries the history of the vernacular Greek along with the literary style. Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die neugriechische Grammatik, 1892, clears the air very much and connects the modern Greek with the New Testament. But it is to Thumb that we are indebted for the best knowledge of the vernacular (he demotike) as opposed to the literary language (he kathareuousa) of today. Mitsotakis (Praktische Grammatik, 1891) had treated both together, though Wied (Die Kunst, die neugriechische Volksprache) gave only the vernacular. But Wied is only elementary. Thumb alone has given an adequate treatment of the modern Greek vernacular, showing its unity and historical contact with the vernacular koine (Handbuch der neugriechischen Volkssprache, 1895; Thumb-Angus, Handbook of Modern Greek Vernacular, 1912). Thus one can see the living stream of the New Testament speech as it has come on down through the ages. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of modern Greek vernacular in the knowledge of New Testament Greek. The disappearance of the optative, the vanishing of the infinitive before hina, and itacism are but instances of many others which are luminous in the light of the modern Greek vernacular. See Psichari, Essais de grammaire historique neo-grecque (1886-89).

(5) Historical and Comparative Grammar.

From this source the koine gets a new dignity. It will take one too far afield to sketch here the linguistic revolution wrought since the publication of, and partly caused by, Bopp’s Vergleichende Grammatik (1857), following Sir William Jones’ discovery of Sanskrit. The great work of Brugmann and Delbruck (Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, I-V, 1892-1909) marks the climax of the present development, though many workers have won distinction in this field. The point to accent here is that by means of comparative philology the Greek language is seen in its proper relations with other languages of the Indo-Germanic family, and the right interpretation of case, preposition, mode, tense, voice, etc., is made possible. The old traditional empiricism is relegated to the scrap-heap, and a new grammatical science consonant with the facts has taken its place. See Delbruck, Introduction to the Study of Language (1882), Giles, Short Manual of Comparative Philology (1901), for a resume of the facts. Wright, Comparative Grammar of the Greek Language (1912), applies the new learning to the Greek tongue. The progress in classical scholarship is well shown by Sandys in his History of Classical Scholarship (I-III, 1906-8) and by Gudeman, Geschichte der klass. Philologie, 2. Aufl, 1909. Innumerable monographs have enriched the literature of this subject. It is now feasible to see the Greek language as a whole, and grasp its historical unity. Seen in this light the koine is not a dying tongue or a corrupt dialect. It is a normal and natural evolution of the Greek dialects into a world-speech when Alexander’s conquests made it possible. The vernacular koine which has developed into the modern Greek vernacular was itself the direct descendant of the Attic vernacular which had its roots in the vernacular of the earlier dialects. The dialectical developments are closely sketched by Thumb, Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte (1909), and by Buck, Introduction to the Study of Greek Dialects (1910), not to mention the older works of Hoffmann, Meister, etc. Jannaris has undertaken in his Historical Greek Grammar (1897) to sketch and interpret the facts of the Greek tongue throughout its long career, both in its literary and vernacular aspects. He has succeeded remarkably well on the whole, though not quite seeing the truth about the modern Greek vernacular. Schanz is seeking to lay the foundation for still better work by his Beitrage zur historischen Syntax der griechischen Sprache (1882 and the years following). But the New Testament student must be open to all the new light from this region, and it is very great. See, further, Dieterich, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der griech. Sprache von der hellen. Zeit (1898).

4. Characteristics of the Vernacular "Koine":

As already indicated, the Greek of the New Testament is in the main just the vernacular koine of the 1st century AD, though Greek as used by men of ability and varying degrees of culture. The most striking difference between the vernacular koine and the literary Attic is seen in the vocabulary. The writers in the literary koine show more likeness to the classic Attic, but even they reveal the changes due to the intervening centuries. There was, of course, no violent break. The changes came gradually and naturally. It is mainly at this point that Deissmann has done such brilliant work in his Bible Studies and other books. He has taken the lists of "Biblical" and "ecclesiastical" words, as given by Cremer and Thayer, and has shown from the papyri, ostraka, inscriptions, or koine writers that they are not peculiar to the Bible, but belong to the current speech of the time. The proof is so overwhelming and extensive that it cannot be given here. Some words have not yet been found in the non-Biblical koine, but they may be any day. Some few words, of course, belong to the very nature of Christianity christianos, for instance), but apostolos, baptismos, paroikos, sunagoge, and hundreds of others can no longer be listed as "Biblical." New meanings come to old words also. Compare daimonion. It is interesting to note that the New Testament shows many of the words found in Aristophanes, who caught up the vernacular of his day. The koine uses more words from the lower strata of society. Aristotle likewise has many words common in the koine, since he stands at the parting of the ways between the old dialects and the new koine of Alexander’s conquests. The koine develops a fondness for compound and even double compound (sesquipedalian) words; compare, for instance, anekdiegetos; aneklaletos; anexereunetos; antapokrinomai; oikodespotes; oligopsuchos; prosanapleroo; sunantilambanomai; huperentugchano; chrusodaktulios, etc. The use of diminutives is also noteworthy in the koine as in the modern Greek: compare thugatrion; klinarion; korasion; kunarion; onarion; opsarion; ploiarion; otion, etc. The formation of words by juxtaposition is very common as in plerophoreo, cheiro-graphon. In phonetics it is to be noticed that "ei", "oi", "ee", "eei", "u", "i" all had the value of "ee" in "feet." This itacism was apparent in the early koine. So ai = e and o and oo were not sharply distinguished. The Attic tt became ss, except in a few instances, like elatto, kreitton. The tendency toward de-aspiration (compare Ionic) was manifest; compare eph’ helpidi, for the reverse process. Elision is less frequent than in Attic, but assimilation is carried farther. The variable final consonants "n" (nu) and "s" (sigma) are used generally before consonants. We find "-ei-" for "-iei-" as in pein. outheis, and metheis, are common till 100 BC, when they gradually disappear before oudeis, and medeis. In general there is less sense of rhythm and more simplicity and clearness. Some of the subtle refinements of form and syntax of the classic did not survive in the koine vernacular. In accidence only a few points may be noted. In substantives the Ionic "-res" is frequent. The Attic second declension vanishes. In the third declension forms like nuktan, show assimilation to the first. Both charin, and charita, occur. Contraction is sometimes absent (compare Ionic) as in oreon. Adjectives show forms like asphalen, and indeclinable pleres, appears, and pan, for panta (compare megan), dusi, for duoin. The dual is gone. Even the dual pronouns hekateros, and poteros, are rare. tis, is occasionally used like hostis. hos ean, is more frequent than hos an, in the 1st century AD. The two conjugations blend more and more into one, as the -mi forms vanish. There is some confusion in the use of -ao and -eo verbs, and new presents occur like apoktenno, optano, steko. The forms ginomai, ginosko, are the rule now. There is much increase in aorists like escha, and imperfects like eicha. The form -osan (eichosan, eschosan) occasionally appears. Quite frequent is a perfect like dedokan, and the augment is often absent in the plu-perfect as in dedokei. Per contra, a double augment occurs in apekateste, and a treble augment in eneochthesan. The temporal augment is often absent with diphthong as in oikodomethe. The koine Greek has -tosan, not -nton. In syntax the tendency is toward simplicity, to short sentences, the paratactic construction, and the sparing use of particles. The vernacular koine avoids both the bombast of Asianism and the artificiality of Atticism. There is, indeed, more freedom in violating the rules of concord as to gender, number, and case. The nominativus pendens is common. The comparative does duty often for the superlative adjective, and the superlative generally has the elative sense. The accusative is increasingly common with verbs. The line between transitive and intransitive verbs is not a hard-and-fast one. The growth in the use of prepositions both with nouns and in composition is quite noticeable, but some of the older prepositions, like amphi, are vanishing. The cases used with various prepositions are changing. The instrumental use of en, is very common. Many new adverbial and prepositional phrases have developed. The optative is nearly dead and the infinitive (apart from the use of tou, en to, eis ~to, with the infinitive) is decaying before hina. The future participle is rare. me, begins to encroach on ou, with infinitives and participles. The periphrastic conjugation is specially common. The direct discourse is more frequent than the indirect. The non-final use of hina, is quite noticeable. There are, besides, dialectical and provincial peculiarities, but these do not destroy the real unity of the vernacular koine any more than do individual traits of separate writers.

II. Literary Elements in the New Testament.

Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, 245) is disposed to deny any literary quality to the New Testament books save the Epistle to the Hebrews. "The Epistle to the Hebrews shows us Christianity preparing for a flight from its native levels into the higher region of culture, and we are conscious of the beginnings of a Christian world-literature." He speaks of it also as "a work which seems to hang in the background like an intruder among the New Testament company of popular books." One feels that this is an extreme position and cannot be justified by the facts. It is true that Peter and John were agrammatoi kai idiotai (Ac 4:13), and not men of the schools, but this was certainly not the case with Luke and Paul who were men of literary culture in the truest sense. Luke and Paul were not Atticists, but that artificial idiom did not represent the best type of culture. Deissmann admits that the New Testament has become literature, but, outside of He, he denies any literary quality in its composition. Paul, for instance, wrote only "letters," not "epistles." But Romans and Ephesians confront us. See Milligan, Greek Papyri, xxxi, for a protest against the sweeping statement of Deissmann on this point. One need not go to the extreme of Blass, "Die rhythmische Komposition des Hebr. Brides," Theol. Studien und Kritik, 1902, 420-61; Die Rythmen der asiatischen und romischen Kunstprosa, 1905, to find in Hebrews and Paul’s writings illustrations of the artificial rules of the Asianists. There is undoubtedly rhythm in Paul’s eloquent passages (compare 1Co 13; 15), but it is the natural poetic quality of a soul aflame with high passions, not conformity to rules of rhetoric. To deny literary quality to Luke and Paul is to give a narrow meaning to the word "literary" and to be the victim of a theory. Christianity did make use of the vernacular koine, the wonderful world-speech so providentially at hand. But the personal equation figured here as always. Men of culture differ in their conversation from illiterate men and more nearly approximate literary style. It is just in Luke, Paul, and the author of He that we discover the literary flavor of men of ability and of culture, though free from artificiality and pedantry. The eloquence of He is that of passion, not of the art of Asianism. Indeed, the Gospels all show literary skill in the use of material and in beauty of language. The Gospel of John has the rare elevation and dignity of the highest type of mind. There is no Atticistic tendency in the New Testament as in Josephus, Ant. There is no posing for the present or for posterity. It is the language of life, the vernacular in the main, but rising at times from the very force of passion to high plateaus of emotion and imagination and poetic grace from the pens of men of real ability, and in some instances of high culture.

III. The Semitic Influence.

It is no longer possible to explain every variation in the New Testament from the classic Attic by the term Hebraism. That easy solution has disappeared. Sooth to say, when the true character of the vernacular koine is understood, there is not very much left to explain. The New Testament Greek as a rule is just normal koine. Milligan (Greek Papyri, xxx) admits on the part of Moulton "an overtendency to minimize" the "presence of undoubted Hebraisms, both in language and grammar." That is true, and is due to his strong reaction against the old theory of so many Hebraisms. The Semiticisms (Hebraisms and Aramaisms) are very natural results of the fact that the vernacular koine was used by Jews who read the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint translation, and who also spoke Aramaic as their native tongue. The Septuagint, as translation of Greek, directly from the Hebrew (or Aramaic), has a much greater number of these Semiticisms. See Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (1900), for the salient facts. Thackeray in his Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek (1909) shows "the koine—the basis of Septuagint Greek" in section 3, and in section 4 discusses "the Semitic element in Septuagint Greek." The matter varies in different parts of the Septuagint, but in all parts the Semitic influence goes far beyond what it is in the New Testament. In the New Testament we have free composition in Greek, except in certain portions of the Gospels and Ac where Aramaic originals (oral or written) lie beyond the Greek text. So in particular Lu 1, the words of Jesus in Lu 2, and the opening chapters of Acts. See Dalman, Words of Jesus (1902), and J.T. Marshall, "The Aramaic Gospel," The Expositor, Ser. IV volumes II-VIII; see also ARAMAIC supra. There is, to some extent, translation-Gr, as in the Septuagint. The quotations from the Old Testament are either from the Hebrew original, or, as most frequently, from the Septuagint. In either case we have translation-Greek again. These two classes cover the more obvious Semiticisms if we add Hebrew names (persons and places) and other transliterations like abbadon, allelouia. The Greek of the Septuagint does not, of course, give a true picture of the Greek spoken by the Jews in Alexandria or in Palestine. But the constant reading of the Septuagint was bound to leave its impress on the style of the people (compare the King James Version and the English language). The surprise, in fact, is not the number of Semiticisms, but, all things considered, the fewness of them. Luke, just because he was a Gentile and so noted the Hebraisms in the Septuagint, shows rather more of them than the other New Testament writers: compare prosetheto triton pempsai (Lu 20:12). Some of the points of style so common in the Septuagint find occasional parallel in the papyri or inscriptions, like blepon blepo, chara chairo, ov .... hon .... auton. Others are more obviously imitations of the Hebrew style, as in areskein enopion tinos, rather than areskein tini. But there is a certain dignity and elevation of style so characteristic of the Hebrew Old Testament that reappears in the New Testament. The frequent use of kai, in parts of the New Testament reminds one of the Septuagint and the Hebrew waw ("w"). There is, besides, an indefinable tone in the New Testament that is found in the Old Testament. Swete (Apocalypse of John, cxx) laments the tendency to depreciate unduly the presence of Hebraisms in the New Testament. The pendulum may have swung too far away from the truth. It will strike the level, but we shall never again be able to fill our grammars and commentaries with explanations of so many peculiar Hebraisms in the New Testament. On the whole the Greek New Testament is standard vernacular koine.

IV. Individual Peculiarities of the New Testament Writers.

There is not space for an extended discussion of this topic. The fact itself calls for emphasis, for there is a wide range in style between Mark’s Gospel and Hebrews, 1 Peter and Romans, Luke’s Gospel and the Apocalypse. There are no Atticists found in the New Testament (compare 4 Macc in the Septuagint and Jos), but there are the less literary writings (Matthew, Mark, the Johannine books, the other catholic epistles) and the more literary writings (Luke’s writings, Paul’s Epistles, and Hebrews). But even so, no hard-and-fast line can be drawn. Moulton, Cambridge Biblical Essays, 484, thinks 2 Peter more like the Atticistic writings, "though certainly the Atticists would have scorned to own a book so full of ‘solecisms.’" Moulton assumes that 2 Peter is pseudepigraphic, and does not credit the notion that the crude "Babu" Greek, to use Abbott’s term, may be Peter’s own uncorrected style (compare Ac 4:13), while 1 Peter may have the smoothing effect of Silvanus’ hand (compare 1Pe 5:12). A similar explanation is open concerning the grammatical lapses of the Apocalypse, since John is also called agrammatos, in Ac 4:13, whereas the Gospel of John may have had the revision of the elders of Ephesus (compare Joh 21:24). But whatever the explanation, there is no doubt of the wide divergences style between different books and groups of books in the New Testament list. The Lukan, Johannine, Petrine, Pauline groups stand apart, but with cleavages within each group. Harnack (Luke the Physician, 1907; The Sayings of Jesus, 1908; The Ac of the Apostles, 1909; The Date of the Ac of the Apostles, 1911) has accepted and strengthened the contention of Hawkins (Horae Synopticae, 2nd edition, 1909) and of Hobart (Medical Language of Luke, 1882) that the medical terms in the Gospel of Luke and of Ac show that the books were written by the same writer and that a physician, and so Luke. The diversities in style here and there are chiefly due to the sources of information used. Even in the Pauline books, which form so well-marked a collection, striking diversities of language and style appear. But these letters cover a period of some 15 years of intense activity and mental and spiritual development, and treat a great variety of topics. They properly reflect the changing phases of Paul’s preaching of the cross of Christ in different places and under varying circumstances and confronting ever fresh problems. The plays of Shakespeare offer a useful parallel. Even in Paul’s old age, in the Pastoral Epistles the stamp of Paul’s spirit is admitted by those who admit only Pauline fragments; compare J. Weiss, Beitrage zur Paulinschen Rhetorik (1897). The style is indeed the man, but style is also the function of the subject, and style varies with different periods of a man’s life. E.A. Abbott has made an excellent discussion of the Johannine Vocabulary (1905) and of Johannine Grammar (1906), but special grammars of each writer are hardly to be expected or desired. But Nageli has begun a study of Paul’s vocabulary in his Wortschatz des Apostels Paulus (1905). The Gospel of Matthew shows very little of that Hebraism that one would expect from the general purpose and tone of the book. It is possible, of course, that the supposed original was in Aramaic, or, if in Greek, of a more Hebraistic type. Whether the present Greek of Matthew made use of Mark’s Gospel and a collection of Logia (Q), we do not know. Certainly Mark’s Gospel is written in colloquial koine with little evidence of the culture of the schools. Mark is a faithful reporter and does his work with rare simplicity and vividness. He reveals clearly the Aramaic background of Christ’s teaching. The writings of James and Jude do not show that only Greek was spoken in the home at Nazareth, nor that they used only Aramaic. These two epistles are evidently free compositions in Greek with much of the freshness of imagery so manifest in the parables of Jesus Himself. This brief sketch does not do justice to the richness and variety of language in the books of the New Testament.

V. The "Koine" Spoken by Jesus.

See ARAMAIC LANGUAGE for proof that Jesus spoke that language as the vernacular of the people of Palestine. But Christ spoke the koine also, so that the New Testament is not an idiom that was unknown to the Master. Gwilliam (1-vol HDB, "Language of Christ") does still deny that Jesus spoke Greek, while Roberts takes the other extreme in his book, Greek the Language of Christ and His Apostles (1888). Per contra again, Julicher considers it impossible to suppose that Jesus used Greek (art. "Hellenism" in EB). J. E. H. Thomson, "The Language of Palestine during the Time of our Lord" (Temple, Bible Dictionary) argues convincingly that Palestine was bi-lingual and that Jesus knew and spoke Greek as well as Aramaic Peter evidently spoke in Greek on the Day of Pentecost and was understood by all. Paul was understood in Jerusalem when he spoke in Greek (Ac 21:37). Jesus taught in Decapolis, a Greek region, in the region of Tyre and Sidon (Greek again). Galilee itself was largely inhabited by Gentiles who spoke Greek. At the time of the Sermon on the Mount, we read that people were present from Decapolis and Perea, besides the mixed multitude from Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem (Mt 4:25; Lu 6:17). Thomson proves also that in Matthew’s Gospel the quotation from the Old Testament in the words of Jesus is from the Septuagint, while Matthew’s own quotations are from the Hebrew. The case seems clear. It is not possible to say always when Jesus spoke Greek and when Aramaic. That would depend on the audience. But it is practically certain that Christ Himself knew and spoke at will the vernacular koine, and thus had this linguistic bond with the great world of that era and with lovers of the Greek Testament today.

LITERATURE.

The literature on this subject is very extensive. The most important volumes have been mentioned in the discussion above.

A.T. Robertson

lan’-gwaj-es

I. THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES

1. Members of Semitic Family

2. The Name Hebrew

3. Old Hebrew Literature

II. HISTORY OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE

1. Oldest Form of Language

2. The Hebrew of the Old Testament

3. Its Uniformity

4. The Cause Thereof

5. Differences Due to Age

6. Differences of Style

7. Foreign Influences

8. Poetry and Prose

9. Home of the Hebrew Language

10. Its Antiquity

11. When Hebrew Became a Dead Language

III. CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF HEBREW

1. Characteristic Sounds

2. Letters Representing Two Sounds

3. Consonants Representing Vowels

4. The Syllable

5. Three-Letter Roots

6. Conjugations or Derived Stems

7. Absence of Tenses

8. The Pronouns

9. Formation of Nouns

10. Internal Inflexion

11. Syntax of the Verb

12. Syntax of the Noun

13. Poverty of Adjectives

IV. BIBLICAL ARAMAIC

1. Aramaic Portions of the Old Testament

2. Phonology

3. Grammar

4. Syntax

5. Aramaic More Decadent than Hebrew

V. LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SEMITES

1. Concrete and Abstract

2. View of Nature

3. Pictorial Imagination

4. Prose and Poetry

5. Hebrew Easy of Translation

LITERATURE

There were only two languages employed in the archetypes of the Old Testament books (apart from an Egyptian or Persian or Greek word here and there), namely, Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic, both of which belong to the great family of languages known as Semitic.

I. The Semitic Languages.

The languages spoken in Southwestern Asia during the historical period dealt with in the Bible have been named Shemitic, after the son of Noah from whom the majority of peoples speaking these languages—Arabs, Hebrews, Arameans and Assyrians (Ge 10:21 )—were descended. To show, however, that the description does not fit exactly the thing described—the Elamites and Lydians having probably not spoken a Shemitic language, and the Canaanites, including Phoenicians, with the colonists descended from those at Carthage and elsewhere in the Mediterranean coast lands, as well as the Abyssinians (Ethiopians), who did, being reckoned descendants of Ham (Ge 9:18; 10:6 )—the word is now generally written "Semitic," a term introduced by Eichhorn (1787). These languages were spoken from the Caspian Sea to the South of Arabia, and from the Mediterranean to the valley of the Tigris.

1. Members of Semitic Family:

The following list shows the chief members of this family:

(1) South Semitic or Arabic:

Including the language of the Sabean (Himyaritic) inscriptions, as well as Ge’ez or Ethiopic. Arabic is now spoken from the Caucasus to Zanzibar, and from the East Indies to the Atlantic.

(2) Middle Semitic or Canaanitish:

Including Hebrew, old and new, Phoenician, with Punic, and Moabite (language of MS).

(3) North Semitic or Aramaic:

Including

(a) East Aramaic or Syrian (language of Syrian Christians), language of Babylonian Talmud, Mandean;

(b) West or Palestinian Aramaic of the Targums, Palestinian Talmud (Gemara), Biblical Aramaic ("Chaldee"), Samaritan, language of Nabatean inscriptions.

(4) East Semitic:

Language of Assyria-Babylonian inscriptions.

2. The Name Hebrew:

With the exception of a few chapters and fragments mentioned below, the Old Testament is written entirely in Hebrew. In the Old Testament itself this language is called "the Jews’ "( 2Ki 18:26,28). In Isa 19:18 it is called poetically, what in fact it was, "the language (Hebrew "lip") of Canaan." In the appendix to the Septuagint of Job it is called Syriac; and in the introduction to Ecclesiasticus it is for the first time—that is, in 130 BC—named Hebrew. The term Hebrew in the New Testament denotes the language of the Old Testament in Re 9:11, but in Joh 5:2; 19:13,17 this term means the vernacular Aramaic. In other passages it is doubtful which is meant. Josephus uses the same name for both. From the time of the Targums, Hebrew is called "the sacred tongue" in contrast to the Aramaic of everyday use. The language of the Old Testament is called Old Hebrew in contrast to the New Hebrew of the Mishna, the rabbinic, the Spanish poetry, etc.

3. Old Hebrew Literature: Of Old Hebrew the remains are contained almost entirely in the Old Testament. A few inscriptions have been recovered, i.e., the Siloam Inscriptions, a Hebrew calendar, a large number of ostraka from Samaria, a score of pre-exilic seals, and coins of the Maccabees and of the time of Vespasian and Hadrian.

LITERATURE.

E. Renan, Histoire generale et systeme compare des langues semitiques; F. Hommel, Die semit. Volker u. Sprachen; the comparative grammars of Wright and Brockelmann; CIS; article "Semitic Languages" in Encyclopedia Brit, and Murray’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

II. History of the Hebrew Language.

Hebrew as it appears to us in the Old Testament is in a state of decadence corresponding to the present position of spoken Arabic. In the earliest period it no doubt resembled the classical Arabic of the 7th and following centuries. The variations found between the various strata of the language occurring in the Old Testament are slight compared with the difference between modern and ancient Arabic.

1. Oldest Form of Language:

Hebrew was no doubt originally a highly inflected language, like classical Arabic. The noun had three cases, nominative, genitive, and accusative, ending in -um’, [~-im, -am, respectively, as in the Sabean inscriptions. Both verbs and nouns had three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and two genders, masculine and feminine In the noun the dual and plural had two cases. The dual and 2nd and 3rd person plural and 2nd person singular feminine of the imperfect of the verb ended in nun. In certain positions the "m" of the endings -um, -im, -am in the noun was dropped. The verb had three moods, indicative, subjunctive, and jussive, ending in -u, -a, and-,respectively; as well as many forms or stems, each of which had an active and passive voice.

2. The Hebrew of the Old Testament:

In the Hebrew of the Old Testament most of these inflexions have disappeared. Of the three cases of the noun only the accusative -am has survived in a few adverbial forms, such as ‘omnam, "truly." The dual has entirely disappeared from the verb, and also from the noun, with the exception of things that occur in pairs, such as hand, eye, which have no plural. The nom. case of the dual and plural of the noun has disappeared, and the oblique case is used for both. Except in cases of poetic archaism the final nun of the verb has been lost, and, as the final vowels have fallen away in verbs, as well as in nouns, the result is that the jussive forms serve for indicative and subjunctive also. Many of the forms or stems have fallen into desuetude, and the passive forms of two alone are used.

3. Its Uniformity:

One of the most remarkable facts connected with the Hebrew of the Old Testament is that although that literature extends through a period of over 1,000 years, there is almost no difference between the language of the oldest parts and that of the latest. This phenomenon is susceptible of several explanations. In the first place, nearly the whole of the Old Testament literature is religious in character, and as such the earliest writings would become the model for the later, just as the Koran—the first prose work composed in Arabic which has survived—has become the pattern for all future compositions. The same was true for many centuries of the influence of Aristophanes and Euripides upon the language of educated Greeks, and, it is said, of the influence of Confucius upon that of the learned Chinese.

4. The Cause Thereof:

But a chief cause is probably the fact that the Semitic languages do not vary with time, but with place. The Arabic vocabulary used in Morocco differs from that of Egypt, but the Arabic words used in each of these countries have remained the same for centuries—in fact, since Arabic began to be spoken in them. Similarly, the slight differences which are found in the various parts of the Old Testament are to be ascribed, not to a difference of date, but to the fact that some writers belonged to the Southern Kingdom, some to the Northern, some wrote in Palestine, some in Babylonia (compare Ne 13:23,24; Jud 12:6; 18:3).

5. Differences Due to Age:

The Old Testament literature falls into two main periods: that composed before and during the Babylonian exile, and that which falls after the exile. But even between these two periods the differences of language are comparatively slight, so that it is often difficult or impossible to say on linguistic grounds alone whether a particular chapter is pre-exilic or post-exilic, and scholars of the first rank often hold the most contrary opinions on these points. For instance, Dillmann places the so-called Document P (Priestly Code) before Document D (Deuteronomic Code) in the regal period, whereas most critics date D about 621 and P about 444 BC.

6. Differences of Style:

It is needless to add that the various writers differ from one another in point of style, but these variations are infinitesimal compared with those of Greek and Latin authors, and are due, as has been said above, largely to locality and environment. Thus the style of Hosea is quite different from that of his contemporary Amos, and that of Deutero-Isaiah shows very distinctly the mark of its place of composition.

7. Foreign Influences:

A much more potent factor in modifying the language was the influence of foreign languages upon Hebrew, especially in respect to vocabulary. The earliest of these was probably Egyptian but of much greater importance was Assyrian, from which Hebrew gained a large number of loan words. It is well known that the Babylonian script was used for commercial purposes throughout Southwestern Asia, even before the Hebrews entered Canaan (see TEXT AND MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT), but the influence of Babylon upon Palestine seems to have been greatly exaggerated. The main point of contact is in the mythology, which may have been common to both peoples. In the later, especially post-exilic stages of the language, many Aramaisms are found in respect to syntax as well as vocabulary; and in later phases still, Persian and even Greek words are found.

8. Poetry and Prose:

As in other languages, so in Hebrew, the vocabulary of the poetical literature differs from that of the prose writers. In Hebrew, however, there is not the hard-and-fast distinction between these two which obtains in the classics. Whenever prose becomes elevated by the importation of feeling, it falls into a natural rhythm which in Hebrew constitutes poetry. Thus most of the so-called prophetical books are poetical in form. Another mark of poetry is a return to archaic grammatical forms, especially the restoration of the final nun in the verb.

9. Home of the Hebrew Language:

The form of Semitic which was indigenous in the land of Canaan is sometimes called Middle Semitic. Before the Israelites entered the country, it was the language of the Canaanites from whom the Hebrews took it over. That Hebrew was not the language of Abraham before his migration appears from the fact that he is called an Aramean (De 26:5), and that Laban’s native language was Aramaic (Ge 31:47). A further point is that the word "Sea" is used for the West and "Negeb" for the South, indicating Palestine as the home of the language (so Isa 19:18).

10. Its Antiquity:

As the aboriginal inhabitants of the land of Canaan were not Semites, we cannot infer the existence of the Hebrew language any earlier than the first immigrations of Semites into Palestine, that is, during the third millennium BC. It would thus be a much younger member of the Semitic family than Assyrian-Babylonian, which exhibits all the marks of great antiquity long before the Hebrew language is met with.

11. When Hebrew Became a Dead Language:

The Babylonian exile sounded the death-knell of the Hebrew language. The educated classes were deported to Babylon or fled to Egypt, and those who remained were not slow to adopt the language used by their conquerors. The old Hebrew became a literary and sacred tongue, the language of everyday life being probably Aramaic. Whatever may be the exact meaning of Ne 8:8, it proves that the people of that time had extreme difficulty in understanding classical Hebrew when it was read to them. Yet for the purpose of religion, the old language continued to be employed for several centuries. For patriotic reasons it was used by the Maccabees, and by Bar Cochba (135 AD).

LITERATURE.

Gesenius, Geschichte der hebr. Sprache und Schrift; Bertheau, "Hebr. Sprache" in RE, 2nd edition; see also "Literature" in the following section.

III. Chief Characteristics of Hebrew.

The special marks which particularly distinguish a language may be found in its alphabet, in its mode of inflection, or in its syntax.

1. Characteristic Sounds:

The Hebrew alphabet is characterized by the large number of guttural sounds which it contains, and these are not mere palatals like the Scotch or German chapter, but true throat sounds, such as are not found in the Aryan languages. Hence, when the Phoenician alphabet passed over into Greece, these unpronounceable sounds, " ‘ "(‘ ayin), "ch" (cheth), "h" (he), "‘ " (’aleph) were changed into vowels, A, E, H, O. In Hebrew the guttural letters predominate. "In the Hebrew dictionaries the four gutturals occupy considerably more than a fourth part of the volume; the remaining eighteen letters occupying considerably less than three-fourths." Besides the guttural, there are three strong consonants "m" (mem), "q" (qoph), and "ts" (tsade), which are sounded with compression of the larynx, and are quite different from our "t," "k" and "s." In Greek, the first was softened into a "th" (theta), the other two were dropped as letters but retained as numerals.

2. Letters Representing Two Sounds:

Though the Hebrew alphabet comprises no more than 22 letters, these represent some 30 different sounds, for the 6 letters b, g, d, k, p and t, when they fall immediately after a vowel, are pronounced bh(v), gh, dh, kh, ph (f) and th. Moreover, the gutturals "ch" (cheth) and " ‘ "(‘ ayin) each represent two distinct sounds, which are still in use in Arabic. The letter "h" is sometimes sounded at the end of a word as at the beginning.

3. Consonants Representing Vowels:

A peculiarity of the Hebrew alphabet is that the letters are all consonants. Four of these, however, were very early used to represent vowel and diphthong sounds, namely, "‘ "," h", "w" and "y". So long as Hebrew was a spoken language no other symbols than these 22 letters were used. It was not until the 7th century AD at the earliest that the well-known elaborate system of signs to represent the vowels and other sounds was invented (see TEXT AND MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT; TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT).

4. The Syllable:

A feature of the Hebrew language is that no word or syllable may begin with a vowel: every syllable begins with a consonant. This is also true of the other Semitic languages, except Assyrian-Babylonian. When in the course of word-formation a syllable would begin with a vowel, the slight consonant’ (’aleph) is prefixed. Moreover, more than two consonants may not stand without vowels intervening, as in the English word "strength." At most, two consonants may begin a syllable, and even so a slight vowel is sounded between them, as qero’. A word may end in two consonants without vowels, as ‘amart, but no word or syllable ends in more than two.

5. Three-Letter Roots:

The outstanding feature of the Semitic family of languages is the root, consisting of three consonants. Practically, the triliteral root is universal. There are a few roots with more than three letters, but many of the quadriliteral roots are formed by reduplication, as kabkab in Arabic. Many attempts have been made to reduce three-letter stems to two-letter by taking the factors common to several roots of identical meaning. Thus duwm, damah, damam, "to be still," seem all to come from a root d-m. It is more probable, however, that the root is always triliteral, but may appear in various forms.

6. Conjugations or Derived Stems:

From these triliteral roots all parts of the verbs are formed. The root, which, it ought to be stated, is not the infinitive, but the 3rd singular masculine perfect active, expresses the simple idea without qualification, as shabhar, "he broke." The idea of intensity is obtained by doubling the middle stem letter, as shibber, "he broke in fragments"; the passive is expressed by the u-vowel in the first place and the a-vowel in the last, as shubbar, "it was broken in fragments." The reflexive sense prefixes an "n" to the simple root, or a "t" (taw) to the intensive, but the former of these is often used as a passive, as nishbar, "it was broken," hithqaddesh, "he sanctified himself." The causative meaning is given by prefixing the letter "h", as malakh, "he was king," himlikh, "he caused (one) to be king." A somewhat similar method of verb building is found outside the Semitic language, for example, in Turkish. In some of these Semitic languages the number of formations is very numerous. In Hebrew also there are traces of stems other than those generally in use.

7. Absence of Tenses:

There are no tenses in Hebrew, in our sense of the word. There are two states, usually called tenses, the perfect and the imperfect. In the first the action is regarded as accomplished, whether in the past or future, as shabhar, "he broke," "he has broken," "he will have broken," or (in prophetic narrative) "he will break"; in the second, the action is regarded as uncompleted, "he will break," "he was breaking," "he is breaking," etc. The present is often expressed by the participle.

8. The Pronouns:

The different persons, singular and plural, are expressed by affixing to the perfect, and by prefixing to the imperfect, fragments of the personal pronouns, as shabharti, "I broke," shabharnu, "we broke," nishbor, "we will break," and so on. The fragments which are added to the perfect to express the nominative of the pronouns are, with some modification, especially the change of "t" into "k", added to the verb to express the accusative, and to the noun to express the genitive; for example, shabharta, "you broke," shebharekha, "he broke you," bethekha, "your house"; capharnu, "we counted," cepharanu, "he counted us," ciphrenu, "our book."

9. Formation of Nouns:

The same principles are followed in regard to the noun as to the verb. Many nouns consist solely of the three stem-letters articulated with one or with two vowels, except that monosyllables generally become dissyllabic, owing to the difficulty of pronouncing two vowelless consonants together: thus, melekh, "king," cepher, "book," goren, "threshingfloor" (instead of malk, ciphr, gorn), dabhar, "a word or thing," qarobh, "near." Nouns denoting place, instrument, etc., are often formed by prefixing the letter "m" to the root, as mishpat, "justice" from shaphat, "he judged," mazlegh, "a fork." Intensity is, given to the root idea, as in the verb, by doubling the middle consonant: thus, choresh "working," charash (for charrash), "workman"; gonebh, "stealing," gannabh, "a thief." Similarly, words denoting incurable physical defects, ‘illem, "dumb," ‘iwwer, "blind," cheresh (for chirresh), "deaf and dumb." The feminine of nouns, as of the 3rd person of verbs, is formed by adding the letter "t", which when final is softened to "h", gebhirah, "queen-mother," "mistress," but gebhirtekh, "your mistress."

10. Internal Inflexion:

The inflexion of both verbs and nouns is accompanied by a constant lengthening or shortening of the vowels of the word, and this according to two opposite lines. In verbs with vowel-affixes the penultimate vowel disappears, as halakh, "he went," halekhu, "they went"; in the noun the ante-penultimate vowel disappears, as dabhar, "a word," plural debharim. As the vowel system, as stated above, is very late, the vocalization cannot be accepted as that of the living tongue. It represents rather the cantillation of the synagogue; and for this purpose, accents, which had a musical as well as an interpunctional value, have been added.

11. Syntax of the Verb:

Hebrew syntax is remarkable for its simplicity. Simple sentences predominate and are usually connected by the conjunction "and." Subordinate sentences are comparatively rare, but descriptive and temporal clauses are not uncommon. In the main narrative, the predicates are placed at the beginning of the sentence, first simply in the root form (3rd singular masculine), and then only when the subject has been mentioned does the predicate agree with it. Descriptive and temporal clauses may be recognized by their having the subject at the beginning (e.g. Ge 1:2). A curious turn is given to the narrative by the fact that in the main sentences, if the first verb is perfect, those which follow are imperfect, and vice versa, the conjunction which coordinates them receiving a peculiar vocalization—that of the definite article. In the English Bible, descriptive and temporal clauses are often rendered as if they were parts of the main sentence, for example, in the first verses of Genesis of which the literal translation is somewhat as follows: "At the beginning of God’s creating heaven and earth, when the earth was without form and void, and God’s spirit (or, a great wind) moved upon the face of the water, God said, Let there be light." It will thus be seen that the structure of Hebrew narrative is not so simple as it appears.

12. Syntax of the Noun:

In the Semitic languages, compound words do not occur, but this deficiency is made up by what is called the construct state. The old rule, that the second of two nouns which depend on one another is put in the genitive, becomes, in Hebrew, the first of two such nouns is put in the construct state. The noun in the construct state loses the definite article, and all its vowels are made as short as possible, just as if it were the beginning of a long word: for example, ha-bayith, "the house," but beth ha-melekh, "the house of the king," "the palace"; dabhar, "a word," but dibhere ruach, "words of wind," "windy words."

13. Poverty of Adjectives:

The Hebrew language is very poor in adjectives, but this is made up for by a special use of the construct state just mentioned. Thus to express magnitude the word "God" is added in the gen. case, as in the example above (Ge 1:2), "a mighty wind" = a wind of God; Ps 36:6, "the lofty mountains" = the mountains of God (so 68:15); 80:10, "goodly cedars" = cedars of God; so "a holy man" = a man of God; "the sacred box" = the ark of God, and so on; compare in the New Testament, Mt 27:54, "the son of God" = Lu 23:47, "a righteous (man)." Matthew was thinking in Aramaic, Luke in Greek. A similar use is made of other words, e.g. "stubborn" = hard of neck; "impudent" = hard of face; "extensive" = broad of hands; "miserable" = bitter of soul.

LITERATURE.

The articles on the Hebrew Language in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexikon, 1875, by Noldeke; in Encyclopedia Brit, 9th edition, by Robertson Smith; 11th edition by Noldeke; in the Imperial Bible Dict., 1866, by T. H. Weir; also those in HDB, EB.

Grammars:

A. B. Davidson’s Elementary Heb Grammar and Syntax; Gesenius, Heb Grammar, English translation by Cowley, 2nd edition.

Dictionaries:

Brown, Briggs and Driver, Hebrew and English Lexicon; Gesenius, Handworterbuch, 15th edition; Feyerabend, Hebrew-English Pocket Dictionary; Breslau, English and Hebrew Dictionary.

IV. Biblical Aramaic.

1. Aramaic Portions of the Old Testament:

The Aramaic portions of the Old Testament are the following: Ezr 4:8-6:18; 7:11-26; Da 2:4-7:28; Ge 31:47 (two words); Jer 10:11. The language in which they are written used to be called Chaldee, but is now generally known simply as Biblical Aramaic. It represents a further declension from classical Semitic as compared with the Hebrew. The following are the principal points in which Biblical Aramaic differs from Hebrew.

2. Phonology:

The accent is placed on the last syllable, the first vowel disappearing, e.g. ‘abhadh for Hebrew ‘abhadh. It is curious that the same feature is found in Algerene and Moroccan Arabic: thus qacr becomes qcar. Dentals take the place of sibilants: dehabh for zahabh; telath for shalosh. The strong Hebrew "ts" (tsade) frequently becomes " ‘ "(‘ ayin), and Hebrew " ‘ "(‘ ayin) becomes "‘ " (’aleph): thus, ‘ar‘a’ for ‘erets; ‘uq for tsuq.

3. Grammar:

In Hebrew the definite article is the prefix hal (ha-); in Aramaic the affix a’; the latter, however, has almost lost its force. The dual is even more sparingly used than in Hebrew. The passive forms of verbs and those beginning with nun ("n") are practically wanting; the passive or reflexive forms are made by prefixing the letter "t" to the corresponding active forms, and that much more regularly than in Hebrew, there being three active and three passive forms.

4. Syntax:

In regard to syntax there is to be noted the frequent use of the participle instead of a finite verb, as in Hebrew; the disuse of the conjunction "and" with the vocalization of the article; and the disuse of the construct state in nouns, instead of which a circumlocution with the relative di is employed, e.g. tselem di dhehabh, "an image of gold." The same periphrasis is found also in West African Arabic.

5. Aramaic More Decadent than Hebrew:

It will thus be seen that if Hebrew represents a decadent form of an original classical language which was very similar to classical Arabic, Biblical Arabic stands on a still lower level. It is not to be supposed that Hebrew passed into Aramaic, though on the analogy of Arabic that view is not untenable. Rather, the different Semitic languages became fixed at different epochs. Arabic as a literary language crystallized almost at the source; Hebrew and the spoken Arabic of the East far down the stream; and Aramaic and Moroccan Arabic farthest down of all.

LITERATURE.

Kautzsch, Grammatik; Strack, Abriss des bibl. Aramaisch; Marti, Bibl. aram. Sprache; the articles on "Aramaic" or "Chaldee" in the Biblical Dicts. cited under III, and article ARAMAIC LANGUAGE in this Encyclopedia; the Hebrew text of Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, edition by Baer. Hebrew Dictionaries. generally include Biblical Aramaic.

V. Literary Characteristics of the Semites.

1. Concrete and Abstract:

The thinking of the Hebrews, like that of other Semites, was done, not in the abstract, but in the concrete. Thus, we find the material put for the immaterial, the expression for the thought, the instrument for the action, the action for the feeling. This mode of expression frequently gives rise to striking anthropomorphisms. Thus we have the eye for watchfulness or care (Ps 33:18); the long hand for far-reaching powers (Isa 59:1); broken teeth for defeated malice (Ps 3:7); the sword for slaughter (Ps 78:62); haughty eyes for superciliousness (Pr 6:17); to say in the heart for to think (Ps 10:6). It would be an interesting study to examine to what extent these expressions have been taken over from Hebrew into English.

2. View of Nature:

3. Pictorial Imagination:

The highly imaginative nature of the Hebrew comes into play when he is recounting past events or writing history. To his mind’s eye all past events are present. He sees history taking place before his eyes as in a picture. Thus the perfect may generally be translated by the English past tense with "have," the imperfect by the English present tense with "is" or "is going to." In livelier style the participle is used: "They are entering the city, and behold Samuel is coming out to meet them" (1Sa 9:14). Hence, the oratio recta is always used in preference to the oratio obliqua. Moreover, the historian writes exactly as the professional story-teller narrates. Hence, he is always repeating himself and returning upon his own words (1Sa 5:1,2).

4. Prose and Poetry:

A result of the above facts is that there is no hard-and-fast distinction in Hebrew between prose and poetry. Neither is there in Hebrew, or in the Semitic language generally, epic or dramatic poetry, because their prose possesses these qualities in a greater degree than does the poetry of other races. All Hebrew poetry is lyric or didactic. In it there is no rhyme nor meter. The nearest approach to meter is what is called the qinah strophe, in which each verse consists of two parallel members, each member having five words divided into three and then two. The best example of this is to be found in Ps 19:7-9, and also in the Book of LAMENTATIONS (which see), from which the verse has received its name.

5. Hebrew Easy of Translation:

From the above description it may be inferred that the language of the Old Testament is one extremely easy of translation into foreign tongues without loss of meaning or rhythm, though it would be extremely difficult to render any modern language into classical Hebrew. Hence, the Psalms, for example, are as fine in their German or English versions as they are in the original. Where the Old Testament has been translated into the language of the country, it has become a classic. The English Bible is as important for the study of the English language as are the plays of Shakespeare.

LITERATURE.

In addition to the articles cited under III, Herder. The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, translation by J. Marsh, 1833; Ed. Konig, Stilistik, Rhetorik, Poetik in Bezug auf die bibl. Litt. komparativisch dargestellt, 1900; the same author’s brochure on the "Style of Scripture" in HDB, volume V; J. F. McCurdy on the "Semites" in the same volume; J. Kennedy, Hebrew Synonyms.

Thomas Hunter Weir