ronunciation,{] and set value on correct speech ; **
ut it is improbable that their power of judging this matter went beyond questions of intonation and accent: throughout the OT there is scarcely a grammatical term to be found ; and though several of the writers have a fondness for etymologizing,++ the cases in which modern scholars regard their efforts as successful are rare. The result of the want of grammatical training is apparent in even the most classical portions of the or Where the writers have to do with quite ordinary words and notions, their language is regular; but so soon as this region is left, it becomes tentative, and it is partly due to the variety of these experiments that the Hebrew grammars reach a bulk that is out of all proportion to the literature with which they have to deal. Thus, where the prophets have to address companies of women, we find no certainty about the grammatical terminations ; Isaiah (399-13) tries three different ways of forming the imperative to be employed in such a case; Ezekiel (1370-22) tries three ways of forming the pronominal suffix. The attempts made to form the infinitives of the conjugation Niphal, and indeed of all the derived conjugations, are very varied. Other curious
"eg. paoye Jos 1943, ἽΝ 2132,
t So in a Citian inscription we find the pluperfect formed by apposition of 13 kdna as in classical Arabic; Heb. has neither the old substantive verb nor the construction.
+ Compare especially line 12 with Is 3781 23 md δῦ πον Ὁ elsewhere the adverb used with UW is non NA (id.) in the sense of ‘ beauty’ occurs Is 682, winuin nom is a favourite phrase with Koheleth, who, however, is probably later than the inscription. The commencement bears a curious likeness to Hezekiah’s hymn, Is 3816,
ἘΝ ee Gaels Israels.
erhaps an exce’
AS pry ption should be made in favour of geegraphy.
** Heb. 13 137 Jg 126.
tt Ezk 2029 is perhaps the most curious.
LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TEST.
LANGUAGE OF THE OLD TEST. 31
specimens of uncertainty as to the right form are to be found in Jos 61" “5, Dt 2” 37, Jer 51° ete.
The state in which the text of the OT has come down to us renders it difficult to speak positively on this matter ; but perhaps the result of a com- parison of the few duplicate texts which we possess is such as to show that philological considerations did not concern the editors and copyists who were also the authors of the historical texts. The alterations introduced merely through the absence of any idea of accuracy and without any religious or political interest, such as are to be observed in the parallel texts of Jos 15%" and Jg 11", Is 25: and Mie 4!8, or Is 36-39 and 2 K 18-20, suggest the impossibility of basing a grammatical system on books so preserved; for it is clear that the copyist’s licence extends so far as the substitution not only of synonyms, at least for ordinary ideas, but of what to the copyist seemed ead gram- matical forms for one another, this latter licence including not only orthography, but what seem to us most serious syntactical variations, resulting in what to the rigid grammarian might seem grave errors, though the general sense is not affected. It is unfortunate that the duplicate texts of Ps 14 and 53, Ps 18 and 2S 22, and of the oracles common to Nu, Is, and Jer, in which the language is from the nature of the subject choice and obscure, reveal an amount of licence on the copyist’s part that is far greater than what appears where the texts are easy. How much, therefore, that is abnormal in our text is due to the original authors and how much to the hands through which it has passed, cannot without fresh discovery of MSS be ascertained; but it seems likely that if there had been Hebrew grammarians as well as writing-masters in any pre-Christian century, the sphere of the optional in Hebrew grammar would have been reduced to narrower limits. There are forms in the existing text of the OT which might suggest vast surmises as to the extent to which a Palestinian could have observed the rules of Arabic grammar without being unintelligible.*
Owing to the fact that the language was never fixed by organized study, the distinction of dialects and periods is hazardous ; and the very different opinions that excellent scholars have held about the time and place to which portions of the OT belong, show that there is little definite to be said about these matters. We learn from Jg 12° that an Ephraimite could not pronounce the letter ὦ correctly ; but it by no means follows that his writ- ing would show any signs of this inability. Some scholars have attempted to distinguish two dialects in the OT, others three (North Palestinian, South Palestinian or Simeonic, and Jewish: so Bottcher, Lehrb. i. 15 ff.), but it may be doubted whether there is a single grammatical form which can with safety be said to belong to one dialect rather than another. If it be the case that revisers have introduced uniformity where there were previously marked differences, we cannot now get penn’ their work. It is, however, possible to note in several of the OT narratives peculiar words or usages which may have been characteristic of the tribes from which those narratives emanated, though the extent of the literature at our command does not justify us in asserting this positively. Thus mp (Jg 13°) may be Danite for ‘razor’ (Arab. misa), vee (dg 11°) Gileadite for ‘witness’ (Eth. samd@i; ef. Pr 21%), wa Manassite for ‘to rule’ (Jg 913). Several other curious phrases occur in the history of