A. MACALISTER.
LESHEM (o25).—A form, occurring only in Jos 1947 és, of the name Laish (which see). Wellh. (de Gentibus, ete. 47) emends o%9, which is admitted by Dillm. to have been ‘perhaps’ the original pronunciation.
LESSAU (A Λεσσαού, V“4 Δεεσαού).---Α village (κώμη) where an encounter took place between the Jews and Nicanor, 2 Mac 14" The site is un- known, and the text is uncertain. Dessau of AV may be due to the frequent interchange of A and A in uncial Greek, or (as Ewald conjectured) it may be another form of Adasa (cf. 1 Mac 7*’).
LET.—There are two Anglo-Saxon verbs some- what alike in spelling but directly opposite in meaning, letan to permit, and /ettan to hinder. Iu middle English /etan became /eten, and lettan became letten, and they were still distinguishable. The double ¢ was kept by careful writers in the verb meaning ‘to hinder,’ or the subst. meaning ‘hindrance,’ as by Milton in Areopagitica (Hales ed. Ρ. 57, 1. 1), ‘evill hath abounded in the Church by this lett of licencing.’ But when it was dropped there was no way, except by the general sense of the passage, of distinguishing two words whose meanings were so different that a mistake was equivalent to the insertion or omission of a not. In AV the verb occurs six times with the sense of ‘hinder,’ and is always spelt in the ed. of 1611 with one ¢, Ex 54 ‘Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works?’ (ΕΒ, RV ‘loose’); Nu 22)6man. ‘Be not thou letted from coming unto me’ (text, ‘Let nothing hinder thee’); Is 43% ‘I will work, and who shail let it?’ (a2, AVm ‘shall turn it back,’ RVm ‘reverse it’); Wis 7% ‘an understanding spirit . . . which cannot be letted’ (ἀκώλυτον, RV “unhindered’); Ro 18 ‘oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto)’ (ἐκωλύθην, RV ‘was hindered’); 2 Th 2’ ‘only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way’ (ὁ κατέχων, RV ‘one that restraineth’). The verb veeurs also in Pr. Bk., Collect for 4th Sun. in Advent, ‘ we are sore let and hindered in runnin the race that is set before us.’ In the Pr. Bk. 0 1552, 1559, and 1604 (Communion), we read, ‘It is an easy matter for a man to say, I will not com- municate, because I am otherwise letted with worldly business’; but in 1662 ‘letted’ was changed into ‘hindered.’ earlier versions which have been changed in AV are Job 31°! Cov. ‘Yet they of myne owne hons- holde saye: who shal let us, to have oure bely ful
of his flesh?’ 1 P 37 Tind. ‘that youre prayers be |
Examples from the |
not let.’ Cranmer is fond of the word, frequently using it along with one or more synonyms, as Works, i. 82, ‘she wrote letters to the ress callin: upon him in God’s behalf to stop and let the sai marriage’; p. 85, ‘do not interrupt, let, or hinder the said David.’
As a subst. ‘let’ is found in AV only in the heading to Dt 15, ‘It must be no let of lending or giving.’ It occurs occasionally in Pr. Bk. In the Preface to the Scotch Liturgy of 1637 we read, * After many lets and hindrances, the same cometh now to be published, to the good, we trust, of all God’s people, and the increase of true piety, and sincere devotion amongst them.’ ‘In all our pro- mises,’ says Tindale (Zxpos. p. 57), ‘it is to be added, If God will, and If there be no lawful let.’
J. HASTINGS.
LETHECH occurs in AVm and RVm of Hos 3? instead of ‘an half homer’ which is read in the text of both AV and RV. Both the original read- ing of the passage and the capacity of the measure (2), called dethech, are uncertain. For the MT onyy and the LXX reads νέβελ οἴνου, ‘a skin of wine,’ which may or may not imply that a different Heb. text from the present lay before the Greek translator (see Nowack, ad loc.). According to Jewish tradition, the lethech=4 homer=4 bushels. See art. WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. It has been computed that the whole amount of grain here menticned would have been equal in value to 15 shekels of silver, so that the price paid by Hosea in money and kind together would be 30 shekels. He thus re-acquired his wife for the cost of a slave (ef. Ex 2183). J. A. SELBIE.
LE£TER.—See EPIsTLeE. Η
LETUSHIM (nvind, Λατουσιείμ) and LEUMMIM (oraxd, Aowu(c)efu).—Sons of Dedan, Gn 25%. The MT gives the names of Dedan’s sons as Ashurim, Letushim, and Leummim; but the LXX prefixes to this list Raguel (Ῥαγουήλ) and Nabdeel (Ναβδεήλ). The three given by the MT are pointed as plurals, and hence were regarded by some ancient inter- preters as descriptive epithets (so Targ. Onk.); and the third of the names, Lewmmim (‘nations ἢ in Heb.), lends itself well to that explanation ; some races which the ethnologist chose to classify among Dedanites may have been known as ‘nations’ or ‘hordes,’ just as the Berbers are called by the Arabs Kaba il or ‘tribes,’ and their language Kabili. For Letushim the Rabbis (Rashi, ad loc.) suggest an etymology from the Hebrew verb wy; meaning ‘scattered’; they can indeec point with justice to the interchange of > and ; at the beginning of words, but this explanation does not seem satisfactory. The apparent con- nexion of this word with the verb #z> ‘to sharpen’ is rather in favour of the view (taken by Steiner in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lewxicon) that the words repre- sent names of trades; and such a classification would bear a curious likeness to that of the S. Arabian Parias, some of whom are called Πα ik, ‘weavers,’ ete. (Maltzan, Reisen in Arabien, i. 190, 191). The greater number of authorities, however, regard these words as proper names, and Letushim has been compared with ww»? of some Nabatian inscriptions (Ley, ZDMG xiv. 403, 404), while a name resembling Leummim has been found in a Sabeean inscription (Oxf. Heb. Lex.). If they are personal names, the final Ὁ could be more easily explained from Sabiean than from Nabatsan. Glaser (Shizze, ii. 461) thinks the home of the tribes thus designated is to be sought i the Sinaitie peninsula, but he throws no new light on the name. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH.