tenacity and aversion to change still more decidedly, the books of the great teacher Confucius being written in language not essantially different from that of his commentators fifteen hundred j'ears later. So we are ini"ormed by a writer of the 15th century that the Greeks, at least the more cultivated class, even iu his day spoke the language of Aristophanes and Euripides, maintaining the ancient stantlard of elegance and purity (Gil)bon, viii, 10{j). Or, to take another example more closely related to the Hebrew, it is well known that the ^\Titten Arabic of the present day does not differ greatly from that of the first centuries after Jlohammed. In each of the cases just mentioned, it is probable that the lan- guage was as it were stereotyped by becoming the lan- guage of books held in highest esteem and reverence, diligently studied by the learned, frequently committed to memory, and adopted as a model of style by succeed- ing writers. Now, may not the sacred writings of the jNIosaic age have had a similar influence on the written Hebrew of the following ages, which continued undis- turbed till the Captivity, or even later? We know how greatly the translations of the Bible into English and German have affected the language and literature of England and Germany ever since they were given to the world. But among a people like the ancient He- brews, living to a certain extent apart from other na- tions, with a literature of no great extent, and a learned class specially engaged in the study and transcription of the sacred ^vTitings, we may well suppose that the influence of these writings upon the form of the nation- al language must have been much more decided and permanent. The learned men would naturally adopt in their compositions the language of the books which had been their study from youth, and large portions of which they were probably able to repeat from memory. Thus the language of these old books, though it might differ in some respects from that spoken by the common people, woidd naturally become the language of the learned and of books, especially of those books on sacred subjects, such as have alone come down to ns from an- cient Israel. In explanation of the fact under discus- sion, appeal has also been made ((/) to the pemianence of Eastern customs, and (6) to the simple structure of the Hebrew language, which rendered it less liable to change than other more largely developed languages (see Ewald, Ileb. Gram. § 7). It has also been remarked that some of the peculiarities of the early writings may be concealed from view by the uniformity of the sys- tem of punctiiation adopted and .applied to the Scrip- tures by the Hebrew grammarians.
In the canonical books belonging to the first period the Hebrew language thus appears in a state of mature development. Although it still jireserves the charms of freshness and simplicity, j^et it has attained great regularity of formation, and such a precision of syntac- tical arrangement as insures both energy and distinct- ness. Some common notions of its laxity and indefi- niteness have no other foundation than the very inade- quate scholarship of the persons who form them. A clearer insight into the organism of language absolutely, joined to such a study of the cognate SjTO-Arabian idioms as would reveal the secret, but no less certain, laws of its sjmtactical coherence, would show them to what degree the simplicity of Hebrew is compatible with grammatical precision. One of the most remark- able features in the language of this jjeriod is the differ- ence which tUstinguishes the diction of jioetrv from that of prose. This difference consists in the use of im- usual words and flexions (many of which are considered to be Aramaisms or archaisms, although in this case these terms are nearly identical), and in a harmonic ar- rangement of thoughts, as seen both in the parallelism of members in a single verse, and in the strophic order of larger portions, the delicate art of which E^vald has traced with pre-eminent success in his Poetische Bitcher des A he Bitiules, vol. i.
The Babylonian Captivity is assigned as the com"
HEBREW LANGUAGE
136 HEBREW LANGUAGE
guistic peculiarities of the separate books of Scripture are to be accounted for on this hypothesis.
3. When the Hebrew Lanf/uage ceased to he a living Language. — The Jewish tradition, credited by Kinichi, is to the effect that the Hebrew language ceased to be spoken by the body of the people during their captivity in Babylon ; and this is the opinion of many Christian scholars also, among whom are Buxtorf and '\^'alton. Others, as Pfeiffer and Loscher, argue that it is quite unreasonable, considering the diu-ation and other cir- cumstances of the Exile, to suppose that the Jews did not retain the partial use of their native tongue for some time after their return to Palestine, and lose it by slow degrees at last. There can be no doubt that the Hebrew was never spoken in its purity after the return from captivity ; but that it ceased altogether to be the language of the people after that period, and was re- tained only as the language of books and of the learned, has not been est^blislied. The principal evidence re- lied on by those who hold this opinion is derived from Neh. viii, 8 : " So they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." Distinctly, "O^fO, i. e. says Hengstenberg, "with the addition of a translation" {Genuineness of Daniel, ch. iii, sec. 5). But, though this gloss has some support in Jewish tradition, it is at va- riance both with Hebrew and with Chaldee usage. ^"iS'Q means made clear or distinct, as is eviilent from Numb. XV, 34: (the meaning of "d^STO, in Ezra iv, 18, is disputed); and UJ"iST3 ^^"'p'?^ can scarcely be other- wise rendered than " t/iey read distinctly" (see the Lexi- cons of Cocceius, Gesenius, and Furst; Buxtorf and Gussetius render by exjilanate, explicate). This, indeed, is evident from the context; for if we should render with Hengstenberg, " They read it with the addition of a translation," to what purpose the clause which follows, " ami gave the sense," etc. ? At the same time, though this passage does not furnish sufficient evidence to prove that in the time of Nehemiah Hebrew had ceased to be the language of every-day life, it does seem to point to the conclusion that at that time it had considerably de- generated from its ancient purity, so that the common people had some ditficulty in understanding the lan- guage of their ancient sacred books. Still we believe that the Hebrew element predominated, and, instead of describing, with Walton {Prolegom. iii, sec. 24), the lan- guage of the Jews on their return from exile as ^'Chal- dee rcith a certain admixtiire of Ifebrew," we should rather describe it as Ilehreto tcitk a large admixture of Chaldee. Only on this hypothesis does it appear possi- ble satisfactorily to account for the fact that Hebrew continued even after this period to be the language of prophets and preachers, historians and poets, wliile there is no trace of any similar use of the Chaldee among the Jews of Palestine (compare also Neh. xiii, 24).