Meanwhile a new school of Hebrew philology had arisen under the leading of Jakob Alting and Johann Andr. Danz. The former in his Fundamenta puncfa- tionis lin//ucB sanctm sire Grammat. Hebr. (Gron. 1654), and the latter in his Nucifrancjibulum (Jena, 1686), and other works, endeavoreil to show that the phanomena which the Hebrew exhibited in a g-rammatical respect, the flexions, etc., had their basis in essential properties of the language, and coidd be rationally evolved from principles. Pecidiar to them is the '■ sj'stema mora- rum," a highly artificial method of determining the placing of long or short vowels, according to the number of morce appertaining to each or to the consonant fol- lowing, a method which led to endless niceties, and no small amount of learned trifling. The ihndamental principle, however, which Alting and Danz asserted is a true one, and their assertion of it was not without fruits. Nearly contemporary with them was Jacques Gousset, professor at Grijningen, who devoted much time and labor to the preparation of a work entitled Commentarii LAnr/. lleb. (Amst. 1702), in which he fol- lows strictly the method of deducing the meanings of the Hebrew words from the Hebrew itself, rejecting all aid from rabbins, versions, or dialects. The chief merit of Gousset and his followers, of whom the principal is Chr. Stock {Claris Ling. Sanct. V. et N. Ti. Lips. 1725), consists in the close attention they paid to the usus lo- qiunli of Scripture, and Hiivemick thinks that adequate justice has not been done to Gousset's services m this respect {Lttrod. to 0. T. p. 221. Eng. trans.).
Hitherto not much attention had been paid to ety- mology as a source for detemiining the meaning of Hebrew words. This defect was in part remedied by Caspar Xeumann and Valentin Liischer, the former of whum in different treatises, tlie latter in his treatise Be Cau.iis Ling. llib. (FraukC. aiul Leipsic, 1706), set forth the principle that the Heljrew roots are biliterw, that these are the " characteres signiticationis," as Neumann called them, or the " semina vocum," as they were des-
ignated by Loscher, and that from them the triliterals, of which the Hebrew is chiefly composed, were formed. They contended also that the fundamental meaning of the bihterals is to be ascertained from the meaning of the letters composmg each, and for this purjjose they assigned to each letter what the former called " signiti- catio hieroglyphica," and the latter "valor logicus." This last is the most dubious part of their system ; but, as a whole, their views are worthy of respect and con- sideration (see Hupfeldji^e emendanda lexicog.Hemit. ru- tione, p. 3).
A great advance was made in the beginning of the 18th century by the rise almost simidtaneously of two rival schools of Hebrew philology — the Dutch school, headed by Albert Schultens, and the school of Halle, fomided by the Michaelis family. In the former the predominating tendency was towards the almost exclu- sive use of the Arabic for the illustration of Hebrew grammar and lexicography. Schidtens himself was a thorough Ai-abic scholar, and he carried his principle of appealing to that source for the elucidation of the Hebrew to an extent wluch betrayed him into many mistakes and extravagances; nevertheless, to his labors Hebrew philology owes an imperishable debt of obliga- tion. Besides his commentaries on Job and Proverbs, which are full of grammatical and lexicographical dis- quisition, he -wrote Origines Ilebrcece sen lleb. Ling, anti- quissima natura et indoles ex A rabice penetralibus revo- cata (Frankfort, 1723), and Lnstituiiones adjumlamenta LJng. Heb. (Leyd. 1737). To this school belongs Schro- der, professor at Groningen, who published in 1776 a Hebrew grammar of great excellence, and which has passed through many editions, under the same title as the second of the works of Schultens above noted ; and Robertson, professor at Edinburgh (Grammaiica Hebr. Edinb. 1783, 2d ed.). Both these works excel that of Schultens in clearness and simpUcity, and in neither is the Arabic theory so exclusively adliered to. Yenema, as a commentator, was also one of the luminaries of this school.
The school of Hallo v.-as founded by Johann Heinrich and Christian Bencdikt Michaelis, but its principal orna- ment in its earlier stage was the son of the latter, John David, professor at Gottingen. See Michaelis. The principle of this school was to combine the use of all the sources of elucidation for the Hebrew — the cognate dia- lects, especially the Aramaic, the versions, the rabbin- ical writings, etymolog^', and the Hebrew itself as ex- hibited in the sacred Avritings. The valuable edition of the Hebrew Bible, with exegetical notes, the conjoint work of J. H. and Christ. B. ]\Iichaelis, some grammat- ical essays by the latter, and the Llebrdische Gramma- tik (Halie, 1744), the Supplementa ad lexica Llebraica (6 parts, Gott. 1785-92), and several smaller essays of John David, comprise the principal contributions of this illus- trious family to Hebrew learning. To their school be- long the majority of more recent German Hebraists — Moser {Lex. Man. Heb. et Chald. I'lni. 17lt5),Vater {Heb. Spruchlehre, Lpz. 1797), Ilartmanu {Anjangsgriinde der Ifeb. Spraclie, JIarbiu-g, \~W), Jahn {Grammaiica LJng. Heb. 1809), and the facile princeps of the whole, Gese- nius {Llebr. Lhi/tsches Himdwurterbuch, Lpz. 1810-12, and later; lleb. Grammutik, Halle, 1813, and often since; Ge- schichte der Jleb. Spr. uivl Schrift, 1815, and since ; A ns- fiihrliches Gram.-Krit. Lehrgebaude der Heb. Spr. 1817; 'Lexicon Manuale, 1833, and later; Thesaurus Phil. Crit. Ling. Hebr. et Ch<dd. Lpz. 1835-1858). See Gesenius. Gesenius has been followed closely by Moses Stuart in his Grammar <if the Hebrew Language, of which many editions have ajipeared. Lender the Halle school may also be ranked Joh. Simonis {Onomast. Vet. Test. Halle, 1741; Lexicon Man. Heb. et Chald. 1756; re-ecUted by Eichhorn in 1793, and with valuable improvements by Winer in 1828) ; but, though a pupil of Jlichaelis, Si- monis shows a strong leanmg towards the school of Schultens,