fine our views to the casualities of hurried translations and bad readings, to the facility of the copyist in book-making, instead of the laborious study of the investigator?

This circumstance, from whatever cause it may have sprung, will impose on us some labour to show the correctness of our proposition, to wit, the word 7 ebed, however used, and in whatever form, is never used in Hebrew disconnected from the idea of slavery.

We first propose to show that the Hebrew is abundantly supplied with words to express all these other meanings, disconnected with the idea of slavery.

Aware that such examination may be extremely uninteresting to the most of us, yet, deeming it of great importance to our subject, we humbly ask indulgence, while we examine a few of the most leading terms as examples, whose significations have been appropriated to the word ebed.

LESSON II.

BUT, before we enter into such examination, it to remark that the Hebrew, in common with all the Shemitic lanproper may be guages, makes abundant use of what we call rhetorical figures. The word ben means a son; but by prosopopœia it is made to mean an arrow. Thus, Lam. iii. 13, "He hath caused the arrows of his quiver," in beney, ashpatho-literally, the sons of his quiver, from the notion that the arrow is the produce, issue, adjunct, &c. of the quiver. We might quote a great number of instances where the word ben, by the same figure, is used to express some other idea than son, yet never unassociated with the primitive idea; but, what would be the value of the lexicographical assertion that this word in Hebrew meant an arrow? The following fifteen verses are wholly of the same character: "He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunk with wormwood."

The Arabians have a common way of expressing "one of great affliction," by saying that he is a "wormwood beater." Yet the Arabic word that means affliction, by no means is synonymous of

wormwood.

The figure of Lamentations is also used in Ps. cxxvii. 4, 5: "As

awards are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them." Yet, the word in is in no sense a synonyme of whatever

word for which it is here figuratively used. A singular instance of this figure is found in Lam. ii. 13: "Let not the apple of thine eye cease;" 'n bath eynek, the daughter of the eye. The translators have understood this to mean the "pupil," otherwise called the apple of the eye; but, the word bath, daughter, shows that the thing meant is a produce of the eye; hence, it cannot mean the apple or pupil of the eye, but tears. But how stupid the page that shall put down as a signification of the word a bath, an apple, or the apple of the eye, or the pupil, or yet, what it here means, a tear?

is used to mean quite a בַת־בְּלִיַּעַל

These two words ben, a son, and bath, a daughter, sometimes beth, are associated in so many different forms of figure and in connection or compound with other Hebrew words, to express some complex idea, that, if each different idea thus conveyed was to be considered a legitimate signification of these words, their description would be quite lengthy, and contradictory; for instance, Gen. xxiv. 16, is used to mean a virgin. But, 1 Sam. i. 16, by is used to mean quite a different character, as if of different origin. In Eccl. xii. 4, jis generally understood to mean the voice of an old man. But in Dan. xi. 17, ban na is understood to mean a princess. We might multiply examples without number; yet, in all instances, the leading idea, a daughter, is ever present: other primitive words, whose signification was an idea of great and leading interest, will be found in similar use. And it may be remarked, that, at one age of the world, when a large proportion of the children of men were slaves, that the word signifying that condition would be naturally and exceedingly often used in a figurative manner. Even among us, our word servant, which, from use, has become merely a milder term to express the same idea, is in the mouth of every devout man, while slave is in constant use among the moral and political agitators of the day.

One among the causes of our finding in the lexicons so many and adverse significations of the word ebed, is the fact, that the Hebrew often expressed an adjective quality, by placing the substantive expressing the quality as if in apposition with the substantive qualified, thus, any they, slaves (not) spies;

they slaves, brethren, Gen. xlii. 11-18, 77

thy slave our father, Gen. xliii. 28.

In an analogous sense the word

or

אלהים

is used in 2 Kings i. 9, 10,

11, 12, 13. Also iv. 25 and 27, preceding a man of God, meaning one so wholly devoted to God as to partake of the divine nature. But such use in no manner changes the meaning of the word D. This mode of expressing quality, by placing one of the substantives in the genitive, is quite common even in the modern languages. Grammarians will also inform us that substantives are often used adverbially, designating the time, place, and quality of the action of the verb.

But again, the Hebrew adjectives are in disproportional scarcity to the substantives, which the language remedies by a kind of circumlocution; this, ' N a man (of) words, i. e. an eloquent man, as in Ex. iv. 10; the son of strength

אִישׁ דְּבָרִים,this

or worthy man, 1 Kings i. 52; i. e. the orientals, Gen. xxix. 1;

valiant

the sons of the East,

the son of death, i. e.

the daughter of

the of

doomed to death, 1 Sam. xx. 31; by-han baseness, i. e. a base woman, 1 Sam. i. 16. This use of language is common to our word, ebed, slave ;

אלהא

Q

Ny slaves of God, i. e. a man devoted to God, as a slave to a master, i. e. a man who most devotedly worships God, Dan. iii. 26; NOT slave of God, i. e. devoted worshipper of God, &c., Dan. vi. 21, the 20th of the English text; and to express this adjective quality, is thus compounded in Ezra v. 11, 7} slaves of God, i. e., devoted to God as slaves are to their masters, &c., to express the adjective qualities of devotion and obedience. This word is used and compounded with many other words in a great variety of instances.

But, doubtless, another cause which has led the lexicographers into the alleged error, is the peculiar disposition of the Hebrew, (common to all the Shemitic tongues) to express the idea intended, by expressing another to which it has a real or supposed analogy, either in primitive relation or in ultimate result. For example, let us take the word ben, a son, thus: Isa. v. 1, keren, here used to mean the top of a mountain, because they fancied an analogy between the top of a mountain and a horn. Ben, a son, shamen,

בֶּן

593 fat, son of fatness, is here used to mean a fruitful mountain. But, do these words acquire new significations from this figurative use of them? The sons of the quiver, i. e. arrows. Lem. iii. 13. Shall we say that ben, means an arrow? Ben kasheth, the son of the bow, (cannot make him flee,) i. e. the arrow, Job xli. 20, (the 28th of the English text.) Shall we indeed then say that ben means an arrow? Ben shahor, the son of blackness, here used to express night,-son of the night,-used to convey our idea, the morning star. Shall we say that ben means a star? or, that blackness means the morning? Isa. xiv., 12 ben yonah, the son of a dove, i. e. a young dove, a squab? Lev. xii. 6. Shall we say ben means a squab? Lev. xii. 8, beni yonah, sons of a dóve, i. e. two young doves or squabs. Shall we then, surely say that beni means two squabs? But, in Lev. xiv. 22, we have the same words used in the same sense: must we say that this word means squabs? bene oreb, the sons of the raven, i. e. young ravens, Ps. cxlvii. 9: does beni then mean young ravens also?, ben baker, the son of an ox, i. e. a calf, Ex. xxix. 1. What, does ben mean a calf? Num. xxix. 2–8, son of an ox, also; ben the son of an ox-meaning a calf, does ben most surely mean a calf? Job xxxix. 16, speaking of ostricheggs, calls them, ', the plural: what! does this word also mean osťrich-eggs? But, Eccl. ii. 7, canithi, I purchased, ebadim, male slaves, shepaphath, and female slaves, and sons, bayith, of my house, haya, there were, li, to me:—here' bené is used to express the idea "home-born slaves." But, shall we say that this word means such young slaves? Would such a catalogue of significations placed to the word ben, a son, be legitimate or truthful?

But, in Jer. ii. 14, we again find this word bayith, preceded by yelid, born of the house, meaning a house-born slave. The same words are used to mean the same thing in Gen. xiv. 14, meaning house-born slaves; and again, Gen. xvii. 12, meaning a house-born slave; also, idem. 13, meaning a slave born in thy house-thy house-born slave.

God did not speak to Abraham in an unintelligible language: every one knew what the idea was, even down to this day. Yet, are either of these words a synonyme of ebed, a slave?

But we will close this portion of our remarks by stating that the lexicographers might, in the manner here pointed out, (which

they have pursued to great extent,) have still increased their catalogue of significations to the word ebed.

Let us show an instance. It is well known that the ancient eastern nations punished great offenders by cutting them in pieces. The term expressing and threatening this punishment was used somewhat technically, as is now the term to guillotine, meaning to cut off a man's head. The term used by the ancients to express this cutting in pieces, as introduced in Hebrew, was, Y abad haddamin, which literally was "to enslave in pieces." The term is expressed thus in Dan. ii. 5:

in pieces."

in pieces ye shall be enslaved, i. e. "Ye shall be cut

The lexicographers might have continued their catalogue with the same truthfulness with which they have extended it to such length, and have said that y ebed also meant to hew, to cut, &c., and have cited this instance in proof.

But in Dan. iii. 29, the term is used again thus TED PO in pieces shall be enslaved, i. e. "shall be cut in pieces." Surely, they should have added, that ebed means to cut. It is true that the literal meaning of this term cannot always be given in English so as to be in pleasant accordance with our use of language.

But the same is true as to many other phrases and terms, and perhaps applicable to every other language. This form and use of this word as here used by Daniel, is rather a Persian adulteration than pure Hebrew, of which several instances may be found in some of the later books. The Babylonian and Persian kings considered even all their subjects as slaves to them, and this word was evidently used with greater latitude among them than it appears to have been among the Hebrews at the time of Moses.