HEBREW LANGUAGE, that spoken by the Hebrews, and wherein the Old Testament is written.
This appears to be the most ancient of all the languages in the world, at least we know of none older; and some learned men are of opinion, that this is the language in which God spoke to Adam in Paradise. Dr Sharpe adopts the opinion that the Hebrew was the original language; not indeed that the Hebrew is the unvaried language of our first parents, but that it was the general language of men at the dispersion; and however it might have been improved and altered from the first speech of our first parents, it was the original of all the languages, or almost all the languages, or rather dialects, that have since arisen in the world.
The books of the Old Testament are the only pieces to be found, in all antiquity, written in pure Hebrew; and the language of many of these is extremely sublime: it appears perfectly regular, and particularly so in its conjugations. Indeed, properly speaking, it has but one conjugation; but this is varied in each seven or eight different ways, which has the effect of so many different conjugations, and affords a great variety of expressions to represent by a single word the different modifications of a verb, and many ideas which in the modern and in many of the ancient and learned languages cannot be expressed without a periphrasis.
The primitive words, which are called roots, have seldom more than three letters or two syllables.
In this language there are 22 letters, only five of which are usually reckoned vowels, which are the same with ours, viz. a, e, i, o, u; but then each vowel is divided into two, a long and a short, the sound of the former being somewhat grave and long, and that of the latter short and acute: it must however be remarked, that the two last vowels have sounds that differ in other respects besides quantity and a greater or less elevation. To these 10 or 12 vowels may be added others, called semi-vowels, which serve to connect the consonants, and to make the easier transitions from one
to another. The number of accents in this language is indeed prodigious: of these there are near 40, the use of some of which, notwithstanding all the inquiries of the learned, are not yet perfectly known. We know, in general, that they serve to distinguish the sentences like the points called commas, semicolons, &c. in our language; to determine the quantity of the syllables; and to mark the tone with which they are to be spoken or sung. It is no wonder, then, that there are more accents in the Hebrew than in other languages, since they perform the office of three different things, which in other languages are called by different names.
As we have no Hebrew but what is contained in the Scripture, that language to us wants a great many words; not only because in those primitive times the languages were not so copious as at present; but also on this account, that the inspired writers had no occasion to mention many of the terms that might be in the language.
The Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, &c. languages, are by some held to be only dialects of the Hebrew; as the French, Italian, Spanish, &c. are dialects of the Latin. It has been supposed by many very learned men, that the Hebrew characters or letters were often used hieroglyphically, and that each had its several distinct sense understood as a hieroglyphic. Neuman, who seems to have taken infinite pains to find out this secret meaning of these letters, gives the following explication: aleph, he says, is a character denoting motion, readiness, and activity; beth, signifies, 1. Matter, body, substance, thing; 2. Place, space, or capacity; and, 3. In, within, or contained: gimel, stands for flexion, bending, or obliquity of any kind: daleth, signifies any protrusion made from without, or any promotion of any kind: he, stands for presence, or demonstrative essence of any thing: vau, stands for copulation or growing together of things: dsain, expresses vehement protrusion and violent compression, such as is occasioned by at once violently discharging and constringing a thing together; it also signifies sometimes the straitening of any figure into a narrow point at the end: cheth, expresses association, society, or any kind of composition or combination of things together: teth, stands for the withdrawing, drawing back, or recess of any thing: jod, signifies extension and length, whether in matter or in time: caph, expresses a turning, curvedness, or concavity: lamech, stands for an addition, access, impulse, or adhesion, and sometimes for pressure: mem, expresses amplitude, or the amplifying any thing in whatever sense; in regard to contiguous qualities, it signifies the adding length, breadth, and circumference; and in disjunct qualities it signifies multitude: nun, signifies the propagation of one thing from another, or of the same thing from one person to another: samech, expresses cincture and coarctation: ain, stands for observation, objection, or obviation: pe, stands for a crookedness or an angle of any figure: tsade, expresses contiguity and close succession: koph, expresses a circuit or ambit: resh, expresses the egress of any thing, as also the exterior part of a thing, and the extremity or end of any thing: shin, signifies the number three, or the third degree, or the utmost perfection of any thing: tau,
expresses a sequel, continuation, or succession of any thing.
According to this explication, as the several particular letters of the Hebrew alphabet separately signify the ideas of motion, matter, space, and several modifications of matter, space, and motion, it follows that a language, the words of which are composed of such expressive characters, must necessarily be of all languages the most perfect and expressive, as the words formed of such letters, according to their determinate separate significations, must convey the idea of all the matters contained in the sense of the several characters, and be at once a name and a definition, or succinct description of the subject, and all things material as well as spiritual, all objects in the natural and moral world, must be known as soon as their names are known, and their separate letters considered.
The words urim and thummim are thus easily explained, and found perhaps the most apposite and expressive words that were ever formed.
Rabbinical or modern HEBREW, is the language used by the rabbins in the writings they have composed. The basis or body hereof is the Hebrew and Chaldee, with divers alterations in the words of these two languages, the meanings whereof they have considerably enlarged and extended. Abundance of things they have borrowed from the Arabic: the rest is chiefly composed of words and expressions, chiefly from the Greek; some from the Latin; and others from the other modern tongues; particularly that spoken in the place where each rabbin lived or wrote.
The rabbinical Hebrew must be allowed to be a very copious language. M. Simon, in his Hist. Crit. du Vieux Testam. liv. iii. chap. 27. observes, that there is scarce any art or science but the rabbins have treated thereof in it. They have translated most of the ancient philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, and physicians; and have written themselves on most subjects: they do not want even orators and poets. Add, that this language, notwithstanding it is so crowded with foreign words, has its beauties visible enough in the works of those who have written well in it.