The Hebrew Language (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ...words of a wait person are, as it were, simple; Yet these very words penetrate even to the inner parts of the belly." Or "Fear casts down the sluggard; But the souls of the effeminate shall hunger." If we turn to xxvi. 22, which ought to be exactly the same, we shall find that the former of these interpretations, very slightly altered, is alone given in the Latin. On referring to the Septuagint version of xviii. 8, it appears that the second of the Latin interpretations is given by the Greek translators, and xxvi 22 is thus rendered: --"The words of cunning knaves are soft; But they smite even to the inmost parts of the bowels." Now, amidst all this confusion and variety, one thing is evident. The English rendering, "wounds," was unknown to the authors of the ancient versions; or, at least, those versions afford no support to that rendering. An intelligent and inquisitive reader must be greatly perplexed to arrive at the true interpretation of the verse in question. The reader of the Hebrew--acquainted with the light which modern philologists have derived from the cognate dialects--finds that the sense of the proverb, according to the best authorities, is thus represented: --"The words of a talebearer (slanderer, calumniator) are as delicious viands, That go down into the innermost parts of the stomach." Just in the same way as delicious viands gratify the natural appetite, so the corrupt taste of the depraved heart is gratified by listening to the tale of scandal. The term, on which the whole force of the sentence depends, never occurs elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. Its derivation and meaning must, therefore, be sought elsewhere, and both of these are supplied by the Arabic. Are any...