HEBREW 



other Semitic languages. Word- 

 stems are mostly triliteral, and 

 compounds are very rare. The 

 verb has only two tense-forms, 

 which express the state rather than 

 the time of an action. The noun 

 has only two genders, masculine 

 and feminine, neuter ideas being 

 expressed by the latter. Nor has it 

 any cares in the Greek and Latin 

 sense. These are expressed partly 

 by prepositions. There is a com- 

 parative scarcity of adjectives, 

 which is compensated for by an 

 idiomatic use of nouns (e.g. " son 

 of death " worthy of death). Syn- 

 tactical relations are expressed 

 very simply. In fact, it is charac- 

 teristic of the purest Hebrew that 

 the clauses are short and simple. 

 The poetry is distinguished from 

 the prose, not by rhyme (which is 

 avoided), but by rhythm. 



Outside the O.T. only a few 

 examples of the old Hebrew or old 

 Canaanitish literature have sur- 

 vived. In particular, we have a 

 number of Canaanite glosses in 

 the Tell el-Amarna Tablets (c. 

 1400 B.C.), an inscription of Mesha, 

 king of Moab (c. 850 B.C.), com- 

 monly known as the Inscription of 

 Mesha, or as the Moabite Stone, 

 and the 8th century Hebrew in- 

 scription, usually described as the 

 Siloam Inscription because it was 

 discovered on the wall of the Pool 

 of Siloam at Jerusalem. The lan- 

 guage of all these is related closely 

 to the language of the O.T. In the 

 O.T. itself reference is made to 

 several ancient writings, more of 

 the nature of books, which were 

 used as sources. 



Early Poetical Fragments 



The most ancient of these, frag- 

 ments of which are preserved in 

 the O.T., were poetical. They 

 seem to have been collections of 

 ballads and songs celebrating great 

 events and exploits. Special men- 

 tion is made of the Book of Jasher 

 (Josh, x, 13; 2 Sam. i, 18) and 

 the Book of the Wars of Jehovah 

 (Num. xxi, 14, 15). From such 

 collections no doubt were drawn 

 fragments like the Song of the 

 Well (Num. xxi, 17, 18) and the 

 Song of Deborah (Judges v). Men- 

 tion is made also of early prose 

 records, such as the Book of the 

 Acts of Solomon (1 Kings xi, 41), 

 the Book of the Chronicles of the 

 Kings of Israel (1 Kings), and the 

 BOOK of the Chronicles of the 

 Kings of Judah (1 Kings). There 

 were also collections of wise say- 

 ings (Proverbs xxiv, 23). 



Between the earliest (c. 1200- 

 1000 B.C.) and latest portions (c. 

 150 B.C.) of the O.T., or between 

 the Exilic and Post-Exilic writings 

 which together comprise Biblical 

 Hebrew, there is a marked dif- 



3907 



ference in style. After the Fall of 

 Samaria in 721 B.C., and still more 

 after the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 

 B.C., Aramaic, the spoken language 

 of the population that surrounded 

 the Jews, made gradual but per- 

 sistent encroachments upon He- 

 brew. If the language was spoken 

 still and understood by the people 

 in the time of Nehemiah (5th cen- 

 tury B.C. ; Neh. xiii, 24) and of 

 the rise and development of the 

 Synagogue (430-330 B.C.), it had 

 lost much of its purity. 



Aramaic Influence 



The literature from the time of 

 the Exile to the Maccabean period 

 (c. 160 B.C.) shows more and more 

 in style and vocabulary the over- 

 powering influence of the official 

 language of the western half of the 

 Persian Empire (Aramaic). But 



Hebrew Language. The Alphabet 



popular works seem to have been 

 written as late as 50 B.C. (e.g. the 

 Book of Judith). 



Hebrew, therefore, can hardly 

 be said to have been dead long 

 before the time of Christ, though 

 by that time Aramaic had become 

 the spoken language. We witness 

 the last phases of the struggle be- 

 tween Hebrew and Aramaic on the 

 one hand and Hebrew and Greek 

 on the other in some of the latest 

 books of the O.T. and in some of 

 the books of the Apocrypha. The 

 book of Ezra (between 300 and 

 250 B.C.) and the book of Daniel 

 (c. 164 B.C.) are partly in Aramaic. 



HEBREW 



The book of Ecclesiasticus (O.T. 

 Apocrypha), composed about 200 

 B.C., was written in Hebrew, though 

 much of it has survived only in 

 Greek and other versions. It is 

 significant that in order to make 

 this work better known to Jews, it 

 was translated into Greek in 132 

 B.C. by the author's grandson, who 

 tells us in a prologue that the task 

 of translating Hebrew into Greek 

 already presented difficulties. 

 Again, whereas the first book of 

 Maccabees (O.T. Apocrypha), com- 

 posed about 125 B.C., though pre- 

 served only in Greek and other 

 versions, was written originally in 

 Hebrew, the second book of Macca- 

 bees (O.T. Apocrypha), composed 

 between the years 60 B.C. and A.D. 

 1, was written from the first, like 

 most of the other books of the T. 

 Apocrypha, in Greek. 



If a number of the works known 

 as Pseudepigrapha, a body of lite- 

 rature written under assumed 

 names between 180 B.C. and A.D. 

 100, were composed in Hebrew, the 

 reason was to give them, in ad- 

 dition to the prestige of a famous 

 name, the further authority and 

 sanctity of the sacred tongue, re- 

 gardless of the fact that this was 

 understood no longer by the bulk 

 of the people. 



Origin of Targums 



Long before the time of Christ it 

 had become necessary, even in the 

 synagogues, to explain the lan- 

 guage of the sacred writings. This 

 was done by an official interpreter 

 known as Taryoman or Methurge- 

 man. At a later date these trans- 

 lations were committed to writing 

 and received the name Targum. 



In the countries of the Disper- 

 sion, of course, Hebrew would be 

 forgotten sooner than in Palestine. 

 As early as the 5th century B.C. 

 Jews went to Egypt ; others fol- 

 lowed under Alexander the Great 

 and the Ptolemies, forming im- 

 portant colonies. Consequently, 

 long before books had ceased to be 

 written in Hebrew in Palestine, 

 part of the O.T. had to be trans- 

 lated into Greek for the sake of the 

 Greek-speaking Jews of Alexan- 

 dria. The beginning seems to have 

 been made in the reign of Ptolemy 

 Philadelphus (284-247 B.C.). 



Before the end of the 2nd cen- 

 tury B.C. the larger portion of the 

 O.T. existed in Greek. The spread 

 of the Greek language involved 

 also the spread of Greek civiliza- 

 tion. There arose and developed, 

 not only in Alexandria and else- 

 where, but even in Palestine, an 

 important Jewish-Hellenistic lite- 

 rature. The authors of some of the 

 O.T. Apocrypha (e.g. the Book oi 

 Wisdom) and of the Pseudepi- 

 grapha (e.g. the Book of the Secrets 



