42 



REV. A. H. riNN, ON THE 



languages/' and therefore Hebrew also must have had it. At 

 best this is only an a priori inference, and there is no proof that 

 early Hebrew had the distinction. Why, for instance, might 

 not the language spoken by Abraham have parted from the 

 common stock before that distinction was introduced ? 



Mr. Chapman further states that "in old inscriptions, 

 Phoenician, Moabite, and Aramaic, the pronoun is written t«^n 

 for both genders, and it seems probable that the same letters 

 were used in Hebrew.''* Again, this only amounts to probability 

 without proof. 



But in truth these arguments, whatever weight they may 

 have, miss the real point at issue, which is, Why is this anomaly 

 practically con£ned to the Pentateuch ? Even if the pronoun 

 was originally written b^H, why has been inserted almost 

 uniformly in these books, and almost uniformly in all others ? 

 Are we to believe that scribes designedly made this difference 

 in order to make the Pentateuch appear archaic ? 



Moreover the phenomenon does not stand alone. There is 

 the other well-known instance of the masculine form Naar 

 ("1^2) being used for " maiden " with only one exception (Deut. 

 xxii, 19, n"^^-) in a chapter where the other form occurs 

 thirteen times. 



In addition to these, the K.V. renders Lev. xxii, 28 by 

 " whether it be cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her young," 

 which is evidently the meaning, and the LXX has feminine 

 pronouns (avrr^v . . . avrrj<;). Now the Hebrew for the animals 

 ' * ' Itl^^) may be taken as generic (LXX, jxoaxov rj 

 TTpofiarov), either male or female, but the pronouns 

 (1^1 n^^l Ml^) are uncompromisingly masculine, and literally 

 rendered would read " him and his son." 



Again, in Exod. xxvi, 26 the word " side " has a masculine 

 numeral attached, but in xxxvi, 31 (the parallel passage) the 

 numeral is feminine. So in Deut. xxix, 20, Torah is masculine, 

 and in 28 feminine ; in chapter xxxi, 24 again feminine, but in 

 V. 26 masculine once more. 



Do not all these, taken together, indicate that, when these 

 books were written, the distinction between the genders was 

 not clearly established ? and would not that point to a very 

 early stage of the language ? Yet most of these instances 

 come from the parts which are alleged to be of late date. 



* Intro, to Pent., 226. 



