' PRESENTED TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BY jyirs. Alexander Ppoudfit. 3SW A DISSERTATION CONCERNING THE A N T I Q^U I T Y OF THE HE BR E W- L A N GU A G E, LETTERS, VOWEL-POINTS, AND ACCENTS. By JOHN ^GILL, D. D. Imo vero cenfeo, nullius mortalis, licet in Hebrseis Uteris do&e verfati, tantum efle acumen, peritiam, perfpicaciam, ut prophette noftro (Jefaiae) longe pluribus locis reddere po- tuerit genuinum fuum fenium ; nifi le£llo antiqua fynagogica per traditionem in fcholis Hebraeorum fuiflet confervata, ut earn nunc Maforetharum punflulis expreflam habemus : quo- rum proinde ftudium et laborem nemo pro merito depraedicet. Quod enim in hoc viridario deliciari poflimus, ipfis debemus, viris perinde do<3tis et acri judicio praeditis. Vkringa, Praefat. ad Comment, in Jefaiam, Vol.1, p. 5. LONDON, Printed: And Sold by G. Keith, in Gracechurcb. Street ; J. Fletcher, at Oxford; T. and J. Merrill, at Cambridge; A. Donald- son and W.Gray, at Edinburgh ; J. Bryce, at Glajgow j A. Angus, at Aberdeen ; and P. Wilson, at Dublin. M.DCC.LXVII, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library http://www.archive.org/details/dissertationconcOOgil [iii] THE PREFACE. THE following Differtation has long lain by me ; nor w s it written at firft with any de- fign to publifh it to the world; but was written at leifure hours for my own amufement, and by way of effay to try how fir back the antiquity of the things treated of in it could be carried. And what has prevailed uoon me now to let it go into the world, and take its fate in it, are the confi- dence which fome late writers on the oppofite fide have exprefled, their con- tempt of others that differ from them, and the air of triumph they have af- fumed, as if victory was proclaimed on their fide, and the comrcverfy at a an [iv] an end, which is far from being the cafe; and what feeming advantages are obtained, are chiefly owing to the indolence and floth of men, who read only on one fide of the queftion, and fuch who write one after another, and take things upon truft, without ex- amining into them themfelves, either through want of ability, or through unwillingnefs to be at any pains about it. I confess, it has given me offence to obferve the Jews called by fuch op- probrious names, as villains, wilful corrupters of the Hebrew text, & c. It muft be owned indeed, that they are very ignorant of divine things, and therefore the more to be pitied ; and many of them are, no doubt, very im- moral perfons ; but have we not fuch of both forts among ourfelves ? yet, as bad as the Jews are, the worft among them, I believe, would fooner die, than wilfully corrupt any part of the Hebrew Bible. We fhould not bear falfe witnefs againft our neighbours, let them be as bad as they may in other things. J have never, as yet, feen nor read any thing, that has convinced me that they have wilfully corrupted any one partage in the facred text 8 , no not that celebrated one in Pf. xxii. 16. Their copiers indeed may have made miftakes in transcribing, which are common to all writings ; and the Jews meeting with a various reading, they may have preferred one to another, which made moil: for their own fenti- ments ; nor is this to be wondered at 3 nor are they to be blamed for it. It lies upon us to rectify the miftake, and confirm the true reading. It does not appear, that there ever was any period of time, in which the Jews would or could have corrupted the Hebrew text ; not before the coming of Chrift, for then they could have no dif- pofition nor temptation to it; and to a 2 at- a See a good Defence of the Jews by F. Simon againft Leo Caftrius, Morinus and Voiiius in his Difquifit. Cri- tic, c, ix. and x. [ vi] attempt it would have been to have rifqued the credit of the prophecies in it; nor could they be fure of any ad- vantage by it : and after the coming of Chrift, it was not in their power to do it without detection. There were the twelve apoftles of Chrift, who were with him from the beginning of his miniftry, and the feventy difciples preachers of his gofpel, befides many thoufands of 'Jews in Jerufalem, who in a fhort time believed in him ; and can it be fuppoled that all thefe were without an Hebrew Bible ? and parti- cularly that learned man, the apoftle Paul> brought up at the feet of a learned Rabbi , Gamaliel \ and w ho out of thofe writings convinced fo many that Jefus was the Chrift, and who fpeaks of the Jews as having the privilege of the oracles of God committed to them Rom. iii. i, 2. nor does he charge them, nor does he give the leaft inti- mation of their being chargeable, with the corruption of them ; nor does Chrift, [ vii ] , Chrift, nor do any of the apoftles ever charge them with any thing of this kind. And befides, there were mul- titudes of the Jews in all parts of the world at this time, where the apoftles met with them and converted many of them to Chrift, who, they and their fathers, had lived in aftateor difperfion many years ; and can it be thought, they fhould be without copies of the Hebrew Bible, whatever ufe they may be fuppcfed to have made of the Greek verfion ? fo that it does not feem cre- dible, that the Jews fhould have it in their power, had they an inclination to it, to corrupt the text without de- tection. And here I cannot forbear tranfcribing a paffage from Jerom k , who obferves, in aniwer to thole who (ay the Hebrew books were corrupted by the Jews, what Origin faid, " that cc Chrift and his apoftles, who re- " proved the Jews for other crimes, " are quite filent about this, the a 3 " great- * Comment, in Efaiam, c. 6. fol. 14. G. U [ VUi ] greateft of all." Jerom adds " if a they fhould fay, that they were cor- " rupted after the coming of the Lord, " the Saviour, and the preaching of " the apoftles ; 1 cannot forbear laugh- iC ing, that the Saviour, the evange- cc lifts and apoftles fhould fo produce u teftimonies that the Jews afterwards " fhould corrupt." To all which may be added, that the Jews are a people always tenacious of their own wri- tings, and of preferving them pure and incorrupt : an inftance of this we have in their Targums or paraphrafes, which they had in their own hands hundreds of years, before it appears they were known by Chriftians ; in which interval, it lay in their power to make what alterations in them they pleafed ; and had they been addicted to fuch practices, it is marvellous they did not ; fince they could not but ob- ferve, there were many things in them, that Chriftians were capable of impro- ving againft them, fhould they come . into [ix ] into their hands, as in fael: they have done; and yet they never dared to make any alterations in them : and had they done any thing of this kind, it is moft reafonable to believe, they would have altered the paffages rela- ting to the Meffiah; and yet thofe, and which are many, ftand full againft them. Indeed, according to Origen c y as fome think, the Tar gums were known very early, and improved a- gainfl the yews in favour of Jefus be- ing the true Meffiah, agreeable to the fenfe of the prophets ; fince he makes mention of a difpute between Jafon, an Hebrew- ChYi&ian, fuppofed to be the fame as in Acis xvii. 5. and Pa- pifcus y a Jew ; in which, he fays, the Chriftian (hewed from Jewifo wri- tings, that the prophecies concerning Chrift agreed with Jefus ; and what elfe, fays Dr. Allix a , could he mean by JewiJIo writings, but the Tar gums? a 4. though c Contra Celfum, 1. 4. p. 199. d Judgment of the ancient Jewilh Church, &c. p. 376. [ *] though it is poffible the writings of the Old Teftameant may be meant, by which the apoftle Paul alio proved that Jlujs was the Chrift. However, if the Targums are meant, they do not afterwards appear to have been known by chriftian writers for fome hundreds of years. It may be faid, perhaps, that the yews are fclf-condemned, and that it may be proved out of their own mouths and writings, that they have in fome places wilfully corrupted the Hebrew text ; as the thirteen places they own they changed, on the ac- count of Ptolemy king of Egypt ; and alfo what they call Tikkwi Sopberim, the ordination of the fcribes, and Ittur Sopben'm, the ablation of the fcribes : as to the firft of thefe, it is true, that they fay e , when Ptolemy king of Egypt defired to have their law, and feventy men fent to translate it, that they e T. Hierof. Megillab, fol. 71. 4. T.Bab. Megillah, fol. 9. 1. Maflechet Sopherim, c. 1. f. 8. fol. 8. 1. they made alterations in the copy they fent ; but then it fhould be obferved, that they do not fay they made any alteration in their own copies, only in that they fent to him ; and which ap- pears alfo to be a mere fable of the Talmudifts, and that in facl no fuch al- terations were made : but the ftory was invented, partly to bring into dis- grace the Greek verfion of the Seventy y as if it was made after a corrupt copy; and partly to make the minds of their own people eafy, who difapproved of that work, and kept a faft on occafion of it f . My reafon for this is, becaufe the Greek verfion does not correfpond with the pretended alterations. There are but two places out of the thirteen, which agree with them ; the one is in Gen. ii. 2. which the Seventy tranflate, and on the Jtxth day God ended his work ; the other is in Numb. xvi. 15. which they render / have not taken the dejire of any one of them, inftead of one afs f Schulchan Aruch, par. i. c. 580. f. 3. [xii] afs from them ; neither of which feem to arife from a bad copy before them, but from fome other caufe. The firft of them is not peculiar to the Septua- gint, it is the fame in the Samaritan Pentateuch ; and the latter plainly arifes from the fimilarity of the letters Daleth and Rejh* There is a third, Exod. xii. 40. in which there is fome agreement, but not exact. Befides, neither Philo the yew, nor JofepbuSy though they wrote very particularly of this affair of Ptolemy, yet make not the leaft mention of thefe alterations, in the copy fent to him, nor in the tranilation of it, They obferve, there never was any change made in the fa- cred writings, from the time of the writing of them to the age in which they lived. Philo fays g , the Jews, " for the fpace of more than two " thoufand years, never changed one i% word of what was written by Mofes, u but would rather die a thoufand the jfew y rejecls the charge brought by Juftin as incredible ; whe* ther, [ xviii ] ther, fays he r , they have detracted from the fcripture, God knows; it feems incredible. It his been very confidently af- firmed, that there is no mention made of the Hebrew vowel-points and ac- cents, neither in the Mijnah nor in the 'Talmud : and this is faid by fome learned men, who, one would think, were capable of looking into thofe writings themfelves, and not take things upon truft, and write after other authors, without feeing with their own eyes, and examining for themfelves, whether thefe things be fo or no ; in this they are very culpable, and their miftakes are quite inexcufa- ble. But to hear fome men prate about the Ta/mudy a book, perhaps, which they never faw; and about the Majo- rat) and Major etic notes, one of which, as fhort as they be, they could never read, is quite intolerable. Thefe men are like fuch the apoftle fpeaks of, on another r Juftin. Dialog, cum Tryphone, p. 297, 299. [ xix ] another account, who under/land^ nei- ther what they fay^ itor whereof they affirm. What is this Maforah* ? who are thefe Maforetesf and what have they done, that fuch an outrageous cla- mour is raifed againft them ? to me, they feem to be an innocent fort of men; who, if they have done no good, have done no hurt. Did they invent the vowel-points, and add them to the text, againft which there is fo much wrath and fury vented ? to af- fert this is the height of folly ' ; for if they were the authors of the points, the inventors of the art of pointing, and reduced it to certain rules agree- able to the nature of the language, and were expert in that art, as, no doubt, they were, why did not they point the Bible regularly, and according to the art of pointing at once ? w T hy did they b leave s Plane divina res eft Hebraeorum Critica, quam ipfi Maflbram v'ocant. If. Cafaubon. Epift. ep. 390. Por- thaefio, p. 467. c Pun£tationem Hebraicam non efleMaflbra, neque dici, norunt qui nondum aere lavantuiv Owen. Theologoumen. par. 4. DigreflT. 1. p. 293. [XX] leave fo many anomalies or irregular punctuations? and if, upon a furvey of their work, they obferved the irre- gularities they had committed, why did not they mend their work, by cafting out the irregular points and putting regular ones in the text itfelf, and not point to them in the mar- gin ? or there direct to the true read- ing? is it ufual for authors to ani- madvert on their own work in fuch a manner? if they make miftakes in their work at firft, is it ufual in an after edition, and following editions, to continue fuch miftakes in the body of the work, and put the corrections of them in the margin? The Mafo- retes, had they been the inventors of the vowel-points, would never have put them to a word in the text, to which they were not proper, but what better agree with a word placed by them in the margin ; had they in- vented them, they would have put proper ones to the word in the text ; or [ xx{ ] or have removed that, and put the word in the margin in its room, with which they agree, fee Gen. viii. 17, and xiv. 3. and it may be obferved, that their critical art and notes are not only frequently exercifed and made upon the points, but even upon the points without confonants, and upon confonants without points ; which would not have become them, had they been the inventors of them ; fee an inftance of each in Jer. xxxi. 38, and li. 3. The truth of the matter, with reipecl: to the Maforetes, is, that the pointing of the Bible was not their work j they confidered it as of a di- vine original, and therefore dared not to make any alteration in it ; but only obferved, where there was an unufual pun&uation, that it might be taken notice of; and that fo they found it, and fo they left it ; and that thofe who came after them might not dare to attempt an alteration. Punctuation was made before their time, as their b 2 work [ xxii ] work itfelf {hews ; and Walton °, an oppofer of the antiquity of the points, has this obfervation ; il The Major e- tic notes about words irregularly pointed, and the numbers of them, neceflarily fuppofe that pointing was " made long before." Have thefe Maforetes employed their time and ftudy, in counting the verfes and let- ters of the Bible, and how many verfes and letters there are in fuch a book ; and where exactly is the middle of it; where a word is deficient or lacks a letter; or where it is full and has them all ; or where one is redundant and has too many ; where one letter is larger and another lefTer than ufual, and an- other fufpended ; fuppofe now this is all trifling, and of no manner of im- portance, yet who or what are injured by it ? the mifpending of their time in fuch trifles, is a lofs not to others, but to themfelves ; and, as a learned man " remarks, n Prolegom. 8. f. 12. w Cbappelozv's Com- mentary on Job ix. 34, See alfo on ch. xi. 14. [ xxiii remarks, cc how trifling foever this fcrupulous exactnefs of the Mafo- retes (with refpect to the letters in the Hebrew text] may appear, yet it fuggefts to us one obfervation, that the yews were religioufly careful to preferve the true literal text of fcripture ; and confequently, not- withstanding their enmity and ob- ftinate averfion to chriftianity, they are not to be charged with this ad- ditional crime of having corrupted the Bible :" and after all, have not the Chriftians had their Maforetes al- fo x , who, with like diligence and faithful nefs, have numbered all the verfes, both of the Greek verfion of the Old Teftament and of the books of the New ? and have they been blamed for it? yerom 1 numbered the verfes of the book of Proverbs, and favs they were 915, exactly as the Major ah. Some words, through length b 3 of x Vid. Croii Obferv. in Nov. Teft. c. I. & c. 10. y Quaeft. feu Trad, Heb. lib. Reg. 3. fol, .80. 1. Tom. 3. [ xxiv ] of time, became obfcene and offenflve to chafte ears, at leaft were thought fo z ; hence the Major etes placed other words in the margin, which, perhaps, is the boldeft thing they ever did, and of which the Karaite yews complain ; but then they never attempted to re- move the other words from the text, and put in theirs in their room ; they only placed them where they did, that, when the paffages were read in pub- lic, or in families, the reader might be fupplied with words that fignified the fame, only more pure and chafte, and lefs offenfive ; at leaft which were thought fo ; and which were left to their own option to read them or not. The paffages are Deut. xxviii. 27, 30. 1 Sam. v. 6. 9. If. xiii. 16. Zech. xiv. 2. 2 Kings vi. 25. x. 27. and xviii. 27. ]/. xxxvi. 12. and it would not be improper, if, in the margin of our Bibles over-againft the laft, and others that have the fame word, an- other * Maimon. Moreh Nevochim, par. 3. c, 8. [ xxv ] other Engli/h word or words were put to be read lefs offenflve. And, by the way, from the change of words pro- posed in thofe paffages, may be drawn an argument in favour of the anti- quity of the Maforetes. For this part of their work muft be done, whilft the Hebrew language was a living language, when only the difference of words offenfive or not offeniive to the ear could be difcerned, and a change of them neceffary : and certain it is, thefe notes were made before the Tal- mud, for mention is made of them in it a : yea, thefe variations are followed by the ancient Targums, by Onkelos, and the jerufalemon Deut. xxviii. 27. 30. and not only by Pjeudo -Jonathan on 1 Sam. v. 6. 9. 2 Kings vi. 25. x. 27. and xviii. 27. but by the true Jonathan on If. xiii. 16. and xxxvi. 12. and Zech. xiv. 2. who and On* kelos are fuppofed to live in the firft century. As for the word Sebirim^ b 4 fome*- a T. Bab. Megillah, fol. 25. 2. [ xxvi ] fometimes ufed by the Maforetes in their notes ; this only refpects the con- jectures of fome perfons, who thought a word fhould be otherwife read or pointed ; but it is what the Maforetes object to, and fay of fuch perfons, that they are miftaken : and this they ob- ferve, that no one may prefume to make any alteration upon fuch conjec- tures : and are they to be blamed for this ? and, befides thefe things, what have they done, except tranfmitting, from age to age, the marginal or va- rious reading's, which had been ob- ferved by collating copies, or which arofe from their own cbfervations, by comparing different copies that lay be- fore them ; and from delivering them down to pofterity, they obtained the name of Maforetes ; and can this be thought to be culpable in them ? they left the text as they found it ; nor did they offer of themfelves to infer t a va- rious reading, different from the com- monly received copy, but placed fuch readings xxvii readings in the margin, that others might make what ufe of them they pleafed ; or rather they took this me- thod, to prevent the infertion of them into the text, fuggefting, that fo they found them, and there it was proper to continue them : and is a Bible with fuch readings the worfe for them ? is a Greek Teftament to be dif-efteemed, for having the various readings in it collected from different copies ? or are our Englijb Bibles with the marginal readings in them, placed by the tran- slators themfelves, with references to other fcriptures, the lefs valuable on that account ? nay, are they not the more valued for them ? and it may be obferved, that thefe Keries or marginal readings of the Hebrew text, are fol- lowed in many places, by fome of the beft tranflators of the Bible, both an- cient and modern. Aquila and Symma- chus, the beft of the antient Greek in- terpreters, almoft always follow them b . yerom b Montfaucon. Hexapla Origen. vol. 2. p. 549. cc (( it [ xxviii jferom had knowledge of them, and teftihes to Aquilas following them, in a particular inftance. His words are c , AJferemoth in Jer. (xxxi. 40.) for which, in a Hebrew copy it is writ- ten Sedemoth, which Aquila inter- prets fuburbana." And which rea- ding is preferred by jerom d , as is the marginal reading of v. 38. And if he was the author of the Vulgate Latin verfion, that agrees with the marginal readings of the Maforetes in feveral places; fee Jojh. iii. 16. and xv. 47. 2 Sam, viii. 3. 2 Kings xix. 31. all which fhew the antiquity of thefe readings. So modern interpreters, Ju- nius and TremelliuS) our own tran- slators, and the Dutch e , often follow them, as do various interpreters, both Papifts and Protejlants. Nay, fome of thefe readings and notes are confirmed by the infpired writers of the New Teftament. Thus, for inftance, in pf- c De loc. Heb. fol. 89. B. d Comment, in Hieremiam, c. 31. 40. fol. 161. F. e Leufden. Philolog. Heb. Mixt. Differt. 10. f. 9. p. 84. C xxix ] Pf. xvi. 10. the word rendered holy 07te^ is written with ajW, as if it was plural ; but the Maforetic note on it is, that the yod is redundant, and fo the word is to be confidered as of the lingular number.; and this is con- firmed by two infpired writers, the apoftles Peter and Paul, Ac~ls ii. 27. and xiii. 35. Again, in Prov. iii 34. the Cetib or textual writing is, XZPyh the poor 1 but the Keri or marginal reading cw^ the humble or lowly, which is followed by our tranflators of the text, and is confirmed by two apoftles, "James and Peter % yam. iv. 6. 1 Pet. v. 5. And what have the Maforeles done in this refpect, but what the learned Dr. Kennicott is now doing, or getting done in the federal libraries in Europe \ that is, collating the feveral copies, and collecting from them the various readings ; and which, if I underftand his defign aright, is not to form, upon his own judgment, a new copy of the Hebrew text ; but to do [ xxx ] do with the prefent copy in common life, what others have done with the New Teftament ; let it ftand as it is, with the various readings thrown into the margin as they may be collected, and leave them to every one's judge- ment, with fome critical rules to form it, to make ufe of them as they pleafe: and when this learned gentleman has fini fried his large Major etic work, he will be the greateft Maforete that ever any age produced ; fince not only eight hundred and forty-eight various readings, as Elias f has reckoned thofe of the Maforetes to be, but as many thoufands, and more will now appear. I fay not this, to depreciate his labo- rious undertaking, far be it from me ; he has my good wifhes for the finifh- ing of it, and what little affiftance otherwife I can give him in it. For I am not fo great an enthufiaft, for the integrity of the prefent printed He- brew copy, as to imagine, that it is en- tirely f Praefat. 3. ad Maforet. xxxi ] tirely clear of the miftakes of tran- fcribers in all places : to imagine this, is to fuppofe a miraculous intcrpoli- tion of Divine Providence attending the copiers of it, and that conftant and univerfal ; and if but one copier was under fuch an influence, it would be very extraordinary indeed, if his copy fhould be lighted on at the firft print- ing of the Hebrew Bible ; and befides the firft Hebrew Bible that was print- ed, was not printed from one copy, but from various copies collated ; nor is there more reafon to believe, that the Hebrew text of the Old Teftament, which is more antient, fhould be pre- ferved from the efcapes of librarians, than the Greek of the New Teftament, which it is too notorious are many : nor is fuffering fuch efcapes any con- tradiction to the Promife and Provi- dence of God, refpecting the prefer va- tion of the Sacred Writings, fince all of ?jiy moment is preferved in the fe~ veral copies ; fo that what is omitted, or [ xxxii ] or ftands wrong in one copy, may be fupplied and fet right by another, which is a fufficient vindication of Di- vine Providence ; and this may ferve to excite the diligence and induftry of learned men, in collating the feveral copies for fuch a purpofe ; and be- tides, the Providence of God remark- ably appears, in that the efcapes fuf- fered to be made do not affect any doctrine of faith , or any moral prac- tice^ as has been obferved and owned by many B : and after all, if from the prefent collation of manufcripts, there fhould be publifhed, what may be thought a more correct and perfect copy of the Hebrew text, we fhall be beholden to the Jews for it, againft whom the clamour rifes fo high : for by whom were the manufcripts written, now collating, but by Jews f for the truth s Amamse Antibarb. Bibl. 1. i. p. 20. 22. Bochart. Phaleg, 1. 2. c. 13. col. 91, 92. Walton. Prolegom. 6. f. I. 3. and 7. f. 12. 15 and Confiderator confidered, p. 127. 162. Capellus de Critica. Epift ad UfTer. p. 116. Dr. Kennicott, Differt. 1, p. 11. 301. xxxiii truth of this, I appeal to the learned collator himfelf ; and who, if I mis- take not, in his printed DhTertations always reprefents the feveral Hebrew copies, whether more or lefs perfect, as the work of Jewifo tranfcribers ; and indeed the thing fpeaks for itfelf ; for from the times of Jerom to the age of printing, there were fcarce any, if any at all among Chriftians, capa- ble of tranfcribing an Hebrew copy ; that interval was a time of barbarous ignorance, as with refpect to arts and fciences, fo with refpect to languages, efpecially the Hebrew, To know a little Greeks in thofe barbarous times, was enough to make a man fufpe&ed of herefy ; and to ftudy Hebrew^ was almoft fufficient to proclaim him an heretic at once : the ftudy of which lay much neglected, until it was re- vived by Reuchlin and others, a little before, and about the time of the Re- formation. There might, in the above fpace of time, rife up now and then one, xxxiv one, who had fome knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, as Raymund in the thirteenth century, the author of Pu- gio Fideiy and friar Bacon^ who wrote an Hebrew grammar in the latter end of the fame century, and which per- haps was the firft, at leaft one of the firft Hebrew grammars written by a Chriftian ; though fince, we have had a multitude of them : for almoft every fmatterer in the Hebrew language thinks himfelf qualified to write a grammar of it. However, there is no reafon to believe, as I can underftand, that any of our Hebrew manufcripts were written by Chriftians, but all by Jews, I mean fuch as were written before the age of printing ; for what have been written fince, can be of no account. I observe there is much talk about the Maforetic Bible, and about Mafo- retic authority. As to the Maforetic Bible, I could never learn there ever was fuch an one, either in manufcript, or [ XXXV or in print, that could with any pro- priety be fo called. Is a Bible with points to be called Maforetic f it mud be with great impropriety, fince the Maforetes, as has been obferved, were not the authors of pointing : are any called fo, becaufe they have various readings, and other notes in the mar- gin ? as well may a Greek Teftament, with various readings and notes in the margin have fuch a name. Let it be fhewn, if it can, that there ever was in manufcript, or in print, a copy of the Hebrew text, in all things con- formable to the Maforetic notes and readings in the margin, or in which thefe are inferted in the body of the text, call them corrections, emenda- tions, various readings, or what you pleafe ; but if thefe cannot be fhewn, then whatfoever Bible, that does not conform in the text to the Maforah in the margin, with much greater pro- priety may be called Ami- majorette than Maforetic. As to authority, the c Ma- [ xxxvi ] Maforetes never claimed any ; their Keri is no command to read io or fo, nor even a direction how to read, and much lefs a correction of the text, as if it was faulty ; it is only a fuggeflion, that fo it is read in fome copies ; for the word for which p {lands in the margin of fome Bibles, is not the im- perative pi? Kere read, but is *?P ; and is either the fame with ,;n P fomething read, or with ~pP a reading, i. e. a various reading. And if the Maforetes ever pretended to any authority, as they have not, it is not regarded • for notwithstanding their antiquity, their readings, and what is agreeable to their notes and obfervations, are not admit- ted into the text, but are obliged to keep their place in the margin ; and where then is their authority ? thus, for inftance, in defiance of Major etic authority, as it is called, and notwith- jfianding the Majorette note in the margin, the fecond yod is continued J n 3'T?il Pf xv h IP- an d in defiance 3 °f £ xxx vii of the punctuation of the word, which is different from all other places, where the word is manifeftly plural, as in Pf. Hi. 9. lxxix. 2. cxxxii. 9. and cxlv. 16. 2 Chro?i. vi. 41. in all which places Segol is put under Da- leth ; but here Sheva> as it is in other words, in which the yod is redundant alfo, and the word to be read fin^u- lar, as Debareca, 1 Kings viii. 26. and xviii. 36. Dameca, 2 SdtfiA. 16. Yadeca, 1 Kings xxii. 34. Prov. iii* 27. Abdeca, 1 Kings i. 27. Rdgkca y Eccl. v. 1. with others : and in de- fiance of the Talmud alfo. There are but two places h I have met with in the Talmud, where the text is quoted \ and in both o[ them the word is with- out the yod; fo that if thefe, efpecially the firft, had any authority, the yod would not continue in that word. The different fchemes men have formed, for reading Hebrew without the antient points, (hew the neceflity c 2 of * T. Bab. Eruvin, fol. 19. 1. et Yoma, fof. 87* i> [ xxxviii ] of them, and the puzzle they are at without them ; but what need men rack their brains to find out a fcheme of reading that language, when there is one fo fuitable, readv at hand for them,con(i fling of vowel-points,which for their figure and pofition cannot be equalled by any ; which are fo con- trived, that they take up fcarce any, or very little more room, than the words do without them ; which nei- ther increafe the number of letters in a word, nor make it longer, nor give it any unfightly appearance ? whereas, for inftance, Majclef's fcheme, befides the augmentation of letters, makes the word look very aukward : and if it was thought the prefent vowel- points were too numerous, and too great an incumbrance to words, one would think, men might content themfelves with reducing their number, and not throw them all away : but the great offence taken at them is, that they tie down to a certain determinate fenfe cf 2 tie [ xxxix ] the word, and that they cannot bear, but chufe to be at liberty to fix what fenfe upon it they pleafe. Great complaint is made of the ignorance of the Maforetes in point- ing ; and an inftance is given of it, in their pointing the word Cyrus, as to be read Corejh or Chorejh, though in- deed they had no hand in it ; but ad- mitting they had, and whoever had, there does not appear to be any juft blame for it. It is true, it may be thought fo y if the Greek pronuncia- tion of the word mull be the rule of punctuation : but the original name is not Greek, but Per fie ; and winch, in that language, lignifies the fun. So Ctejias ■ and Plutarch k fay : whether Cyrus had his name from the fun be- ing feen at his feet, while fieeping, which he three times endeavoured to catch with his hands, but it ilipt from him; and which, according to the Ma- 1 In Perficis ad Calcem Herodot. Ed. Gronov. p. 687, k InArtaxerxe, p. 1012. [XI J gi y portended a reign of thirty years ', is not certain : now the word for the fun, in the Perjic language, is Chor or Cor, the fame with Or, Job xxxi. 26. and it is now called Cor/had™ : hence, the god of the Perjians is called Oro- maxes, and fometimes Oromafdes n , Hormufd, and Ormufd ; this (hews the propriety of the frrfl: point put to the word, a Cholem and not a Sburek ; and it may be obferved, there is a iimilar word ufed for the fun in other eaftern languages, and is pronounced ChereSy Job ix. 6. to which may be added, that the oriental verfions, both Syriac and Arabic, read the word for Cyrus in all places in the Bible, with 0, e, and Shin, according to the Bible- pronunciation. It was ufual with the Perjtans j to give men names taken from the fun, as Garjhena x Efth. i. 14. and Or Jims in Curtius°: as for the ' Cicero de divinatione, I. i. Vid. Hiller. Onoma- ftic facr. p. 615. 617. m Vid. Hothart. Phaleg. Li. c. 15. co). 61. n Plutarch, ut fupra, p. 1026* et ii> Vita Alexandri, p. 682. ° Hilt. 1. 10; c. 1. [xli] the Greek pronunciation of the word, it is not unufual with the Greeks to pronounce a Cholem by an Ypfilon, as Tzor, Loci, Beerot, by Tyrus, Lydda, Berytus, In like manner may the punctuation of Darius be vindicated, which is Darjavefch, Da?i. v. 31. in much agreement with which, this name is Axpeiouos Dareiaios with Cte- Jias p , and is a word confiding of four parts, and fignifies a great, vaft, ve- hement fire q ; and EJch> fire, is well Jcnown to be the deity of the Perjia?is, which was taken into the names of their kings and great perfonages, as was ufual in the eaftern nations. So V aft hi, the wife of Ahafuerus, or Va-ejloti, a great fire, Eftb. i. 9. Ze- re/hy or Zehar-efo, the wife of Haman y ch. v. 10. the brightnefs of fire ; and jt appears in A fly ages, a king of the Medes. Strabo fays r , fome people called Darius, Darieces, Cafaubon * thinks, p In Perficis, ut fupra, p. 641. 643. * Hil'er. ut i'upra, p. 635. r Geograph. 1. 16. p. 540. ■ Com- ment, in ib. p, 217. [ xlii ] thinks, that Strabo wrote Aapiav^ Dariaoues, which is near the Hebrew punctuation. I have fentthe following DiflTerta- tion into the world, not to revive the controverfy about the things treated on in it, nor with any expectation of putting an end to it ; no doubt, but fome will be nibbling at it : and tho' I may be very unfit to engage further in this controverfy, through weight of years upon me, and through the du- ties of my office, and other work upon my hands, fome third perfon may perhaps arife, to defei i what may be thought defenfible in it. Should any truly learned gentleman do me the honour, to animadvert upon what I have written, I am fure of being treat- ed with candour and decency; but fhould I be attacked by fciolifts, I ex- pect nothing but petulance, fuperci- lious airs, filly fneers and opprobrious language; and who will be righteoufly treated with neglect and contempt. To [ xliii ] To conclude; if what I have written fhould merit the attention of men of learning, and caufe them to think again, though ever fo little ; and be a means of directing fuch, who are en- quiring after thefe things ; and of en- gaging fuch who may hereafter write on thefe fubjedts, to think more clofely, to write with more care, caution and candour, and with lefs virulence, haughtinefs and arrogance, than have appeared in fome writings of late upon them, my end will be in a great meafure anfwered. A ERRATA. Page 23. 1. 23. for Eber, r. Elam his firft-born. P. 62. 1. 11. r. through the near likenefs. P. 65. 1. 3. r. Gen. Xiv. 14. P. 92. 1. 11. r.faid. P. 113. 1. 14. r. NDTn- P. 1 28. 1. ult. put a comma inftead of a full ftop. P. j ^5. \. II. r.Bameh. 1. 15. r. If. liv. 13. P. 244. 1. 22. r. H")\9. 1, 24. r. HTPO- P. 266. 1. 16. r. n:D7. P. 267. 1. 22, for when, r. where. Lately Publijhed, By the fame AUTHOR, I. An Exposition of the Old Teftament, 6 Vols. Folio. II. An Exposition of the New Teftament, 3 Vols. Folio. III. An Exposition of the Canticles, in CXXII. Sermons, Quarto. IV. The Prophecies of the Old Teftament, re- fpefking the Meffiah, confidered j and proved to be li- terally fulfilled in Jefus, 8vo. V. The Cause of God and Truth, 4 Vols. 8vo: ' VI. Sermons and Tracts on Various Subjects of Divinity, Polemical and Practical, 4 Vols. 8vo. A D I SSERTATION CONCERNING THE H E B R E W L AN G UAG E, Letters, Vowel-Points, and Accents. CHAP. I. Of the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language \ A CORDING to the Targum of Onkelos, on Gen. ii. 7. when God breathed into man the breath of life, that became in man vHlttD mi a fpeakingfpirit, or foul ', or, as yonathan paraphrafes it, the foul in the body of man became a /peaking fpirit; that is, man was endued with a natural faculty of fpeech ; fo that he may be defined as welt a b oratione, a fpeaking animal, as a rationet B a rea- C * J a reafonable one ; for fpeech is proper and peculiar to men : when it is faid, man is endued, as all men are, with a natural faculty of fpeaking, it is not to be under- ftood, as if he was endued with a faculty of fpeaking fome particular language j but with a power and capacity of fpeak- ing any language he hears, or is taught ; I fay hears, becaufe unlefs a man has the fenfe of hearing, he cannot exprefs any articulate founds, or words : hence fuch perfons as are totally deaf from their birth, are always dumb, and can never fpeak any language. Adam firft heard the Lord God fpeaking, before he uttered a word himfelf, as it feems from the facred hiftory. The language Adam fpake, and which, perhaps, he received not the whole inftan- taneoufly, but gradually ; in which he im- proved, as circumftances, and the necef- iity of things required, and which was continued in his pofterity : this very pro- bably is that which remained to the con- fufion of the tongues at Babel, and the difperfion of the people from thence. But of this more hereafter. Some [ 3 ] Some have fancied, that if children, as foon as born, were brought up in a foli- tary place, where they could not hear any language fpoken, that at the ufual time children begin to fpeak, they would fpeak the firft and primitive language that was fpoken in the world. Pfammitichus, king of Egypt, made trial of this by putting two children, newly born, under the care of a fhepherd ; charging him, that not a word mould be uttered in their prefence ; and that they mould be brought up in a cottage by themfelves ; and that goats mould be had to them at proper times to fuckle them ; and commanded him to ob- ferve the firft word fpoken by them, when they left off their inarticulate founds. Ac- cordingly, at two years end, the fhepherd opening the door of the cottage, both the children with their hands ftretched out cried bee, bee. This he took no notice of at firft, but it being frequently repeated, he told his lord of it, who ordered the children to be brought to him ; and when Pfammitichus heard them pronounce the word, he enquired what people ufed it, and upon enquiry found that the Phrygians B 2 called [ 4 ] called bread by that name , upon this it was allowed that the Phrygians were a more ancient people than the ILgyptians, between whom there had been a long con- tend about antiquity. This is the account given by Herodotus a ; but the Scboliaft of Ariftofhanes % fays, that it was at three year's end the king ordered a man to go in filently to them, when he heard them pro- nounce the above word. And fo Suidas c relates, that at the fame term of time, the king ordered one of his friends to go in fi- lently, who heard and reported the fame ; and all of them obferve, that the ftory is differently related by others ; as that the children were delivered to a nurfe or nurfes, who had their tongues cut out, that they might not fpeak before them ; and fo fays Tertullian d : yet they all agree in the word ipoken by the children. But, as Suidas obferves, if the former account is true, as it feems moft probable, that they were nourished by goats, and not women ; it is ixo wonder, that often hearing the bleat- ing of the goats, be-ec 9 be~ec, they mould imitate * Euterpe five, \.z: t'. i, %: b In Nubes, p. i jo, c Voce Bsx*ure*w ,: Ad Nationes, i. ». c. 8. f 5 3 imitate the found, and fay after them bee, which in the Phrygian language lignifled bread y and fo food is exprelfed in Hebrew by a word of a fimilar found jq beg, Ezek. xxv. 7. Dan.i* 8. andxi. 26. and might as well be urged in favour of the antiquity of that language ; but this proves nothing. It may feem needlefs to enquire what was the firft language that was fpoken, and indeed it mutt be fo, if what fome fay is true, that it is not now in being, but was blended with other languages, and loft in the confufion at Babel; and alfo if the Oriental languages, the Hebrew, Samari- tan, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethio- pic, are but one language ; which is more probable, as Ravins c thinks, and fo may go under the general name of the Eajiern language; and it muft be acknowledged there is a very great fimilarity between them, as not only appears from Ravius, but from the Pentaglot Lexicon of Scbin- dler, and efpecially from the Harmonic- Grammars and Lexicons of Hottinger and Caftell ; and yet I caniaot but be of opi- nion, that the Hebrew language (lands di- B 3 flinguimed ' ADifcourfe of the Oriental Tongues, p. 38, 35. [ 6 ] ftinguimed by its fimplicity and dignity. The celebrated Albert Schultens f reckons the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages, as fifter-dialetts of the pri- maeval language ; which I am content they mould be. accounted, allowing the He- brew to be the pure dialed;, which the others are a deviation from, and not fo pure : though I fjiould rather chufe to call them daughters, than fitters of the Hebrew tongue ; fince, as yerom fays *, the Hebrew tongue is the mother of all languages, at leaft of the oriental ones. And thefe daughters are very helpful and afiiiting to her their mother in her decli- ning ftate, and now reduced as to purity to the narrow limits of the facred fcriptures -, for I cannot prevail upon myfelf to agree that (he mould be ftripped of her maternal title, dignity, and honour ; fince fhe has the bed claim to be the primitive language, as will be feen hereafter. Dr. Hunt h , though he is of the fame mind with Schul- tens, that the above languages are lifters, having f Pnefat. ad Comment, in Job. & in Prov. & Orat. de Ling. Arab. Franeker. 1729 & altera Lugd. Batav. 1732. * Comment, in Soph. c. 3. fol. 100. A. h Orat. de Antiqu. &c. Ling. Arabic, p. 3. 49. 53. Oxon. 1738. 8e. Orat. de ufu Dialett. Orient, p. 2. Oxon. 1748. [ 7 ] having the fame parent, the Eaftern lan- guage, yet feems to allow the Hebrew to be the elder fitter. And Scbultens ' l him- felf afferts, that the primaeval language, which was from the beginning of the world fpoken by our firft parents, and the ante- diluvian patriarchs, and after the flood to the difperfion, is the fame which was af- terwards called Hebrew, from Heber; from whom it panned through Peleg and Abraham to the nation of the Hebrews, and fo the mother-language ; but how it could be both mother and fifter, is not eafy to fay. That there was but one language fpo- ken by men, from Adam to the flood in the times of Noah, and from thence to the confuiion and difperfion at Babel, feems ma- nifeft from Gen. xi. i . and the whole earth was of one language, and of one fpeech ; and which is confirmed by the teftimonies of feveral heathen writers, as by Sibylla in Jo- fephus k , by Abydenus l , and others ; and which continued in that interval without any, or little variation : the longevity of the patriarchs J Vid. Oratlones fupradi&as, p. 6, 41. k Antiqu. 1. 1. c. 4. $.3. l Apud Eufcb. Evangel, Pr«par I.9. c. 14. p. 416. [ 8 ] patriarchs much contributed to this, for Adam himfelf lived to the ioth century, and the flood was in the 17th. Methufelah, who died a little before the flood, lived up- wards of two hundred years in the days of Adam, and 600 years cotemporary with 'Noah, and who doubtlefs fpoke the fame language that Adam did ; yea Lamech, the father of Noah, was born 50 years or more before the death of Adam -, fo that the lan- guage of Adam to the days of Noah is eafi- ly accounted for as the fame : if any varia- tion, it mufl be in the offspring of thofe of the patriarchs who removed from them, and* fettled in different parts of the world, but of this there is no proof; the feparation of Cain and his poflerity on account of re- ligion, does not appear to have produced any alteration in language ; but the fame language was fpoken by one as another, as is evident by the names of perfons in the line of Cain, and of places inhabited by them to the time of the flood ; when, no doubt, the fame language was fpoken by Noah, from whom his fons received it, and was continued unto the difperfion, which before that was but one ; and it is 1 the [ 9 ] the opinion of the Perfian prieils or Magi, that the time will come when the earth will be of one language again § ; and if fo, it is probable it will be the primitive one, but what that was, is the thing to be enquired into. The Targums of Jonathan and On* kelos on the place, add, by way of expla- nation, "and they fpoke in the holy tongue, f* in which the world was created at the " beginning," meaning the Hebrew lan- guage, ufually called the holy tongue -, and this is the fenfe of Jarcbi, Aben Ezra, and the Jewifh writers in general, and of many Chriftians. But moll nations have put in a claim for the fuperior antiquity of their nation and language, the Europeans not excepted. Goropius Bee anus pleaded for the Teutonic language, or that which is fpoken in lower Germany and Brabant ; , to be the original one, and attempted to de- rive the Hebrew from it ; but it has been thought he was not ferious in it, only did it to mew his acumen, and the luxuriancy of his fancy and imagination ; the eaflern nations have a much better pretext to an- tiquity, and moft, if not all of them, have put $ Plutarch, de Ifide & Ofir. p. 370. [ 1° ] put in their claim for it. There was a long conteft between the Egyptians and Phrygians about this matter, as before obferved. The Armenians have urged in their favour, that the ark refted on one of the mountains in their country, where Noah and his pofterity continued fome time, and left their language there. The Arabs pretend, that their language was fpoken by Adam before his fall, and then changed into Syriac, and Was reftored upon his repentance, but again degenerated, and was in danger of being loft, but was preferved by the elder Jor- bam, who efcaped with Noah in the ark, and propagated it among his pofterity. The Chinefe make great pretentions to the primitive language, and many things are urged in their favour, as the antiquity of their nation, their early acquaintance with arts and fciences, the Angularity, fim- plicity, and modefty of their tongue k . A countryman of ours, in the laft century, publifhed a treatife, called (i An historical eftay, endeavouring a probability that the language of China is the primitive lan- guage, by y. Webby Efq; London, 1669, 8vo." * Sec the Univerfal Hiftory, Vol. 1. p. 346, 347, [ i* J 8vo." But as when many candidates put up for a place, they are generally reduced to a few, and, if poflible to two * the fame method mud be taken here; for the contert lies between the Syriac or Chaldee, and the Hebrew. The Chaldee or Syriac language has its patrons for the antiquity of it -, not only < Theodoret i who was by birth a Syrian, and Amyra the Maronite, who are not to be wondered at, and others who have made it their favourite ftudy ; but even the Arabic writers, the more judicious of them, give it not only the preference to their own lan- guage in point of antiquity, but even make it as early as Adam. Elmacinus fays ! , there are hiftorians (Arabic ones) who affirm, that Adam and his pofterity fpoke the Syriac language until the confufion of tongues j and fo Abulpharagius fays ", "of our dodlors, Bafilius and Ephraim aflert, that unto Eber the language of men was one, and that that was Syriac, and in which God fpoke to Adam j" and it mud be al- lowed, that there are many things plaulibly faid 1 Apud Hottinger. Smegma 1. I. c. %. p. 228. ■ Hilt Dynail. Dyn. i.p. 16. [ >? ) £aid in favour of this language being primi- tive: it mult, be owned that the Chaldean nation was a very antient one, Jen. v. I $. and that the Syriac language was fpoken very early, as by Laban -, but not earlier than the Hebrew, which was fpoken at the fame time by Jacob -, the one called the heap of ftones which was a witnefs between them Jegar-fahadutha in the Syro- Chaldean language, and the other Galeed in Hebrew, which both fignify the fame thing : what is commonly urged is as follows : I. That the names of a man and wo- man are as much alike, if not more fo, in the Chaldee or Syriac language, as in the Hebrew, a man is called Gabra and a woman Gabretha, which is equally as near as Ijh and Ijhah produced to prove the antiquity of the Hebrew, Gen. ii. 23. But neither in the Chaldee of Onkelos, nor in the Syriac verfion of that place, is it Ga- bretha, but Ittetha in the one, and Ante- tha in the other. Theodoret * inflances in the names Adam, Cain, Abel, Noah, as proper to the Syriac language ; but the de- rivation * In Gen. quaeft. 59. [ 13 ] rivation of them from the Hebrew tongue is more clear and manifeft. 2. That it is rather agreeable to truth, that the primaeval and common language before the confufion mould remain in the country where the tower was built and the confufion made, which was in Cha/dea, and therefore the Chaldee language, mufl be that language ; but rather the contrary feems more natural, that the language, confounded and corrupted, mould continue in the place where the confufion was made, and that thofe pofleffed of the pure and primitive language mould depart from thence, as in fact they afterwards did. 3. It is obferved ?, that both Eber and Abraham were originally Chaldeans, and were brought up in Cha/dea, and fb mufl: fpeak the language of that country, which therefore mufl be prior to the Hebrew z but it mould be confidered, that not on!y Eber but Abraham lived before the confu- fion and difperfion -, for if the confufion was in the latter end of Pe/eg's days % A-> braham, Myricsei Prxfat. ad Gram. Syro-Chald. p Ibid. 1 So R. Jofe in Seder Olam Rabba c. 1. p. 1. Abarbine! in Pentateuch, fol. 51, 3. Juchafm, fol, 8. 1. Shalihalec Ha- kabala; fol. 1, 2, [ H 3 braknm, according to the Jewijh chrono- logy, mull be 48 years of age -f, and con- fequently poffeffed of the pure and primi- tive language, be it what it may; and iince it does not appear that either he or any of his pofterity, as Ifaac and Jacobs ufed the Chaldee language, but the Hebrew only, it feems to follow, that not the Chal- dee* but the Hebrew, mull be the language fpoken by him, and fo the primitive one. 4. It is faid ', the Hebrews fprung from the Chaldeans, Judith v. 5. and fo their language muft be later than theirs -, this is founded on Abraham's being of Ur of the Chaldees, from whence he came ; but it does not follow, that becaufe he was born and lived in that country before the con- fufion of Babel, that therefore he fpoke the language ufed in that country after- wards, fince he was foon called out of it ; and it appears that he fpoke not the Chal- dee or Syriac language, but the Hebrew, as before obferved. 5. It is urged', as highly probable, that the language the fecond Adam ipake, the nrft f Seder Olam, ib. \ Myricaeus, ut fupra. s Ibid. [ '5 3 firft Adam did ; now Chrift and his Apo- ftlcs, and the people of the Jews in their times, fpoke in the Syriac language, as ap- pears from Matt, xxvii. 46. Mark v. 41 . and vii. 34. but according to fome learned men, asMaJzus*, and Fabricius Boderianus r , this was not the ancient language of the Syrians and Chaldeans, but a new language, which had its firft rife in the Babylonijh captivity, and was a mixture of Cbaldee and Hebrew, tho' rather the mixture began in the times of the Seleucida, the Syrian kings, who entered into and diftrefted Judea ; and therefore no argument can be taken from it in favour of the Syriac being the primi- tive language. I proceed now to propofe the arguments that are, or may be ufed in favour of the Hebrew language being the primitive one ; and the Firji, may be taken from the alphabet of the tongue itfelf, which appears to be the firft alphabet of all the eaftern languages. The Chaldee or Syriac, Phoenician or Sama* ritan, have their alphabets manifeftly from it; the names, the number, and order of their letters, and even the form and duels of them J Prsefat. ad Gram , Syr. r Prsfat. ad Diftion. Syro-Chald r [ >6 ] them feem to be taken from thence, and to be corrupt deviations from it -, and the Arabic language, tho' the order of its alphabet- is fomewhat difturbed, yet the names of moft of the letters are plain- ly from the Hebrew -, and fo indeed is the greater part of the names of letters in the Greek alphabet, from whence the Ro- mans have taken theirs, and other Euro- pean nations. Hermannus Hugo* obferves, that it is agreed among all, that from the names of the Hebrew characters, the let- ters of all nations have their names ; now that language, whofe alphabet appears to be the firft, and to give rife to the alpha- bets of other tongues, bids fairefl to be the firft and primitive language : let it be ob- ferved that the Hebrew alphabet, as it now is, is exa&ly the fame as it was in the days of David and Solomon, fo early it can be traced ; for it is to be feen in the 119th Pfalm, and in others, and in the laft chapter of the book of Proverbs, as well as in the book of Lamentations, written before or at the beginning of the Babylonijh captivity. Secondly, De prima fcribendi orig. c. 7. p. 65. [ *7 1 Secondly, Another argument for the an- tiquity of the Hebrew language, may be formed from the perfection and purity of it. Abraham de Balmis w fays of it, that %< it is perfect in its letters and in its points. *' Our language, fays he, is the moft per- V feci language, and in its writing the mod * perfect of ail writings of all languages ; ** there is nothing wanting, and there is " ^nothing redundant in it, according to the * c laws and rules of things perfect: and com- <( pleat." It confifts of words which moil fully and effectually exprefs the nature of the things iignified by 'em ; its roots, which are of a certain number, are, for the moft part, of three letters only, and it has no exotic or ftrange words uied in it. Who- ever compares it with the Syriac or Cbal- dee, will eafily perceive the difference as to the purity of 'em, and that the Chaldee is derived from the Hebrew, and is later than that ; for as Sca/iger long ago obfer- ved K "pD Melech muit be before 8Db? Mal- ca, the latter being derived from the for- mer ; and the fame may be obferved in a multitude of other inftances : now that C which w Mikneh Abraham, p. 39. lin. 13, 14, 15. * Epifi:. ad Thompfon. £p. 24Z. t 18 ] which is perfect, pure, and underived, mufl be before that which is imperfect, corrupt, and derived; or, as the philofopher 7 ex- prefTes it, that which is vicious and cor- rupt muft be later than that which is in- corrupt. Thirdly, The Paronomafia which Adam ufed when he called his wife woman, may ba thought to be a good proof of the antiqui- ty of the Hebrew language ; fince it will agree with that language only, jhe Jhall be called IJhah, woman, becaufe Jhe was taken, meijh, out of man, Gen. ii. 23. which pa- ronomafia does not appear neither in the Syriac verlion, nor in the Chaldee para- phrafes of Onkelos and "Jonathan, in which tho' Gabra is ufed of a man, yet never Ga- bretha of a woman, not even in places where men and women are fpoken of to- gether; fee the Syriac vernon and Chaldee paraphrafe of Exod. xxxv. 22. Deut. ii. 34. and many other places j and the reafon for it is plain, the word is expreffive of power and might, and fo not fo proper to be ufed of the weaker fex. ^Fhe Syriac or Chaldee language will not admit of fuch an allufion. as y Ariftot. de Republica, 1. 3 . c. 1 . [ 19 ] as is in the text ; for on the one hand, as Gabra is ufed for a man, and not Gabretba for a woman, fo on the other hand, Itta, Ittetha, and Intetha or Antetha, are ufed for a woman, but never Itt for a man. Now as we prove that the additions to the book of Daniel were written in Greek, from the p aronomajia in ch. xiii. 55. 59. fo this feems to prove that the language A- dam fpoke in to his wife muft be the He- brew language, and confequently is the pri- mitive one. e Fourthly, The names of perfons and pla- ces before the confufion at Babel, are in the Hebrew language, and are plainly deri- ved from words in it; as Adam from HD"!tf Adamah, earth, out of which he was for- med, as is generally thought. Eve, from «Tn Chayah, to live, becaule the mother of all living ; Cain from H3p to get, ob- tain, poffefs, being gotten from the Lord ; Abel, from bnn Hebe/, vanity, as his life was; and Setb, from TW Sbetb, put, ap- pointed, becaufe put, fet, or appointed another feed in the room of Abel* : and fo all the names of the Antediluvian patri- C 2 archs z Vid. Berertiit Rabba f. 18. fol. 15. a. » Vid. Se- pherCofri, par. 1. 68. t 2° 1 archs down to Noah and his fons, and their names alfo, with all thofe before the con- fufionand difperfion at Babel-, and likewife the names of places, as of the garden of Eden, from *?# delight, pleafure, it being a very pleafant place -, and the land of Nod from *TI3 to wander about; Cam being an exile and wanderer in it : now thefe being the names of perfons and places before the confuflon of tongues, ckarly fhew what language was fpoken before that time, namely., the Hebrew, which therefore ieems to be the primitive one. Fifthly ' y It is notorious that the law and the prophets, or the books of the old te- ftament, were written in the Hebrew tongue. The law was written in it on two tables of ftone by the finger of God himfelf, and the facred books were written in the fame lan- guage, under divine infpiration. Now it is reafonable to conclude, that the fame language God wrote and infpired the pro- phets to write in, he himfelf fpoke in to Adam, and infpired him with it, or how- ever gave him a faculty of fpeaking it, and which he did fpeak, and therefore may be concluded to be the firft and primitive tongue. It [ 21 ] It now remains only to be enquired into, why this language is called Hebrew. It is fuppofed by fome to have its name from Eber t the father of Pe/eg, in whofe days the earth was divided, and from whom the Hebrews fprung and have their name b ; and which opinion has been mod: generally received. Others think it has its name from *yytAbar, to pafs over, from Abr abams paf- fing over the river Euphrates into the land of Canaan ; this notion Aben Ezra makes mention of on Exod. xxi. 2. and has been eipouled by Tbeodoret c among the ancients, and indeed according to Origen\ the word Hebrew fignifies pajfer over, and fo Jerom; and by Scaliger* and Arias Mont anus* among the moderns, in which they have been followed by many. The matter is not of very great confequence, but I muft confefs I am mod inclined to the former j fovasAuftin* obferves, before the confulion language was one, and common to all, and needed no name to diftinguifh it; it was enough to call it the fpeech of man, or the human language; but when there was b Suidas in voce E£f«ioi. c Theodoret, in Gen. Qu. 60. \ Comment, in Matth. p. 23^. Ed. Huet. et in Num. Homil. fol. 19. 1 9. E. Reuchlin. de verbo mirific. I, 3. c. 13. d Ej^ift. ad Thompfon. et ad Ubertum. ■ Canaan c. 9.10. i De Civ. Dei, 1. 16. c. 11. r « i was a confufion of tongues, and fo more than one, it became neceiTary to diftinguifh them by names; and what name morepr o- per for the firll language than that of He- brew, from Eber, the laft man in whofe days it was alone and common to all ? for in his fon's days the earth was divided into different nations, fpeaking different lan- guages. Moreover, Shem is faid to be the Father of all the children of Eber, Gen. iv. 21. or as Jonathan paraphrafes it, of all the children of the Hebrews, or of He- brew children : refpect is had, as the learn- ed Rivet* obferves, to the bleffing of Shem, in oppofition to the curfe of Ham, Gen. ix. 25. 26. Now as Canaan fprung from Ham, and was the father of the Canaanites, fo Eb.r fprung from Shem and was the fa- ther of the Hebrews-, and as afterwards they were called the children of IJrael, and Ifraelites from IJrael, and the children of J ud ah and Jews from Judah ; fo the children of Eber or Hebrews from him, and with equal propriety the language they fpoke may be called Hebrew from him . and their country likewife, as in Gen. xl. 15. for it does not feem probable that the land f In Gen. Exercitat. 66. p. 319. [ 23 ] land of Canaan mould be called the land of the Hebrews, as it is there, fo early' as in the youth of Jojepb, from a fin gle family being paffengers, travellers, and ftrangers in it, which are characters not very re- fpectful and honourable, nor diftinguiihing; but rather from Eber, who, and his im- mediate offspring, might inhabit it, • it being that part affigned and divided to 'em at the divifion of the earth, Dent, xxxii. 8. out of which they might be dri- ven by the Canaanites y fee Gen. xiii, 7. and xiv. 1, 4. therefore it was an act of ju- stice to difpoffefs them and replace the chil- dren of Eber in it : and this may alfo ferve to account for the names of places in pure Hebrew in old Canaan^ by which they were called, when Jofiua made a conqueft of it, as well as in the time of Abraham r , lince it was the land of Eber before it was the land of Canaan -, if Melchizedeck was Sbem, as the yews in general believe, he was king of a city in it, and Eber his firft born had a right unto it, claim'd by Chedarlao- mer, a defcendant of his, who attempted the refcue of it from the Canaanites, who had ufurped a power over it, at leaft over fome ' See Dr. Llghtfoot, vol. ii. p. 327. [ 2+ ] fbme part of it ; and it is eafy to obferve* that in the prophecy of Balaam, Numb. xxiv. 24. as the AJj'yrians are called AJJmr, from their original progenitor, fo the He- brews have the name of Eber from him J and fo the word Eber there is rendered Hebrews by the Septuagint and other tran- ilators; and as they, fo their language, may- be called from him. As to what is objec- ted h , that Eber and Abraham were Chal- deans, and fpokethe Chaldee language, this has been reply'd to already ; and whereas it is obferved, that from the time of Eber to Abraham, no one is ever called an He- brew from him ; it is not to be wondered at, fince Eber lived to the time of Abraham, and even to the time of Jacob, according to both the Jewim and Scripture-chrono- logy. The foundation of the other opinion, that the Hebrews and their language have their name from Abraham's puffing over the Euphrates to the land of Canaan, is the Septuagint verfion of Gen. xiv. 13. which inftead of Abraham the Hebrew, reads to tt^cctih the tranfitor or paffer over; tW b F-rpen. Orat. de Ling Heb. ' Seder Olam Rabba> «• i.'p. 4. [ 25 ] tho' perhaps no more is meant by that ver- fion, than that he was, as Juvena/ k ex- prelfes it, natus ad Euphratem, born near the river Perat, for that is its name in He- brew ; but whatever may be faid for Abra- hams being called an Hebrew from fuch a circumftance, it can fcarcely be thought that a whole nation mould be denominated from fuch an action of a remote anceftor, when they themfelves palled not over the fame river -, befides there were multitudes who palled over the Euphrates belides A- braham, who yet never were fo called ; as Canaa?i and his polterity mull pafs over it, when they removed from Shinar to the land afterwards called by their name ; and indeed Erpenius 1 is of opinion that the Ca- naanites were firft called Hebrews, or paf- fers over, by the Chaldeans, becaufe they palled over the river Jordan into the country which lay between that and the Mediterra- nean fea, afterwards called from them the land of Canaan ; and that Abraham had not his name from his palfage into it, but from his dwelling there, and learning their lan- guage ; hence his polterity were called He- brews, and the Hebrew language the lan- guage k Satyr, i. v. 104. l Ut fupra. [ 26 ] guage of Canaan, If. xix. 18. and the fame writer thinks, that if the Hebrews were only thofe of the family of Jacob, they would not have been fo well known to the Egyptians in the time of Jofeph as they were : but to all this it may be reply'd, that the Canaanites were ever called He* brews, does not appear from any writers, facred or prophane ; nor is it probable that the pure and primitive language, that is the Hebrew, as has been (hewn, mould be left with and continued in the race of Canaan ; and ftill more improbable, that Abraham mould learn it of them, who was porTefTed of the firffc and primitive lan- guage before the confulion of tongues, as has been obferved, and before he came in- to the land of Canaan-, befides he feems to be called Abraham the Hebrew, Gen, xiv. 13. to diftinguim him from Mamre, Eficol, and Aner, who were Canaanitesy confederates with him ; nor is the Hebrew language called the language of Canaan, btcaufe firft fpoken by the Canaanites, but becaufe the people of IJrael fpoke it, who for a long time had inhabited the land m which * Vid. G!ofs in T. Bab. Menachot, fol. 109 2 & Abar- binei. in U. xix. 18. t m 3 which bore that name ; nor need it feem ftrange, that the name of Hebrew mould be Co well known in Potiphars family, and to the Egyptians in Jo/eph's time, when he himfelf told them, no doubt, that he was an Hebrew, as he told the chief butler, Gen. xxxix. 17. and xli. 12. and efpecially if what has been before obferved concern- ing the land of the Hebrews, can be efta- blifhed, Gen. xl. 15. as being inhabited by Eber and his fons, before the Canaa- nites poiTeiTed it. There are other etymologies of the jiame of the Hebrews and their language, which fcarce deferve any notice -, as that they have their name from Abraham ; fo Artapanus n , an heathen writer, fays the Jews are called Hebrews from Abraham, but there are but few that have embraced this no- tion ; others fay, they are fo called from Eber- hanaar, which fignines beyond or the other fide of the river, that is, of the Euphrates, where Abraham and his father Terah dwelt, and from whence Abraham is faid to be taken ; but there were many befides them, even whole nations who dwelt beyond that river, who were never called Hebrews, nor ■ Apud Eufeb. Evangel. Praspar. 1. 9. c. 1 %. [ ** ) nor can any good reafon be given, why thefe and their pofterity and their lan- guage mould be called Hebrew from thence, tho ; many, both Jews and Chrijiians, have imbibed this notion*: Ei/febius-f, tho' he thinks the Hebrews had their name from Eber, yet as the word figriifies a paiTer over, not from one country to the other, but from the vanity of the things of this pre- fent world, to the ftudy of divine things, and in which they retted not, but palled on in fearch of more recondite knowledge : pe5 haps, after all, the true original of the name may be taken from the place of A- brabams birth, who is firft called Hpyft the Hebrew , or rather the Ibrite> Gen. xiv. 13. the place of his birth was Ur of the C/jal- dees, as Abe/2 Ezra 7 rightly judges, fince it is exprefsly faid to be the land of his brother Haran's nativitv, and therefore moft probably his alfo ; now Ur of the Chaldees is called NTD frmy lbra Zeira* and fo Abraham might have this epithet from the place of his nativity, the Ibrite, to diftinguiih him, as before obfened, fiom the • Vid. Buxtorf de Ling Heb. Confervat f 32, 33. f Evangel. I'raepar. 1. 9. c 6. p. 5.-0. p Comment. in Gen. xi 28. * T. J^ab. Bava Bathra, fol. ,91. 1. & Gloff. in lb. [ 29 J the Amorites, among whom he then dwelt, and whence his pofterity frequently after- wards have the name of -D^QV or Ibrites, Gen. xxxix. 14. 17. and xl. 15. and xliii. One thing more I would juft obferve, that whether the Hebrews and their lan- guage are fo called either from Eber, the father of Pe/eg, or from Abar, to pafs over, or from Eber, beyond, or the other tide of the river, or from Ibra the native place of Abrchiim ; tho ! cuftom has prevailed to write the word with an afpiration, Hebrew and Hebrews, it ihould be written without one, Ebrew and Ebrews, as words begin- ning with 37 ufually are, as Amminadib, lm~ manuel, &c. CHAP, [ 3* ] CHAP. II. Concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Letters. IT has been a controveriy among learned men, for a century or two pail, whe- ther the modern letters ufed by the Jews, and in which their facred books are now extant, are the fame in which the law and the prophets were originally written. This is denied by fome, and it has been affirm- ed, that the original letters of the Hebrews, and in which the books of the Old Tefta- ment before the times of Ezra were writ- ten, were what are called Samaritan ; and that Ezra, after the return of the Jews from the captivity in Baby/on, changed thefe letters for the Merubbah, or fquare ones fince in ufe ; and in them wrote all the fa- cred books then in being, and gave thean- tient letters to the Samaritans ; and this no- tion has been embraced upon the teftimo- nies of Enfebius and Jerom -, the foundation of which appears to be a tradition of the Jews, and that far from being generally re- ceived by them. The former of thefe in his chro- t 31 ] chronicle at A. M. 4740, writes, that " it " is affirmed, that Ezra, by the ftrength «* of his memory, compiled or put together ** the divine fcriptures, and that they (the 4( Jews) might not be mixed with the Sa- u maritans, changed the Jewifh letters:" now this pafTage of Eujebius, as Marckius* obferves, is not to be found in Sca/iger's editions of his chronicle, neither in the original Greek, nor in the Latin verlion ; and the illuftrious Spanheim ' has fully pro- ved, that it is fpurious, and added to the text by fome modern hand ; and admitting it to be genuine, it fmells rank of a Jewijh tale, particularly that Ezra compiled the fcriptures memoriter ; and it is no difficult thing to account for it, from whence Eu- febius had it, if he had it at all -, for fince he was bifhop of Ccefarea, where both Jews and Samaritans lived, he might receive this notion from the one or from the other; from the Samaritans, as Buxtorff t conjec- tures, who were continually boafting of their language and letters, in which, they fay, the law was given, a copy of which they pretend to have, written by Phine/oas the r Exerci:at. in Matt. v. 18. f. 6. p. 6j. s Apud Carpzov. Critic, par. i. p. 240. • De LiterisHeb. f, 61. [ 32 ] the Ton of Eleazar ; or rather he might have this account from the Jews that refi- ded there. Jerom, who lived a little after Eufebius, and who might take what he writes from him, or rather from fome of the Jewijh Rabbins he had for his precep-' tors and inftruclors, for he had four of them at different times, is more confident, and fays u , " certumque eji, &c. it is certain •' that Ezra thefcribe, and teacher of the " law, after Jerujalem was taken and the " temple rebuilt under Zerubbabel, found " other letters, which we now ufe, when to " that time the characters of the Samari- " tans and Hebrews were the fame ;" but how could Jerom be certain of this, who lived near a thoufand years after the fup- pofed facl ? do Ezra or Nehemiah give the leaft hint of fuch a change of letters, tho' they relate things of much lefs confequence than this ? or do any of the other prophets fuggeft any thing of this kind ? not the leaft fyllable. Do Jofephus or Philo the yew fay any thing about it ? not one word, but the reverfe, as will be feen hereafter : from whence and from whom then could Jerom be allured of it ? from no » Praefat. in lib. Reg. Tom. 3-fol. 5. L. t 33 J no other than his Jews and their traditions; from whom it is certain he received many things, as his treatife called §>ucejliones feu Troditiones Hebraicce> on various parts of fcripture mew ; which are all or moil: of them to be found in the Tabnud, and other writings of the Jews, and particularly this. The Jerufalem Talmud was printed about the year 230, long enough before Jerom, for him to have knowledge of it at lead from his inft-ructors. The Babylonian Tal- mud was compiling in his time, tho' not finimed before the year 500 ; but the tradi- tions it confifts of were well known be- fore, being handed down from one to ano- ther, and with which Jeroms Jews could furnifli him, and did. But what puts this matter out of all quefcion, is a fragment of On'gen's, publimed by Montfaucm w , who alfo fpeaks of letters ufed by Ezra after the captivity, different from the more an- tient ones, and plainly declares from whom he had it, and opens to us the true fource of this notion : " in fome accurate copies, " he fays, it (the word Jehovah) is writ- fat. in lib. Reg. fol. 5. L. [ 59 ] meaning the Greek verfions ofjfqm'/a and! Tbeodotion in Origen's Hexapla, and of an- tient Hebrew letters in the faid Greek ver- fions, where the word Jebovab was written jm Hebrew characters thus, nini, which the Greeks not understanding, and being deceived with the fimilarity of the charac- ters to fome of theirs, read it from the left to the right, as they were wont to do, Pipi; whereas the word was to be read no other than Jebovab, and was written nei- ther in Greek nor in Samaritan characters, but in Hebrew letters, as fometimes figur'd* or however as formed by fome Greek wri- ters not expert in the Hebrew letters, as may be fecn in a fpecimen of fuch letters, given by Montfaucon*, which feem to have been written by fome Grecian who had but little knowledge of the Hebrew tongue and its characters, in which the Hebrew letter He, tho' Scbindler would have it to be the Samaritan He, refembles the Greek letter Pi t and the letters Van and Jod are very fimilar in Hebrew, and both have fome likenefs to the Greek letter Iota. Drujius out of Procopius on If. lix. 13. obferves, that in his margin were written A. Th. u Praeliminar. ad Hexapla Origen. c. 2. p. 22. [ 6o ] £v ITini, that is Aquila, and Theodotion fo read -, and he further obferves, that fo for- . merly they wrote the letters of the name tetragrammaton or 'Jehovah, which they read Pipi, becaufe of the fimilitude of the letters w j and Jerom x himfelf is as exprefs for it as can be, he fays the name of four letters is written with thefe, Jod >, He n» Van 1, He H, which fome not understand- ing, becaufe of the likenefs of the charac- ters, when they found it in Greek copies, ufed to read it Pipi; and elfe where y he fays, the name of God, on the plate of gold, was written in Hebrew letters, thofe above- mentioned ; hence, becaufe as R. Afariah* underftands him, he affirmed that thefe were engraved in the Ajfyrian character, he conjectures that Jerom had feen the plate of gold at Rome, which R. Eliezer ben Jofe, faw there, and that Jerom was of the mind that the prefent Hebrew letters, were then ufed by the Jews ; and indeed it is not probable that this plate mould be en- graved in the Samaritan, that is in the let- ters w Vid. etiam Drufium de voce Elohim & Tetragram. c. 20. &. Grotium in Matt. xxii. 44. Montfaucon.prseliminar. adHexapla Origen. vol. 2. p. 90. 184. Lexicon col. 430. * Epift ad Marcellam Tom. 3. fol. 31. B. * Ad Fabio- lam fol. 20. B. z Meor Enayim, c. 58. fol. 178. 2. [ 6i ] ters of the old Phoenicians or Canaanites i the race of Canaan, whom the Jews, when this order about the plate was given to Mofes, were going to drive out of their land. It mull be owned that Origen has the fol- lowing words in a fragment 3 of his; " with " the Jews the name of the four letters te f Jehovah J is ineffable, which was en- " graved on the golden plate of the high- *' priert, and with the Greeks is pro- *' nounced Lord (xvpiog) ; but in correct He- " brew copies it is written (that is, with " its four letters Jehovah, which may be " believed; but when he adds, it was writ- *' ten) in antient letters, but not in thofe " now in ufe." If he means the Samari- tan letters, as it is fuppofed he does ; this depends on a Jewifo tale he next relates, which has been already confidered. That the Pentateuch written by Mofes was written in the fquare characters or let- ters now in ufe with the Jews, feems clear by comparing Gen. x. 3, 4. with 1 Chron. i. 6. where the perfons called Riphath and Do- danim by Mofes, are by the author of the book of Chronicles m fome copies caed Diphatb and Ro da mini ; and w ho is called Hemdan in Gen. * Apud Montfaucon. ut fupra, p, 86. [ 6 2 ] r <&7z.xxxvi.26.is Hemram in i. Cbrou. i. 41. and Hadar in Gen. xxxvi. 39. is Hadad in 1 Chron. i. 50. The author of the book of Chronicles i thro' the fimilarity of the let- ters *1 and 1 Refo and Daletb, puts one for another, and ftill fignify the fame perfons ; £0 Riblah in Numb, xxxiv. 1 1 . and as it is read in the 2d book of Kings, and prophe- cy of "Jeremiah, is in Ezek. vi. 14. called Diblath-, on which Jerom remarks, that the near liken efs of the Hebrew letters 1 and *1 Daletb and Rejh, which are diitinguifhed by a fmall apex, it may be called Debla- iha, or Reblatba , and fo Tbeodotion reads it Deblatba in Jer. xxxix. 5. and this will account for the fame man being called Deuel and Reuel, Numb. i. 14. and ii. 14. Now this can't be owing to the miftakes of late tranfcribers, fince the fame difference is obferved in the Septnagint verfion of thefe places, at lead in moft of them, and were fo from the beginning, from the writers themfelves ; and thofe letters being much more nmilar in the Hebrew than in the Sa- maritan alphabet, the Samaritan Daletb having a hook at the back of it thus ? which ftrikes the eye at once, and eafily diftinguiflies it from °* Rejh, (hews that Mo- Jes y f h ] Jes, in all probability, wrote in the for- mer and not in the latter; fo likewife dif- ferences of names in the fame books plainly arife from the fimilarity of the letters ! and 1 °Jod and Vau in the Hebrew fquare cha- racters, when there is no fuch fimilarity in the Samaritan character nt and t, as to occafion fuch differences, thus Ahan in Gen. xxxvi. 23. is Allan 1 Chron. i. 40. Vaakan Gen. xxxvi. 27. is 'Jaakan 1. Chron* i. 42. Zepho Gen. xxxvi. 11. is Zephl 1 Chron. i. 36. Shepbo in Gen. xxxvi. 23. is Shephl 1 Chron. i. qo.Alvab Gen. xxxvi. 40. is Allah 1 Chron. i. $i. P#« G^/z. xxxvi. 39. is Pal 1 Chron. i. 50. Heman Gen. 22. is Homam 1 Chron. i. 39. Klmchl on I Chron. i. 6, 7. takes notice of the differ- ence of thefe feveral words, as read in Ge- ne/Is and Chronicles, and attributes it to the fimilarity of letters ; and obferves, that let them be read as they may, they are the fame names, and fo Ben Melech after him. Aben Ezra has helped us to another proof of the Pentateuch being written in the fquare character ; he obferves, " that the word STn in Exod. i. 10. is irregular accor- ding to the grammar, and mould be HJVn for He radical is changed into Tau, accor- ding [ 64 ] ding to ufual conftruction, as in Gen. i. 30. but fo it is, becaufe thefe letters are near alike in writing, there being only the duel: of a point between them, which is in the letter He, but in pronunciation and name they differ ; for at firfl it is called He, and when the point is protracted it is called Tau; and this is a fign or proof that the writing we now ufe is Hebrew :"*and as the Pen- tateuch was originally written in this cha- racter, fo it continued until the Samaritan Pentateuch was written, w T hich plainly ap- pears to be copied from it, by its having the interpolations of Ezra's copy in it, which it would not have had, had it been more antient than that; and if it was firft brought to the Samaritans, as is probable, by ManaJ/eh, when he fled to them, it was in the fquare character firft introduced among them, as Dr. Prideaux owns b , who otherwife is an advocate for the Samaritan letter being the antient Hebrew character. That this was the cafe, appears from the difference between the Hebrew and Sama- ritan Pentateuch, occafioned by the fimi- larity of the letters in the fquare character, the fame with that now in ufe with the Jews, b Connection, part i, p. -ft 6, 417. [ 6; ] yews, as has been obferved by many Teamed men c , particularly in Rejh and Daleth, fee Gen. x. 4. and xlix. 10. which fhews that the Pentateuch was originally in the mo- dern Hebrew characters, and which is fu- perior in point of antiquity to the Samari- tan, which is copied from it; and to the fame caufe, in many instances, is owing the difference between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint verfion, namely the fimi- larity of the Hebrew letters, as yerom fre- quently obferves ; for that was made out of the Chaldee tongue, as Philo the yew d affirms, that is the Hebrew according to him; and yufiin Martyr* afferts, that Mo- fes, under a divine infpiration, wrote his hiftory in Hebrew letters, (he does not fay in Samaritan, tho' he himfelf was a Sa- maritan) and that out of their antient books written in Hebrew letters, the Septuagint or 70 elders made fheir tranflation, which books in Hebrew letters were then prefer- ved by the yews in their fynagogues. Pto- lemy, king of Egypt, had only at firfl the Hebrew bible in Hebrew letters, tranfcri- bed and fent him y but not being able to F read c Hottinger. Amii»orin. p. 50. Carpzov. Critic facr. p. 229. 604.610. Univerfal Hiilory, vol 17. p. 305. i De vita Jofephi, 1. 1. p. 658. * Ad Grsecos, p. ij. [ 66 ] read and underftand it, he fent for men out of Judea to tranllate it into Greek* -, and Tertullian % affirms, that i*z the Sera- peum, or library of Ptolemy, the tranfla- tion was to be feen in his time, with the Hebrew letters themfelves, from which the tranflation was made; and certain it is, as the authors of the Univerfal Hi/lory h have obferved, that the Septuagint verfion is of higher antiquity than any of thofe fhekels which arefaid to have the Samaritan characters on them, the eldeft of which did not precede the fettlement of the high- priefthood in the Ajmonean family, that is not much above 150 years before Chrift -, and yet this is the main argument advanced in defence of the Samaritan letters being the antient Hebrew characters ; of the va- lidity of which, and the genuinefs of the Samaritan fhekels, more heareafter. The argument in favour of the Penta- teuch being written in the fquare character, taken from the fimilarity of Daleth and jR^7j, occasioning different readings of words, nay be ufed with refpect to the fecond book of Samuel, as written in the fame cha- racter, f Epiphan. de ponder. £ Apologet. c. 1 8-. h Us fupra, p. 301, 304, 305. [ 67 ] racier, the penmen of which feem to be Gad and Nathan* fee I Chron. xxix. 19. in which the king of Zobah is called Hadade- zer, 2 Sam. viii. 3. but the writer of the book of Chronicles, generally fuppofed to be Ezra, putting Rejh for Daleth, thro' the likenefs of the letters, calls him Hada- rezer, 1 Chron. xviii. 3. and fo one of Da- vid's worthies is called Shammah the Haro- dite, 2 Sam. xxiii. 25. but in i Chron. xi. 27. Shammoth the Harorite ; where may be obferved another difference, arifing from the fame caufe, the likenefs of the letters H and n the fame man being called Sham- mah in one place, and Shammoth in the other; and that it cannot be owing to the miftakes of late tranferibers, fince the fame difference is to be obferved in the Septua- gint verfion of both places ; betides there is another difference in the name. Harodite in Sam. is written with a n Cheth, and the Harorite in Chronicles with an ft He, which two letters are alfo very fimilar in the fquare character ; whereas, neither the 3 He and A- Tau 3 nor the VL Cheth and x He are at all alike in the Samaritan character. So that the fame that is called Hiddai 2 Sam. xxiii. 30. is Rural or Churai, 1 Chron. F 2 xi. 32. f 68 ] xi. 32. and another is called the Gadite 2 Sam. 23. 36. and Haggerz, or the Hagge- rite y 1 Chron. xi. 38. fo thro' the likenefs of Jod and ^?# in the fquare character, which have none in the Samaritan, as be- fore obferved, the king of Tyre is called Htraniy 1 Kings, v. 1, 2. and Huram 2 Chron. ii. 3. n. ^&7z Chabib or #. ilfc/fj- «S 'till heaven and earth pajs away, 07ie jot or one tittle pall in no wife pafs from the law, till all be fulfilled '; 11 De vita Mofis 1. z 656. * Seder Tephillah, fol. 86. 2. Abarbinel. Paerfat. in Jer. [ 8 5 ] fulfilled', which though it is not to be un- derstood of the bare letter Tod, which as it is fometimes redundant, fo in fome places wanting, as in i Sam. xxi. 2. 2 Sam. xvi. 23. and xxi. 8. Nebemiab xii. 46. and though it is a proverbial expref- fion, fignifying the unchangeablenefs and unalterablenefs of the law, with refpecl: to the leaft precept in it ; yet it is founded upon, and is an allulion to the writing of the law, and the letters of it; not to any copy of it in any language whatever ; but to the original writing of it, and its letters, in which it had continued unto his time, and in which the Iota or Tod is the leait of the letters ; and therefore could have no refpecl; to the Samaritan copy of the law, in which language it is not the lead letter, but a very large one ; which has befides the ftroke above, three large prongs, de- fending from it, each of' which is as large again as the Hebrew Tod; which is fo fmall, that Irenceus ' calls it half a letter ; and to which our Lord manifestly refers : and this makes it at leaft highly probable, that the law was originally written not in the Samaritan, but in the fquare Hebrew G 3 letters, 'Adv. Hjeref. 1. 2. c, 41. [ 86 ] letters, which had unalterably remained unto the times of Chrift ; all which make it greatly probable, that the Jews only had one fort of letters, which always remained with them, and are what are extant to this day. Bianconi^t the learned writer before- mentioned, is quite clear in it, that the Hebrew letters were never changed by Ezra, nor by any public authority ; and which he judges improbable, fince neither he nor yofephus make mention of any fuch change 5 and from the great numbers of Jews left in the land at the captivity, and the return of multitudes from it; and from Ezras coming to them with a large num- ber alfo, and that fixty or eighty years af- ter the return of the firft ; and from the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah> and from the fhekels in the times of the Macca- bees, which fuppofing fuch a change would have been not in the Samaritan, but in the fquare character ; and from the unlike- lihood of a conquered people-taking the characters of an enemy's language, and quitting their own, and that after they had f)een many years delivered from them. He k De Antiqu. Liter. Heb. p. \ 8.-22, 25, 26, I 87 ] He fuppofes, that the Hebrews, Chaldce- ans, Phoenicians, and Samaritans, had all the fame characters originally, and that there was a change made among the Jews long after the times of Ezra, from the ancient character to the fquare one ; and that it began in the fhekels, in the time of the Maccabees, in which he obferved a mix- ture of the ancient and modern characters, and fuppofes, that by little and little the change was made, from frequent tranf- cribing'the Bible, and daily writing -, and that the modern letters were gradually formed from ufe, and the fwift manner of writing, and for the convenience of it : but it does not feem probable that a cha- racter mould be mended through fwiftnefs of writing, and that fuch a grand, majeftic, regular, and well-formed character, as the fquare letter is, mould be produced in that way ; but rather that the ill-fhaped, ragged, rough, and deformed Samaritan character, mould fpring from thence ; and which feems to be the fact, but not fo late as the times of the Maccabees ; but as early as the divifion and difperiion of the nations, in the times of Peleg ; fo Gaffarellus * ob- G 4 ferves, * Unheard-of Guriofities, c. 13. f. 6. p. 40 5 . [ 88 ] fervcs, that the Samaritan characters are corrupted from the Hebrew ; and he adds, this is {o certain a truth, as that it is a point of infinite perverfenefs to offer to doubt of it. According to Dr. Bernard's table of alphabets, called Orbis eruditi Literatura a charatlere Samaritico deducla, it has been thought, that the letters of all nations muft have fprung from the Sama- ritan character; but this feems to depend much on fancy and imagination; and I am inclined to think, that all are deducible from the Hebrew fquare character, the Ajj'yrian firft, then the Phoenician, from that the Greek, and fo on; according to Hermatinns Hugo l , the Hebrew letters (the prefent ones) were the firft ; next fprung from them the Chaldcean letters, which he fays are fcarce extant ; then the Affyrian, or Babylonian, and the Syriac, or Ara- maean, and from the Syriac, the Samaritan. The principal argument by which die hypothecs oppofed, is iupported, is taken from fome coins or fhekels, laid to be dug up in Judea, with thefe words on them, Jerujalem the holy, and the foekel of Ijrael, the letters of which, it is af- ferted ? * De prima Scribencji orig. p. 54. [ h ] ferted, agree, in form, with the Samari~ tan. Now as the Samaritans, becaufe of their averfion to the Jews, and the ten tribes after their feparation from the other two, had nothing to do with Jeriifalem, nor any efteem for it, neither of them can be thought to ftrike thefe pieces ; and it is inferred from hence, that they mud have belonged to the Jews before the captivity, and to the Ifradites before the feparation of the ten tribes -, and confequently the Samaritan letters, fuppofed to be the fame with thofe on the coins, were the ancient Hebrew characters, and in which the books of the Old Teflament were written -, and this argument is thought to be unanfwer- able : but it mould be obferved, that the letters on the moil unexceptionable of thefe coins differ considerably from thofe in the Samaritan Pentateuch, and feem to refemble, in fome inftances, the Hebrew almoft as much as the Samaritan ; and be- fides the oldeft of them do not precede the fettlement of the high-priefthood in the Afmoncean family, and were not much above one hundred and fifty years before the aera of Chrift, and fome of them are later; 4 [ 9° J later m ; to which may be added, there are coins, both filver and brafs, with in- fcriptions in the fquare character, which according to them are much more ancient than the other, and fo prove the fuperior antiquity of the fquare character to that of the Samaritan. Rab. Azariah fays n , that he faw among fome ancient coins at Mantua, a filver coin which had on one fide of it the form of a man's head, and round about it, King Solomon, in the holy tongue, and fquare writing, and on the other fide the form of the temple, and round about it written the temple of Solo- mon ; and Hottinger ° affirms, he faw one of the fame fort in the collection of the Elector Palatine. The Jews in their Tal- mud p , ipeak of a yerufalem coin, which had David and Solomon on one fide, and the words, yerufalem, the holy city, on the other fide ; and of a coin of Abrahams, having on one fide, the Hebrew words for an old man and an old woman, and on the other fide, thofe, for a young man and a young woman-, and the learned Chrifiopher Wagenfeil m See the Univerfal Hiftory, vol. xvii, p. 302, 303, 304. n Meor Enayim, c. 58. fol. 174, 2. See fol. 54. Praefat. r.d Cippi Heb. p. 41. p T.Bab. Bava Kama, fol. 97, z. vid. Wafer, de Num. antiqu. 1. 2. c. 5. [ 9' ] Wagenfeil * afTures us, he had both thefe coins in his own poffeffion, of which he gives the figures with the words on them, in the fquare letters ; befides Abraham, the Jews * fpeak of three more, that coined money, Jojhua, JDavid, and Mor- decai-, the coin of Jojhua had on one fide a bullock, and on the other, an unicorn. See Deut. xxxiii. 17. that of David's had a ftaff and fcrip on one fide, and a tower on the other j that of Mordecai's had fackcloth and allies on one fide, and a crown of glory on the other 5 elfewhere -j- it is faid, it had Mordecai on one fide, and E/iher on the other : there was alfo a coin of Mofes - y I myfelf have feen a coin of his r , having on one fide, his face, with his ears horned, like rams horns, and un- derneath is the word nt^D> in fquare cha- racters, and on the other fide, the firft commandment, in the fame character, *p fVfV $h and thou Jh alt have no other God before me -, and which exactly agrees with one Mr. Selden ' had in his poffefilon, found among fome rubbifh at Skene in Surry. « Sotah, p. 574, 575. * Berefhit Rabba, Parafh. 39. fol. 34, 4. f Midrafli Efther, fol. 95, 4. r Penes Mr. Richard Hall in Southwark. s De Jure Naturae, 1. 2. c. 6, p. 187. t 92 ] Surry, It will be faid, thefe coins are fpu- rious -, the fame may be, and is faid of thofe that have the Samaritan characters on them; nor is there any reafon to believe that thofe (hekels or coins which have on them, Jerufalem the holy, and the fo eke I of Jfrael, are any of them indifputably ge- nuine. Ottius and Re/and, who have ap- plied themfelves clofely to the ftudy of thofe coins, have as good as confeifed it ; and Spanheim, by what he has fai , ap- pears to be in a very great doubt about it 1 . The celebrated Charles Patin, fo famous for his fkill in coins and medals, and who had free accefs to the cabinets of all the princes in Europe, declared many years ago to the learned Chrijlopher Wagenfeil* with great affurance, that he never found in thofe collections, an Hebrew coin, but what was manifestly fpurious : where- fore thefe coins are not to be depended on, nor can any fufficient argument be drawn from them in favour of any hypothecs. Moreover, it has been faid; that the anci- ent Hebrew or Samaritan characters, were given to the Cuthites or Samaritans, and left * Univerfal Hiftory, ut fupra, p. 303. u Ut fupra, P. 57 6 - f 93 1 left with them out of hatred to them, and that the fquare letters in the times of Ez- ra were chofen, taken, and retained by the yews . for their ufe ; but then how comes it to pafs that the Samaritan charac- ters were re-arTumed and infcribed on the coins three hundred years after, namely, on thofe of Simon the high prieft, of jfa- nathan his brother, and of John Hyrcanus y his fon, as the coins published by Mr. Swinton (hew w ? and by Jobn Hyrcanus, the 'aft of thefe, Samaria was deftroyed, the temple in Gerizzim demolished, after it had ftood two hundred years, and the Samaritans made tributary to the yews; and it is obfervable, that upon the coin of HyrcamiSy on one fide are Samaritan let- ters, and on the other Greek letters, and which was ufual with the Carthaginians, Syrians, and Sidonians ; and there is an in- ftance of it in a coin of Demetrius : x and by the way, this furnifhes us with an anfwer to a queftion of Bianconi y , who afks, why the Maccabees did not put Greek letters on their money, a well known cuftom in that w Diflert. de Num. Samar. p. 46,49,61. x Montfaucon. Diar. Italic, p. 355. / De Antiqu. Liter. Heb. p 23, 24. [ 94 ] that age, and common to all the eaft, for it feems he never faw any -, and adds, that Jewi/h coins with two forts of letters Were never feen. But to proceed ; from the different letters on the coin of Hyrcanus, from the one, it can no more be inferred, that Samaritan letters were in ufe among the jfews y than that from the other, Greek letters were; and though I profefs no fkill in coins, I mould think that the reafon of thofe different characters were defigned by Hyrcanus as an infult on both people, and as a triumph over them, and to perpetuate the fame of his conquefls both over the Samaritans and the Greeks, or Syro Mace- donians : however, it appears, that from thefe coins no argument can be taken to fupport the hypothens, that the ancient Hebrew characters were the Samaritan ; and indeed it is entirely inconnftent with it ; for how does it appear that thofe let- ters were left to the Samaritans, and others taken by the Jews ? and it is alfo clear that there is no neceffity to give into the notion of a twofold character in ufe with the Jews, the one facred, in which their holy books were written, namely, 4 the t 95 J the fquare character ; and the other com- mon, ufed in coins and civil affairs, as the Samaritan-, to which fome Jews z and chris- tians a feem to have been led by the above coins ; for though the Egyptians b had their facred characters and their common ones, and fo had the Greeks e yet not the Jews, whofe priefts had no juggling tricks to play, as the priefts of Egypt and Greece had -, and though fome later Jews have given into the notion of a double charac- ter, as in ufe formerly, yet it is not men- tioned in their ancient writings, as if they had one for the fancluary and facred ufes, and another for common ufe ; the only place I have met with, that feems to favour it, is the Targum of "Jonathan, on Gen. xxxii. 2. " and he called the name of the " place in the language of the holy houfe, " Mahanaim" which is not to be rendered the language of the houfe of the fancluary, or the temple, as by fome, fince that is ufually called, t£Hp£ rV:i or tttJHplE, as ire Gen. xxviii. iy 3 22. and not KS^llp no as here ; *Maimon. & BartenorainMifn. Yadaim,c. 4. f. 5. a Vid. Buxtorf. de Lit. Heb. f. 45 . b Herodot. Euterpe, five, 1 2. c. 36. Diodor. Sicul. 1. i. p. 72. & 1. 3. p. 144. Clement. Alex. Stromat. 1. 5. p. 555. c Theodoret. in Gen. Quseft. 60. [ 96 ] here ; but the language of the holy houfe* or family, the people of God, that is, the Hebrew tongue ; to which may be added, an ancient writer among the chriftians, Ire- nceus*, who fays, that" the ancient and nrfl letters of the Hebrews, and called facer dotal, are ten in number y but that he means to dif- tinguifh them from any other letters or cha- racters, ufed by the Hebrews, does not appear; befides, he fpeaks only of ten, and what he means is not eafy to fay -, however, by them he cannot mean the Samaritan letters, becaufe among thefe letters he reckons the Tod, which he calls half a letter, which cannot agree with the Samaritan Tod, but does with that of the fquare character. * Adv. Haeref. 1. 2. c 41. CHAP. [ 97 ] CHAP. III. Concerning the Original of the Samaritans* their Language and Letters. HAVING, in the preceding Chapter* fhewn that it is probable that the Hebrews always had the fame letters, with- out any material change or alteration, and which have been retained by them, and are in ufe to this day; I {hall endeavour, in this chapter, to make it appear as probable* that the Samaritans always had diftinct letters from the Jews, and retained them ; fo that there never was any commutation of letters between them : and in order to fet this in as clear a light as I can 3 it may be proper to enquire into the original of letters, and particularly of the Samari- tans. It is highly probable that there were let- ters before the flood, as already hinted, and fo before the confufion of tongues, which, as the firft language they belonged to, were pure and uncorrupt,and the original of others; which firft letters were the Hebrew, that H being [ 98 ] being the firft tongue, as Hermannus Hugo d obferves ; nor, as he adds, did the figures of letters begin to differ before the diverfity of languages at Babel. But my enquiry is, concerning the firft letters after the divifion of tongues ; and thefe are claimed by vari- ous nations : fome fay they were the inven- tion of the Egyptians, others of the Phoeni- cians, and others of the Chaldceans c . Many afcribe the invention of letters to the Egyp- tians, to the Thoth, Taautus, the Mercury of the Egyptians, as Sanchoniatho f , Gellius g , and others, as fome in Plato * ; but Pliny fays h the P Phoenicians bear away the glory of it ', and if fame is to be credited, as Lucan l exprefTes it, they were the firft. that dared to mark words by figures. Suidas -j- afcribes the invention of letters to them, and i% does Mela k ; but Vojfias, in hisobfervations on him, is of opinion, that by letters he means numbers, and that Arithmetic and Ajironomy were the invention of the Phoe- nicians, d De prima Scribendi Orig. c. 3. p. 42, 43. e Theo- philus ad Autolyc. 1. 3. prope iinem. f Apud Eufeb. Evangel. Praepar. 1. 1. p. 31. s Apud Plin. Nat. Hift. 1. 7. c. 56. * In Philebo, p. 374. & in Phaedro, p. 1240. h Piin. 1. q. c. 12. l Phssnices primi, &c.Phar. fal. 1. 3. v. 220. So Critias, apud Athenaeum, 1. i.e. 22. p. 28. f In voce ypa.ppa.'w, and in Kao/xo?. k De Situ Orbis, I. i.e. 12. [ 99 ] nicians, which need the affiftance of num- bers ; and perhaps the true realbn why let- ters have been thought to be found out by them is, becaufe they firft brought them, into Greece -, but as Dr. Cumberland 1 re- marks, the Chaldeans and Ajfyridns will not grant them this honour, but contend for an earlier invention of them, and that the inventors lived among them, and not in Phoenicia, nor in Egypt ; and Pliny m is of opinion, that the Ajjyrian letters were al- ways, or that the Ajjyrians always had let- ters ; which he confirms by the teftimonies of Epigenes, Berofus and Critodemus, who fay, they had obiervations of the ftars in- fcribed on bricks, for a long courfe of years paft ; as they might have from the begin- ning of their nation, or nearly, and which was very early : it was in their country the confufion of tongues was made ; and their language comes near to the Hebrew, the firft and pure language, from which theirs is a deviation ; and fo their letters might be taken from theirs, though greatly cor- rupted. Ellas * obferves that the Syrian language is nearer!: to the holy, or Hebrew language, of all languages ; and quotes H 2 Aben 1 Sanchoniatho, p. igi. ™ Ut fupra, 1, 7, c. 56. * Pra?- /"at. ad Methurgeman. [ ioo ] Aben Ezra as of opinion that the Syrian language is no other than the holy tongue corrupted ; which corruption Elias thinks took place after Abraham departed from Chaldea, though perhaps it might be fooner; fo Ephrem Syrus, who well underftood that language, fays *, that the Syrian language has an affinity with the Hebrew, and in fome refpects nearer reaches the fenfe of the fcriptures ; and R. David Ganz -f* ob- ferves, that thofe who were nearer! to the place where the confufion was made, were purer and nearer to the holy tongue, as th Syrians and Arabians ; the Ajfyrian, Chaldee, and Syrian language and letters were the fame ; and they are of great affinity, if not the fame, with the old Phoenician, now called the Samaritan, as will be feen here- after -, and the duels of their letters may well be thought to be had from the He- brew ; but as the Ajjyrians are the firfr. the heathen writers had knowledge of, to them they impute the original of letters, as many do n . Diodorus Siculus ° relates, that fome fay the Syrians (that is, the Af- fyrians) * Apud Bafil. in Hexaemeron, Homil. 2. f Tzemach David, par. 2. fol. 4. 1. n Vide Alex. ab. Alex. Ge- nial. Pier. 1, 2. c. 30. ° Bibliothec. 1. 5. p. 340. , [ 1°' ] Jyrians) were the inventors of letters ; and Eufebius alfo obferves p the fame, that fome fay, the Syrians flrft devifed letters; and he feems willing to allow it, provided that by Syrians are meant Hebrews ; but no doubt thofe writers intended the Syrians or AJfy- rians, commonly fo called : fome, in Clemens of Alexandria % join the AJfyrians and Phce- nicians together, as the inventors of letters ; but the real fact feems to be as follows : The Phoenicians received their letters from the AJfyrians or Syrians, and not from the Hebrews, as fome have thought -, not from Abraham the anceftor of them, who, according to Suidas*, invented the holy letters and language, the knowledge of which he fays, the Hebrews had, as be- ing his difciples and pofterity : that he in- vented the letters and language, may be doubted ; but that he fpoke it is not be queftioned, fince he was forty-eight years of age, when the confufion of tongues was made, as before obferved, and therefore fpoke the pure language ; yea, E/ias Le- r uita • fays, it was clear to him that language was confounded immediately after he went H 3 from P Praspar. Evangel, ut fupra. "J Stromat. 1. l. p. 307. 1 In voce A%xa/A. » Prsfat, ad Methurgeman. [ I02 ] from Chaldea, and that he and his ancef- tors fpoke the holy tongue as received from Adam, to Noab 9 which may be admitted; but it cannot by any means be admitted, that when he came among the Canaanites, that he either learned the primitive or He- brew language from them, as fome have fancied, which they neither had, nor he needed, fince he fpoke it before -, or that he taught it them. Eupo/emus and Artapa- iius, who fay ', that Abraham taught the 'Phoenicians AJironomy, yet don't pretend that he taught them letters ; nor is there any foundation for the one or the other, lince he chofe not to have fuch a free con- verfation and fociety with them as thefe required, who would not fo much as bury his dead with them, nor fufFer his fon to intermarry with them ; and the like pre- caution ljaac his fon took with refpect to Jacob, who for fome years was out of the land, and when he returned, was but a fojourner in it, as his fathers had been ; and after a while went down with his pofte- rity into Egypt, where they abode at lean: two hundred years j and when they came from * A pud Eufeb. Prasnar. Evangel. I. 9. c 17, 18. [ i°3 ] from thence, and after forty years travel in the wildernefs, and entered the land of Ca- naan, the inhabitants were either deftroyed by them, or they fled before them, and even at the report of their coming*; and fo had no time to learn a language of them, or receive letters from them. Cadmus, the 'Phoenician, whom Ifocrates -j- calls the Si- donian, is generally fuppofedtogo from Phoe- nicia to Greece, in the times of Jojhua, whither he carried letters, and therefore muft be pofTerTed of them before Jq/bua entered Ca?iaan ; he is faid to come to Rhodes in Greece, and at Lindus to offer to Lindia Minerva a brafs pot with Phoenici- an letters on it ; and the huge ferpents, who, upon his coming thither, are faid J to wafte that country, feem to be no other than the Hivites, the fame with the Cadmo- nitesj Gen. xv. 19. which the word Bivites fignifies, whom Cadmus brought with him thither. Others of the Phoenicians or Ca- naanites fled into Africa ', particularly the Girgajites, as is alferted in the 'Jerufalem H 4 Tat- * Targum. in Cant. 3. 5. f Helens Laudat. in fine. X Diodor. Sic. 1. 5 p. 329, ' T. Bab. Sanhedrii^ fol . 9 1 . 1 . 2 [ I0 4 ] Talmud u , and is confirmed by Procopius w , who fays they came into Numidia, where they had a garrifon in the place where in his time was the city of Tingis (now called Tangier), where they erected two pillars of white ftone, then in being, A. D. 540, which he himfelf faw and read, on which inP/6^;z/<:/^ letters were written, "we " are they that fled from the face of Jefus, *' (ov jofouaj the robber, the Ion of Nave u (or Nun J." Suidas * fays, it was written, we are the Canaanites -, which is a full proof they had letters before the times of Jo/hua, and did not learn them of the Ifraelites when they came into Canaan ; befides, it is clear from the lcriptures alfo, that they had letters before that time, as appears from the names of fome cities among them, particularly Debir, which in the Perjian language, as Kimcbi* from the Rabbins fays, fignifies a book; and which place was alfo called Kirjath-fannab, and Kirjath-fepber, which fignify, that it was a city where either there was an academy for the in- ftruction n T. Hierof. Sheviith, fol. 37. 3. w Vandalic.l. 2. p. 13^. apud Prideaux. Not. ad Marmor. Arundel. Tingit. p. 139, 140. Evagrii Ecclef Hift. I. 4. c. 18. * In voce yjawaiv, Co Athanafius, contr. Gentes, p. 16. x Commen\ in Jud, 1. 1. T, Bab. Avodah Zarah, fol. 24. 2. [ "5 ] ilr uction of perfons, or a library of books, or where the archives of the country were kept, a city of Archives, as the Targum, which fuppofes letters ; and the Septuagint render it a city of letters, yofb. xv. 49. from all which it feems plain, that the Phcenici- ans or Canaanites did not receive letters from the Hebrews, but rather from the Af- fyrians or Syria?2s. The Afyrians or Syrians, though they may be difiinguimed, the one having their name from AJhur, a fon of Shem, and the other from Aram, 2. younger fon of his, Gen. x. 22. hence they are called in Strabo y Aramaeans or Arimei -, and in the times of Ahaz king of Judab there were both a king of Ajfyria, and a king of Syria, yet thefe two names are often confounded, and indifferently ufed by the ancients, as if the fame people, Syria being commonly thought to be a contraction of Ajfyria z > fo Lucian of Samofata in Syria, calls him- felf an AJfyrian % and on the other hand, Tatian the AJfyrian, is called by Clemens of Alexandria b , a Syrian ; thefe countries be- ing contiguous, yea, the one a part of the other, yGeograph. I. 16. p. 540. 2 Univerfal Hiftory, vol. 2; p. 255. * De Dea Syrise, p, 1 . b Stromac, 1. 3. p. 460, [ "6 ] other, they may very well be called the one and the r f her -, the Syrians, according to Suidas %; , have their name from the Af- Jyrians -, hence IJidore c fays, whom the anci- ents called Affyrians we call Syrians -, fo Juftin d remarks, that the Affyrians, who were afterwards called Syrians, held the empire three hundred years ; and the fame people who, according to Herodotus*, were by the Greeks called Syrians, are by the Barbarians called Affyrians, among whom were the Chaldeans ; and Strabo obferves f , that Semiramis and Ninus were called Syrians, by the one Babylon the royal city was built, and by the other Nineveh, the metropolis of Affyria ; and that the fame language was ufed both without and within the Eu- phrates, that is, by the Syrians ftrictly fo called, and by the Babylonians or Chaldcz- ans : and it need not feem ftrange that the Phoenicians mould receive their letters from thefe people, fince they were their neighbours, and lived fo near them. He- rodotus g fpeaks of them as fpringing out of Syria, and dwelling in Syria, and of Phce- * In voce Aa-crv^oi. e Orig. 1. 9. c. 2. d A Trogo I. 1. c. 2. e Polymnia, five, 1. 7. c. 63. f Geograph. 1. 2. p. 58. 8 Clio, five, 1. i.e. 105. & Euterpe, five, 1, 2. c. 116. [ *°7 ] Phoenicians and Syrians as together in Pa- lefiine h . Phoenicia is often defcribed as in- cluded in Syria, and as a part of it ; fo Diodorus Siculus l , fpeaking of Caele- Sy- ria, adds, in which Phoenicia is compre- hended , and Strabo k fays, fome divide all Syria into Coele- Syrians and Phoenicians ; and Clemens of Alexandria x calls Phoenicia, Phoenicia of the Syrians ; and IJidore m ob- ferves, that £yr/tf has in it, the provinces Comagene, Phoenicia, and Pale/line; fo P//- #y n : P/&/7, & Reinef. de Ling. Funic, p. 1 j. [ »°8 J the Phoenicians" fignifying, their being a- Jike as to temper and behaviour ; their re- ligion and deities were the fame; the rites of Adonis were common to them both ; Adad, the god of the Ajjyrians \ is the fame with the Adodus of the Phoenicians * ; fo that, all things confidered, it may well be thought they had the fame language and letters, or nearly the fame. Annius of Vi- terbo affirms % that the ancient AJfyrian and Phoenician letters were the fame, who certainly was a man of learning, for the times he lived in, and very inquifitive, how- ever culpable he might beinpublifhing fome fragments as genuine, thought to be fpuji- ous ; on which account perhaps he has been a little too feverely treated by critics, as Dr. Clayton late bi£hop of Clogher has obferved b ; and who is of opinion, that his fragment of Berofus, fo much complained of, ought not to be entirely rejected as fpurious ; and the fame writer fays c , that the firft. Phoe- nix, from whom the Phoenicians had their name, and the firft Cadmus from whom the i Macrob. Saturnal. 1. i.e. 24. * Sanchoniatho apud Eufeb. Prspar. Evangel. I. 2. p. 38. a Comment, in Xeno- phon. de .^quivocis, p. 1 18. b Introduce. Chronolog. Heb. Bible, p. 19 — 22. c Annii Comment, in Manethon. Sup. plement. p. 97. [ io 9 1 the Greeks had their letters, fprung from Syria; which Phoenix, who is faid by him to reign in Sidon, according to Sanchoni- atho d , was no other than Canaa?i the fon of Ham ; for he fays, that <{ one of thefe (the Phoenicians) IJiris was the inventor of three letters, the brother of 'Chna (or Ca- naan) who was firft called Phoenix. 1 ' The old Canaanitijh or Phoenician lan- guage, and alfo the Punic, were the fame ; hence Aujlin e fays, that the coun- try-people living near him, who were a colony of the Phoenicians, when afked who they were, ufed to anfwer, in the Punic language, Chanani, CanaaniUs. Now, though this language was near the Hebrew language, fo that the Hebrews and Cana- anites could converfe together as to un- derftand one another, which appears from Abrahams converfation with them, Gen? xiv. 1 8. — 24. and xxiii. 3. — 16. and from the converfation of the Hebrew fpies with Rahab the Canaanite, Jojh. ii. 9 — 21. and from the names the Canaanites impofed on their cities before they came into the hands of * Apud Eufeb. Prsepar. Evangel. 1. 2. c. 10. p. 39. * Ex-^ pof, Rom. Tom. 7. p. 363. [ »° 3 of the Hebrews, as is evident from the books of Jojhua and Judges, unlefs thofe names were given them by Eber and his fons, who dwelt here before the Canaan- ites, as Dr. Lightfoot * fuggefts ; yet the language was not altogether the fame, it differed much, and efpecially in after-times, and particularly in their colonies, where it had the name of the Punic. Aujiin x hav- ing remarked, that the Hebrews call Chrlft MeJJiah, obferves, that " the word agrees « c with the Punk language, as very many ie Hebrew words, and almojl all do ;" which may be true of proper names in particular, but not of words in general. St. Jerom, who underflood the Hebrew language bet- ter than Aujiin, affirms, that the Canaan- itijh or Punic language was bordering near unto the Hebrew *, and in a great part near unto it" 3 he does not fay, as Fuller w ob- ferves, in the greater!: part, nor almoft in every part, and ftill lefs in every part, but in a great part ; and fo Origen x affcrts, that the s Works, vol. 2. p. 327. x Contr. Petil. 1. 2. p. 123. Tom. 7. vid. Reinef. de Ling. Punic, c. 4. f. 4. p. 20. * Trad. Heb. in Gen. fol. 71, M. u Comment, in Ifaiam, c. 19. fol. 42. C. & in Hierem. c. 25. fol. 51. F. Tom. 5. w Mifcellan. Sacr. 1. 4. c. 4. * Contr. Cel- fum, ]. 3. p. 115. t I" ] the Hebrew language differs both from the Syrian and the Phoenician, Jerom in one place y fays, that the Canaanitijh or Punic language is a middle language between the "Egyptian and the Hebrew. Salmajius ■ fug- gefts as if fome thought that the Punic and Egyptian languages were the fame ; which can by no means be admitted. It feems mod probable what Jerom elfe- where a obferves, that the Canaanitijh or Phoenician language is the Syrian, or nearly that -, and Aufiin b affirms, that the Hebrew, Punic, and Syrian languages are very near a-kin -, and mofl of the words which he makes mention of as Punic, are plainly Chaldee or Syriac ; fo mammon, he fays % is the word for gain, in the Pu- nic language, and is the Syriac word ufed for riches in the time of Chrift, Luke xvi. 9. hence with the Phoenicians is the name of a man Abdamamon d , which fignifies a fervant of mammon, riches wealth, or gain, fee Mat. vi. 24. fo he fays e blood, in the Punic language is called Edom ; now in the v In Ifalam, ut fupra. * Not. in pallium Tertull. p. 205. a In Ifaiam, ut fupra. " In Ioannem, Tr. 15. p. 58. Tom. 9. c De Sermon. Dom. 1. 2. p. 352. Tom. 4. d Vid. Swinton. Infcript. Cit. p. 21. c £- naxrat. in Pf, 136. p. 646. B. [ H2 ] the Hebrew tongue it is Dam ; but in the Chaldee or Syriac tongue, it is, CHtf, or CTtf, which are frequently ufed in the Chaldee paraphrafes : he alfo obferves f Baal in the Funic tongue, fignifies Lord, and Samen heaven, and both together, Lord of heaven, which with Sanchoniatho * a Phoenician writer, is a deity of the Phoeni- cians ; and fo Balfamen in the Pcenulus of Plant us h , is manifeflly of a Chaldee or Sy- riac termination : the above Phoenician writer ' fpeaks of a fort of intelligible ani- mals, whom he calls Zophajemin, and which Philo Byblius, who tranllated his work out of the Phoenician language into Greek, interprets feers, or contemplators of the heavens, which word alfo, is plainly in the Chaldee or Syriac dialect; and Kir c her k affirms, that he had in his pof- feffion a fragment of Sanchoniatho, written in the Aramaean or Syrian language. The Maltefe, or the inhabitants of the ifland called Melita, Acls xxviii. I . a colony of the Phoenicians as Di odor us Si cuius l af- firms, f Qusft. fuper Jud. 1. 7. p. 130. B. Tom. 4. & A- pud Eufeb. Przepar. 1. 2. p. 34. h Aft. 5. fc. 2. v. 67. 1 Apud Eufeb. 1. 2. p. 33. k Obelifc Pamphil. p. in. apud Fabritii Biblioth. Gr. Tom 1. p. 164. ' Bib- liothec. 1. 5. p. 294. 2 [ »*3 ] firms, have in their language a great deal of the old Phoenician or Punic unto this day ; and it is obfervable, that their nu- merals from two to eleven, end in a, and from twenty to an hundred, in in m ; which are exactly the terminations of the fame numbers in the Chaldee or Syriac dialect. The Carthaginians were another colony of the Phoenicians, and the old name of the city of Carthage was Car- theda ; which, as Solinus n fays, in the Phoe- nician language, Signifies the new city, be- ing compofed of tfmp Kartha a city, and KJ~nn new, which are both Chaldee words. There was a city in Canaan, or old Phoe- nicia, called Hadattah, or Hazor-Hadattah, New Hazor, Jo/h. xv. 25. and another city there is called Kerioth : another name of Carthage we meet with in Plautus °, ap- pears to be of Phoe?jician original, Gbadre- anac, the chambers, lodging, or feat of A- nak, that is, the Aiiakim, fuch as were in old Canaan ; though, according to Dr. Hyde p , the word fignifies, as he conjec- tures, the new city alfo : and Bochart q has I obferved m See Univerfal Hiftory, vol. 17. p. 299. n Polyhiih c. 40. So Ifidor. Orio;. 1. 14. c. 14. ' ° r'cenulus, Ad. 5. fc. 2. v. 35. p Not. in Peritzol. Itinerar. Mundi, p. 44. *» Canaan. 1, 2. c. 6. [ H4 J obferved many words in the Punic of Plait** tus, which are in the Syrian dialedt ; and there are feveral words in different authors faid to be Punic or Phoenician, which are manifeftly Chaldee or Syriac. Plutarch fays % the Phoenicians call an ox Tbor, which is the word ufed in Chaldee for it. 'Jonah's gourd, according to Jerom *, was called Elkeroa in the Syriac and Punic lan- guage,* as if they were the fame. Sanc- tius l obferves, that in Spain a garden is called by a Punic name Carmen, which fignifies a vineyard, though fet with other trees ; which Punic word, he makes no doubt (as he need not) comes from the Hebrew word Cerem, a vineyard, and which in the Chaldee language in the plu-^ ral number is Cermin *, and Char mis * is the name of a city given by the Phoenicians, becaufe of the multitude of vines about it. lfidore a , fays the Phoenicians call a new village Magar-, the word is ufed by Plautus in his Panulus w , where it fignifies a place in Carthage, fome public building there, r Opera, vol. i. Vit. Sylloe, p. 463. s Comment, in Jonam, c. 4. fol. 59. B. ' Comment, in Cantic. 1.6. p. 58. * Stephan. de urb. ° Orig. 1. i$. c. 12. Co Servius in Virgil. yEneid. lib. r. v. 369. w Prolog, v. 86. rid. Philip. Pareum in lb. & Lexic Plautin. [ i*5 ] there, and it is the fame with the Syriac word Magar, which fignifies an habitation 3 fo Anna in Virgil x , the fitter of Dido, or £///#, who were both Phoenicians, and daughters of Pygmalion king of Tyre, is the Syriac name for Hannah. See Z,«£* ii. 36. Gtf^J or Cadiz, corruptly called Cales, which belongs to Spain, the Phoe- nicians called Gadir or Gadira, which in the Punic language fignifies an hedge, as is obferved by many y , and fo it does in Chaldee ; the reafon of which name is, be- caufe that place was hedged about on all fides by the fea : the Syriac word Korean, ufed by the Jews in Chritt's time for an oath, Mark vii. 1 1 . is faid by Theophraf- tus * to fignify the fame in the Punic lan- guage ; and Lachman is ufed by Athenceus ft for bread, which the Syrians fo call, and which in Syria is the belt bread; and by the Syrians and Syria, he means Phoenicians and Phoenicia, where it feems it was fo called, and is manifeftly a Chaldee word; as is the word Nabla, the name of a mufical in- I 2 ftrument, x JEne\d. 1. 4. v. q. & paffim. 7 Feftus Avienus in Ora Maritim.l. i. Solinus, c. 36. Plin. Nat. Hift. 1. 4. c. 22. Ifi- dor. Orig. 1. 14. c. 6. 2 Apud Jofeph. contr. Apion, 1, 1. f. zz. * Deipnofophift. 1. 3. c. 29 p. 113. [ n6 J Jftrument, faid by him * to be an invention; of the Phoenicians ; as Sambuca is of the Syrians, called the Phoenician lyre, the' fame with the Chaldee Sabbeca, Dan. iii. 5. there rendered fackbut. Paufanias -f ufes this as a proof that Cadmus was not an Egyp- tian, but a Phoenician ; becaufe Minerva is not called by the Egyptian word Sais, but by the Phoenician word Siga, which comes from the Chaldee or Syriac word tfJD to increafe or be increafed ; from all which it appears, that the Chaldee or Syrian language and the Phoenician are nearly the fame, and fo the letters may be fuppofed to be. Let it be further obferved, that the Greeks had their letters from the Phoenici- ans, at leaft fixteen or feventeen of them, b ' which Cadmus, fome fay Linus J, brought out of Phoenicia into Greece ; which, with- out mentioning their number, is afferted by Herodotus c , who fays, they were called Cadmeian and Phcenicianlctters, and that he faw fome of them at Thebes in Boeotia, en- graved on fome Tripods there, and that they were * lb. 1. 4. c 23. p. 175. f Exotica, five, 1. 9. p. 560. b Plin. 1. 7. c - 7. c. 56. Ireiisus adv. Haref. 1. i.e. 12. Ifidor. Orig. 1. i. c. 3. I Suidas in voce Aoo,-. 'Terpfi*- chore, five, i. 5. c. 58. 59. [ *i7 1 were greatly like the Ionic letters -, the iame fays Diodorus Sicu/us of the original and names of thofe letters, and relates d , that the brafs pot Cadmus offered to Mi- nerva Lindia, had an infcription of Phoe- nician letters on it : the Greeks therefore, themfelves, acknowledge, that they had their letters from the Phoenicians, as the above writers affirm, and fo Euphorus % Zenodotus f , and others -, hence Jofephus g obferves, that they glory in it, that they received them from them ; fo that this is a matter out of queftion : and Bianconi h is of opinion, that the ancient Greeks ufed the very letters of the Phoenicians ; and indeed this feems to be the meaning of Herodotus, in the place before referred to ; and Dic~iys Cretenjis is faid l to have written his hif- tory of the Trojan wars, in the Greek lan- guage, but in Phoenician letters ; and fo Linus and Orpheus wrote in the letters of the Pelafgi, the fame with the Phoenician, as fays * Diodorus ; and the Greeks for- merly wrote as the Phoenicians did, from 1 3 the d Bibliothec. 1. 3. p. 328, 329, 340. c Apud Clem. Alex. Stromat. 1. 1. p. 306. * In Laert. vit. Philofoph. 1. 7. p. 455. b Contr. Afion. 1. 1. f. 2. h De An- tiqu. Liter. Heb. p. 59. i Vid. Fabritii Bibliothec. Gr. 1. i.e. 5. f, 10. p. 33 * Bibliothec. 1. 3. p, 200, 201. [ "8 ] the right to the left, for in this form was the name of Agamemnon written, on his ftatue at Olympiad ; and thus wrote the Etrufci, who had their letters from the Greeks -f, whofe ancient language was the Aramaean or Syrian \ -, which way of wri- ting by the Greeks, was gradually by little and little difuied, and irTued in a form like that of the ploughing of oxen, called £vgoo(p'$ov, in which manner the laws of Solon were written, as appears from Suidas c and Harpocratiah d ; that is alternately, from the right to the left. Now as the Greeks re- ceived their letters from the Phoenicians, and there is a fimilarity of the letters of the one to thofe of the other, as it is rea- fonable to fuppofe there mould, and as He- rodotus, upon his own fight, affirms there was, as before obferved, nay, were the fame ; fo there is a great likenefs between the Greek and the prefent Samaritan let- ters ; as the Samaritans wrote from the right hand towards the left, if the poiition of the Samaritan letters be inverted for that pur- * Paufan. Eliac. i. five 1. 5. p. 338. f Vid. Dicktn- fon. Delphi Phaenic c. 10 & Reinefium Boderian. Prasfat. ad Lex Syro-Chald. Wahon Praefat. ut iupr^, i 35. T Lexic. Heptoglott. col. 178. vid. Pfefferi Critica facta, f. 2. problem. Queft. ». [ *33 ] proved, fince we have no writings of theirs extant ; for what Chaldee books we have v were written by Jews, either in, or after the Babyhnijh captivity ', as by Daniel, and Ezra, who wrote Chaldee in the fquare character, becaufe it was what their facred books were written in, they had been ufed to, and the people alfo, for whofe ufe they wrote •, and in after times, the Chaldee paraphrafes were written by Jews-, and fo both Talmuds, though lefs pure ; and it feems this character was ufed by the Syri- an chriflians, in imitation of the Jews, be- fore their change of characters already mentioned ; but after the Chaldee monarchy ceafed, no books were written by any of that people in their own language. Bero- fus the Chaldean, and others, wrote in Greek. Theophilus of Antioch a indeed fays, that Berafus fhewed the Greeks Chaldee let- ters ; but whether by them he means their learning, laws, and hiftory, or the characters of their letters, is not cer- tain ; if the letters, it does not appear what they were : hence Hottinger h con- K 3 eluded a Ad Autolyc.l. 3. p. i?9- b Smegma oriental, par. i. p. 35. Gram. Chald. Syr. p. 4. [ '34 ] eluded that the ancient character of the Ajfyrians and Chaldeans is unfeen, and un- known, and that nothing certain is had concerning it ; fome, he fays, think it is the Samaritan) which is right, others, the Ethiopic ; but he himfelf was in fu£- pence, and hoped, that in fome time would be publifhed by Golius, fome Chaldee wri- tings, in the ancient tongue and character j but whether any ever were publifhed, I never heard. The Jews fay c , that after the hand-writing of the angel upon the wall, and the publication of the Hebrew characters by Ezra, the Chaldeans left their own characters, and ufed them ; but this feems to be faid without any good founda- tion, • = Now, fince both the Samaritan language and letters differ from the Hebrew, being the old Vhcenician and Aflyrian-y it was ne- ceffary that, when the Pentateuch of Mo- fes was brought among them, it fhould be copied, and put into Samaritan letters, that they might read it? ask was, and that from a copy in the fquare character, as the e Buxtorf, de Lit. Heb. Addit. 5 [ *f$ ] the variations mew, before obferved ; and it was necefTary alfo, that there mould be a verfion of it in their own language, that they might the better underftand it, and which alfo has been done; and upon the whole, I think it plainly appears, that they always retained their own language and letters, which were the Affyrian and old Thcenician, to the times of Manajfeh their high prieft, and ages after, as the Hebrews retained their language and letters alfo, the fquare ones ; fo that there feems to be no foundation for any fuch change of let- ters being made by Ezra, as has been con- tended for. CHAP. t 136 ] CHAP. IV. Of the Antiquity of the Vowel-Points, and Accents, IPut the vowel-points and accents toge- ther, becaufe, according to the doc- trine of them, they have a dependence on each other ; the points are often changed according to the pofition of the accents, and therefore the One muft be as early as the other ; and as Elias Levita b himfelf obferves, " there is no fyllable without a " point, and there is no word without an u accent." About the antiquity of thefe there has been a controverfy for a century or two part, and which is not yet decided; nor do I expecl: it will be by this eiTay of mine ; all that I propofe is, to try how far back, or how high, in point of antiquity, thefe things can be traced and carried. There have been divers opinions con- cerning them. Some think they are of a di- vine original ; and others, that they are of human invention. Some fuppofe that they were * Sepher TobTaam, five, de accent, c, 4. [ 137 1 were firft invented by Ben A/her and Ben Napbtali, about the year 1037'; others, that they were devifed by the Jews of Ti- berias, 500 years after Chrift at lead:, or however were invented after the Talmud was finimed f ; others afcribe them to Ez~ ra and the men of the great fynagogue g ; who they fuppofe, at lean: revived and re- ftored them, and fixed them to the confo- nants, which before were only delivered and ufed in a traditionary way ; and others are of opinion, they /were given to Mofes on mount Sinai, as to the power of them in pronouncing and reading, though not as to the make and figures of them in wri- ting, but were propagated by tradition to the times of Ezra ; whilft others believe they were ab origine h , and were invented by Adam together with the letters, or how- ever that they were coeval with the letters, and in ufe as foon as they were : which ac- count is mod probable, may appear by tracing them ftep by ftep, from one period of e SoMorinus de Sinceritate Heb. & Gr. Text. 1.2. Ex- ercitat. 14. c. 1. Genebrard. chronolog. p 181. Calmet. &c. f Elias Levita, prsfat. 3. g Ben Chayim praefat. Bibl. in principio & multi fcript. Jud " Cofri par. 4. f. 25. Mufcatus in ib. fol. 229. 1. Meor Enayim. c. 59. [ 138 1 of time to another -, and to begin with the loweft of them, A. D. 1037. In this year, according to R. Gedaliah* and David Ganz f , flourifhed two famous Jews, Ben AJher., and Ben Naphtali, to whom fome have afcribed the invention of the vowel-points; and fo early, however, it is owned that they exifted, even 700 years ago and more : but that thefe were the inventors of them is not probable, fince in the following century lived many emi- nent Jewifh doctors, jfarcfo', Kimchi, and Aben Ezra, who often make mention of the points, but never as a novel invention ; which, had thefe been the authors of, it can hardly be thought, but that they would have made mention of them as fuch, and commended them for it. Kimcbi* obferves againft thofe that read Adonai lord, and im- mecha with thee, in Pf. ex. I, 3. inftead of Adoni my lord, and ammeca thy people, " that from the rifing of the fun to the fet- " ting of it, (i. e. throughout the world) " you • Shalfhalat Hakabala fol. 28. 2. f Tzemach Da- vid par. » . fol. 37, 1 . s Apud Pocok. Porta Mofis miicell. not. p. 58. [ 139 ] you will find, in all copies, Nun with ft cbirek, and Aw with patbacb :" fo that in his time pointed bibles were in common and general ufe, Befides, he charges Jerom with an error on account of the points, and therefore muft believe they were in his time. The author of the book of Cofri, h even if R. Judab Hallevi was the author of it, lived about 1 140, or as others, 1089 ; and he fpeaks of punctuation as a divine thing, as the effect of divine wifdom, and does not appear to have the leaft notion of its being of human invention, and much lefs the invention of the prefent age or preceding century 3 nay R. Judab Cbtjug, laid* to be the firft grammarian and the chief of them, he found the Bible pointed and accented, as Elias Levita k fays ; and he was coeval with Ben AJher, and wrote a book of the double letters, and another of pointing, l as if it was of long time and generally received, and was become an art ; he makes not the leaft mention of Ben Ajher being concerned in it ; and lb R. Jonab, another grammarian, a little af- ter him, is filent concerning this matter 1 "; and h Par. 3. c. 32. ' Balmefii Mikneh Abraham p. 24. lin. 10. Elias prasfat. Methurgeman, fol. 2. I. k lb. ' Wolfii Bibliothec. Heb. p. 338. 424. m Vid. Buxtorf. de Punft. Antiq. par. 2. p. 329. [ HO ] and Aben Ezra fpeaks 8 of Ben Labraf, who was before 'em both, as having found flinn with pat bach in Pf. ix. 6. in an an- tient pointed copy; fo that there was an antient pointed Bible before thefe men were in being: and what puts it out of all doubt that thefe men could not be the inventors of the points is, as Elias Levita obferves, ° that their distentions and difputes were a- bout the points and accents, and about words before pointed, and not then pointed ; wherefore it is not reafonable to fuppofe that they would difagree and difpute about what they themfelves had invented ; fo that it moft evidently appears, that the points muft be in ufe before their time. A. D. 927. About this time lived Saadiah Gaon, who wrote a book concerning pointing, which Jarcbi, on Pf. xlv. 9.mak,es mention of, and fays he faw it - y the points there- fore muft be before his time; for it cannot be thought that he mould write a book concerning an art, and the rules of it, which did not exift : the accents alfo muft then be in ufe, iince, as Gaon was for dividing * Comment, in Pf. 9. 6. ° Praefat. 3. [ Hi 1 Jehovah from righteoufnefs in Jer. xxiii. 6. making the latter to be the name of the Meffiah, and the former the name of God, who called him fo. Aben Ezra* replies to him, that he miflook or perverted the author of the accents, and made him guilty of an error, who put Tarcha (or TtphcaJ on IfcOp*; and again, whereas the word Jehovah is repeated in Exod. xxxiv. 6. Gaon obferves that the firft. name is to be con- nected with fcHp 1 !, proclaimed-, but Aben Ezra* replies, if it mould be fo, why did not the author of the accents connect it ? but fays he, it is right to repeat the name, as Abraham Abraham, Jacob Jacob, Mo- Jes Mofes. Now it would have been abfurd in Aben Ezra to have charged Gaon with a miilake or perverfion of the accents, if they were not in beingin the times of Gaon: he lived many years before Ben AJJoer and Ben Naphtali ; this proves that they were not the inventors of them ; and Aben Ez- ra himfelf lived in the next century to them, and he fpeaks of the accents not as a novel invention, but of as early ufe as the men of Ezra's great fynagogue ; and ex- * Comment, in Exod. 18. 3. 1 lb. in Exod 54. 6. [ '4 2 3 exprelfes fuch an high opinion of them, that he advifes not to acquiefce in any ex- pofition that is not according to them, nor hearken to it. A. D. 900. In the church of St. Dominic in Bononia, a copy of the Hebrew fcriptures is kept with great care, which is pretended to be the original copy written by Ezra himfelf, and is valued at a high rate ; fo that fome- times the Bononians have borrowed large fums of money upon it, and repaid them for the redemption of it. It is written in a very fair character, on calf-fkin drefs'd, the letters retaining their blacknefs, and it is made up in a roll, according to the antient man- ner. This copy was prefented by the Jews to Aymericus, the then mafler of the or- der of St. Dominic, who exercifed that of- fice about the year 1308, as Montfaucon r relates, who faw it ; and who further ob- ferves, that befides a Latin infcription fewed to it in the middle of the volume, which he gives, there is alfo one in He- brew, " this is the book of the law of Mo- * Diar. Italic, p. 399. 400. vid. ejufdem Prjeliminar. in Hexapla Origen. p. zz. [ 143 1 " fes, which 'Ezra the fcribe wrote, and " read before the congregation, both men " and women ; and he ftood in a wooden " pulpit." Montfaucon fays not whether it is pointed or no, but dean Prideaux f fays, it has the vowel-points ; and Francifcus < TiJfardus Ambaceus ailerts * the fame, who fays he often faw it -, as did alfo Arias Mon- tanus, u and who affirms that it has the Ma- jorat), the fame as in the Venetian and Bombergian editions. Now though there is no reafon to believe it to be the autograph of Ezra, nor near fo early, yet, according to the account of it, it muft be antient -, for it is near 460 years ago fince it was pre- sented by the Jews to the monaftery, and as they prefented it as a very antient copy, even as the autograph of Ezra, it muft have had then marks of antiquity on it, and muft have been written fome ages be- fore; and as Dr. Kennicott™ obferves, it is a moderate fuppofition to imagine it was written as long before it was prefented, as it has been fince, and fo muft be of as early a date as where I have placed it. A. D. r Connection, par. i . p. 362. * Gram. Heb. apud Hottinger. Thefaur. Philolog. p. 512, 513. u Pras- fat. de ver. Left, in Heb. Lib. * DiiTertation, voL 1. p. 310. [ H4 ] A. D. 740. If the book of Cofri i before-mentioned, was .not only compiled from loofe fheets and put together by R. Jtidah Hallevi, as fome think; but that the dialogue itfelf was had between a Jew, whofe name, fome fay, was Ifaac Sangari, and a Per pan king, whofe name was C ho/roes, and which R. Ju- dab fays, was 400 years before his time, fo he fuggefls in the beginning of the book ; and whereas he flourifhed about the year 1140, this book mufl be compofed, or this dialogue held, about the year 740. Now in this work the points and accents are much ipoken of, in which the author commends the excellence and elegance of the Hebrew tongue on account of them; gives many of the names of both, and declares the ufefulnefs of them; afTerts that they were received by tradition from Mojes ; that they are the production of ad- mirable wifdom, and would never have been received had they not come from a prophet, or one divinely affifted x ; and he does not give the leaft, hint of their being of an human, and much lefs of a modern in- x Cofri, par. 2. f. 8c. & par. 3. f. 31, 32. [ HS ] invention ; yea, exprefly afcribes the fevzn kings or vowel-points, as Aben Ezra alio calls them, to Ezra and the men of his fy- nagogue, and which he fuppofes they re- ceived by tradition from Mofes. A. D. 600. Those whoafcribe the invention of the points to the Jews of Tiberias, fuppofe that this was after the year 500, when the Ba- bylonian Talmud was finifhed. Their rea- fon for it is, becaufe, as they affirm, no mention is made of them in that work, and therefore the invention of them muff, bo later than that; but of this more hereafter. However, according to this hypothecs, one would think they muft have been invented and in ufe by the time above given ; though indeed thofe who efpoufe this hypothecs, are at a very great uncertainty about the ex- act time of this invention. The firft per- fon that broached this notion was Elias Levita, a Germa?i Jew, who lived in the 16th century, contrary to the fentiments and belief of his whole nation ; who either fuppofe the points were from Ezra, and the men of the great fynagogue, or from Mo- Jes at mount Sinai, or from Adam who had L them f 146 ] them from God himfelf. This man affer- ted,y that after the finilhing of the Tal- mud, which he places in the year 436, af- ter the defolation of the fecond temple, arofe the men of 'Tiberias ; wife and great men, expert in the fcripture, and in pu- rity and in eloquence of language excelled all the Jews in thofe times ; and after them did not arife any like them, and that thefe were the authors of the points : this is faid without offering the lead proof of it, and by one that lived near a thoufand years af- ter j it is ftrange that he only mould be in this fecret ; that no hiftory, Jewifh nor Chriftian, mould make mention of it for fuch a courfe of years : it is not probable that there were fuch a fett of men at Tibe» rias about the time fuggefted, lince a great destruction of the Jews was made at it, in the year 352, by G alius 9 at the com- mand of Conjlantius ; and fince promotion to doclormip ceafed in the land of IJrael with Hillell the prince, who flourifhed a- bout the year 340, as the Jeivi/h chrono- Jogers * obferve : and fince the flourifhing university of the Jews was at Babylon at the * PraTat 3. ad Maloret! * Shallhalct Hakab-la fjol. 25. z. Gau z. Tzraacli David, fbl. 33. I. [ 147 1 the time of this pretended invention, very unlikely it is, that it fhould be done with- out their knowledge, advice, and afliftance, and without either approbation of it, or oppofition to it by any of them, for ought appears ; and that it mould be univerfally received by the Jews at once every where, and not one Momus to find fault, this is very extraordinary ; yea, that it fhould be received by the Karaite Jews themfelves, enemies to tradition and innovation, as will be feen hereafter. It is ftrange that, according to this fcheme, as many perfons mull be employed in this work, that there fhould be but one fort of pointing; that they fhould all take the fame method, throughout the whole Bible, without any variation, except fome anomalies, and which are to be obferved in letters as well as in points; and that this mould be al- ways continued with the 'Jews, and never any other fcheme propofed and attempted; and that it fhould not be known who be- gan it and when. And indeed we are left at a very great uncertainty about the place where this wondeful affair was transacted; Eliasy the relator of it, mould he be preffed J< 2 hard, [ 148 ] hard, feems to have found a fubterfbge to- retreat unto, and therefore he tells us that Tiberias is Moe/ia* ; but where that is he fays not, but leaves us to feek for it where we can, and take a wild goat's chace into Afia Minor, to Pontics, or Bithynia, or Pa- phlagonia, where Moejia or Myfia is faid to be , but never famous for Jewifi doctors, nor have any been heard of in it : the Ti- berias of the fcripture, and of Jofepfais, and of the Jewi/h writers in general, was a city in Pa/e/line, fituate on the lake of Gene far et y famous in their writings for the laft fitting of the Sanbedri?n in it, for a very confiderable univerfity there, for the refidence of R. Judah, the faint, in it, where it is probable he compiled the Mif- nah, and of many others of their cele- brated doctors, in the 2d and 3d centu- ries; and where it is certain the 'Jernfalem Talmud was finished, in the 3d century ; after which the univerfity in it began to decreafe. and we hear but now and then of a doctor in that place, the univerlities in Babylon bearing away all the glory j there- * Prafat. 3. ad Maforet. he feems to have taken this name 0$ Tiberias from Ben Chayiin 2:1 Mafor. Mag. Lit. f] t'ol. 31. 2. or from David Kimchi, in Miclol. fol. 108. 2. [ H9 ] therefore it is not probable, that this bufinefs of pointing the Bible was done by the men of Tiberias in later times : and if it was, it is ftrange that none of them mould de- clare themfelves the authors of the points, or that they had an hand in the invention of them, or were affiiting in that work, fince it would have gained them immortal honour, it being allowed to be an inge- nious and ufefulwork; andefpecially fince the Jews are proud boafters and lovers of fame and reputation : it-range, very ftrange it is, that not one of the men concerned in this work can be named ; nor any time fixed when it was done by them, whether ioo years after the finiihing of the 'Tal- mud, or 200, or 300 or 400 -, neither of which it feems the efpoufers of this no- tion chufe to fix upon, neither on particu- lar men, nor on a particular time, left they mould be entangled. The only man I have met with, that has ventured to rix the date of the invention of the points, is PoJJevinus the jcfuit, a who in his great wifdom has pitched on the year 478, when the points began to be in ufe; and fo fome L 3 ye^rs a Apud Herman. Htigonrm de prima fcribendi orig. c, 27. p. 168. [ 'So J years before the finifhing of the Talmud, ac- cording to the moft early account of it ; whereby he has deftroyed the hypothecs on which this notion is built. It is incredible that men under a judicial blindnefs, and the curfe of God, ignorant of divine things, mould form a fcheme which fo well afcertains the fenfe of the fcriptures ; that they mould hit on fuch an invention, and publifh it, fo fubveriive of their own religion, and i'o ferviceable to chriftianity and its doctrines, and which in no one in- ftance oppofes it ; and that after they had feen, as they muft in the age they are fup- pofed to invent them, what ufe the chri- ftians had made of various paiTages of fcripture againft fudaifm, and in favour of chriflianity ; and yet mould point and accentuate thofe very paifages againft them- felves, and for the chriftians : take one in- ftance in the room of many as to accents, in Gen. xlix. jo. how gladly now would they have the Athnacb removed from i^A"i to iy and then read the words, as they have attempted todo b , the fcepter Jhall not depart jrom Judah, nor a law-giver from bet-ween b Vid. Menaffeh. ben Ifrael. Conciliat. in Gen. Qua?ft. 6? t 3. > [ IJ" ] between bis feet for ever ; for Shiloh fiall come : but the accents are againft them, and forbid this reading ; of what ufe they are in Jer. xxiii. 6. has been already obferved : nor is it credible, that the accents (hould be invented by the Jews about the time fuppofed ; fince one ufe of them was to lead and direct in mufic, and that the ufe of accents mould in profe and verfe be dif- ferent, as they be in metrical and profe- writings of the Bible, when at the time fuppofed, metre was difufed, and the metre of the Hebrews loft and unknown. He that can believe fuch a romantic ftory as all this is, need not be fqueamilh to believe the moil: arrant lye and notorious fable, to be met with in the wh-olzTahmid; a greater I know not 3 a louder lve I believe was ne- ver told by a few, nor by any other, that ever met with the leaft degree of credit in the world ; it is amazing it mould be be- lieved by any : fome Proteftants at firft re- ceived it, through their too great credulity, and through their high efteem for the a- bove-mentioned Elias, by whom they were taught the Hebrew language, of the ufe- fulnefs of which they were fenfible. Ma- ny of the Papifts greedily catched at it, L 4 and E «5P ] and commended the Protejlants for receiv- ing it ; who might hope, in the iflue, to •avail themfelves of it, fince it would appear from hence, that the fenfe of fcripture the Protejlants had given into, depended on the invention of men, even of fome yews, long fince the time of Chriflianity ; and they might hope that on this account, they would reject the points, and then, as words would be fubject to various fenfes without them, and fome contrary to each other, they would at lad: be convinced of the ne- ceffity of one infallible interpreter of fcrip- ture. Morimis, a papift, and a very princi- pal oppofer of the points, in a book c , high- ly commended by fome Protefiant writers, fpeaks out plainly ; he fays, " the reafon " why God would have the fcriptures writ- «' ten in the ambiguous manner they are, * c (i. e. without points) is, becaufe it was " his will that every man mould be fub- " jecl: to the judgment of the church, and *' not interpret the fcriptures in his own " way; for feeing the reading of the fcrip- " tures is fo difficult, and fo liable to va- *' rious ambiguities, (i. e. a mere nofe of " wax, e DeHeb. & Grsc. Text. Sinceritate, 1. i. Exercitat, 6. c. zA 8. p. 198, 199. [ 153 ] *< wax, to be turned any way) ; from the « very nature of the thing, he obferves, it " is plain, that it was not the will of God, " that every one mould rafhly and irreve- iC rently take upon him to explain it, nor " to fuffer the common people to expound 5 the di~ ftinciions of the accents p ; and fo in other places mention is made of the diftin&ions of the accents' 1 , and of the accents of the law r , which might be mewn and pointed at by the hand, and therefore mufl be vi- able marks or figures ; and which are to be underftood both of vowel-points, and of accents ; and fo the glofs on that place interprets it, both of pointing and the elevation of the voice in fmging according to m Aboth. R. Nathan, c. 34. fol. 18. Sopherim. c. 1. f. 3. n T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 4. 1. ° T. Bab- Sanhcdrin, fol. 43. 2. p T. Bab Megi laja, fol. 3.1. & Nedarim, fol. 37. 2. 1 T. Bab. Cha- gigah, fol. 6. 2. r T Gab. Beracot, iol. 6z- I. * Glois in lb. Pefachwn, fol. 119. u [ '6o ] to the accents. And the marks and figures of them, they fay in the Talmud, Solomon* inflructed the people in ; for fo thofe words are paraphrafed in it, he taught the people knowledge, for he inftru&ed them D»£j/D ^D'DH in the Jignsy marks, figures, or cha- racters of the accents : and on the phrafe, his locks are bufiy, it is obferved ; from hence we learn that he f Solomon J fought out and explained every tittle, prick, or point fin the law) heaps of heaps of the conftitu- tions or decifions of it f : and in one of the above places 8 referred to, they dif- pute about giving a reward to fuch who taught the accents ; which furely could ne- ver be thought of, if the accents were not yet invented ; to which may be added, that in the Talmud* mention is made of fome words in the Bible, " written but m If h\ 22. that if it is ren- dered wherein, then it mufl be n232> bameh, but if an high place or high, then it mufl be read r\Q2 bamah; fo the three letters •"ON when we fay they fignify memorial, or z Ep. Damafo. 2 qu. fol. 12. A. B. a Quasft. Heb. in Gen. fol. 70. 4. b lb. fol. 72. C. « Com- ment, in 1{. c. 2. fol. 7. D, T. 5. L ! 7- 2 ] or remembrance, then he fays d the word is read zecer, (i. e. with two Segols) but if a male, then it is read zacar, (i. e. with two Kametzes) ; again 6 , theie three letters *\21 iignify according to the quality of the places, if read dabar (i. e. with two Kametzes) it fignifies a word, but if deber, (i. e. with two Segols) then it fignifies the plague ; fo the word IpKf, he obferves f , that if the accent is varied, that is the point, it fignifies either a nut or watching -, that is, if it is pointed for a verb, then it fignifies to watch, but if as a noun, then it fignifies a nut, an al- mond-nut. And whereas in the Septua- gint verfion of .Jonah iii. 4. it is three days inftead of forty ; Jerom wonders g how they mould fo tranflate, when there is no likenefs in the Hebrew words, for three and for forty, neither in the letters nor in the fyllable, nor in the accents, that is vowels 5 and again he obferves 1 ", the ambiguity of the Hebrew word •>}&, which is written with three letters, » and 3 and jy -, if, fays he, it is read Skene (i. e. with a Shevah and a Tzere) it d lb. inc. 26. fol 50. H. • lb. inc. 9. fol. 19. H. & in Habac. c. 3. fol. 87. H. Tom. 6. f Com- ment, in Ecclef. fol. 43. G. Tom. 7. & in Jerem. fol. 133. C. s Comment, in Jon. c. 3. fol. 57. M. h Com- ment, in Ezek. 15. fol. 194. C. [ i73 3 it fignifies two, but if Sba?ie, (i. e. with a Kametz and a TzereJ then it fignifies years, and fo in many other places. Jerom mud have knowledge of the point placed fome- times on the right hand of the letter tp, and then called Tamin, and fometimes on the left hand of it, and then called Smol, which gives it a different pronunciation, and the words a different fenfe : he obferves ', that from Ifi, a woman is rightly called I/ha, but Tbeodotion, he fays, fuggefts another etymology, faying, me mall be called af- fumption, becaufe taken from man -, and, adds he, I/fa may be interpreted affumption, according to the variety of the accents, that is, the points ; his meaning is, that if the word is derived from tttp}, with the point on the left hand, then it may fignify affumption, iince the word, fo pointed, fig- nifies to affume : again, Berfabee, he fays k , as differently accentuated, that is pointed, may be tranflated the well of the oath, or the well of fattety, or of the feventh ; the reafon of which is, becaufe y2W with a point on the right of £i% fignifies feven y and to /wear ; but with the fame point on the left of 1 Qusft. Heb. ad Gen. fol. 65. I. fc Comment, in Amos, c. 8. fol. 99. B. [ '74 j of the letter, it fignifies fulnefs wtiAfatiety , the fame is obferved by him in another place 1 , that it has different fenfes according to the variety of the accents. Now could Jerom pofiibly make fuch obfervatioris as thefe without the knowledge of the points ? for though from fome of thefe paffages it maybe gathered, that unpointed books had been ufed, and fo fome were deceived thro' the ambiguity of words without points; yet how came it to pafs that he himfelf was not deceived ? and how could he be fure of the true Hebrew reading, if he had not feen pointed Bibles, or had not been taught that they were fo pointed in fuch and fuch places ? to fuppofe other- wife is quite incredible. And it appears alfo, that the punctuation in his time was the fame w T ith the modern punctuation, which he follows and fcarce ever departs- from ' y take, for inftance, his reading the, title of the 45 th Pfalm, " Lamanazeah al " Sofannim, libne Corah, Mafchil fir je- «' didoth m "; there is but one point miffing, and that is the Sbevab in the firft word, and which is fometimes not pronounced, and 1 Comment, in If. c. 65. fol. 115. C. m Ad P'rin- cipiam, fol. 34. F. Tom. 3. [ *75 3 and had no certain pronunciation with the antients - 3 fometimes by a, fometimes by /, fometimes by an e, as now ufually ; accor- ding to the Hebrew grammarians, it has the nature of all the reft of the vowels, and is equal to them, and pronounced like them, at certain times under certain conditions §. Three whole verfes in Ge?i. xvi. 18, 19, 20. are exactly pronounced according to the modern punctuation"; his verfion of the P/alms agrees with the Hebrew text, as it now is, and as it is with the points : befides what can he mean by faying °, that he then in his old age could not read the Hebrew text by candle-light, fince the let- ters were fo fmall, that they were enough to blind a man's eyes at noon-day ? for the Hebrew letters, let them be wrote as fmall as they well can be, can not be leiTer than the common Roman character 3 he muft be underltood fiirely of the fmall pricks or points which belonged to the Hebrew let- ters. How came he to put Adonai inftead of Jehovah, in Exod, vi. 3. if he is the au- thor § Vid. Balmef. Heb. Gram, five Mikneh Abraham, p. ?8. Sepher Cofri, par. 2. f. 80. & Mufcatum, in lb. fol. 128. 1. & R. Judah Chijug, & Aben Ezra, in Mufcat. n Ad Evagrium, fol. 13. 6. lb. ° Proem, in Sept. Comment, in Ezeki! c. 20. fol. 208. G. [ 176 ] thor of the vulgate Latin verfion, unlefs he knew that the Jews put the points of Ado-* ?iai to Jehovah ? There is a paffage in Je- rom* which is produced by fome to dif- prove the knowledge and ufe of vowel- points in his time ; when fpeaking of Enon near Salim, " it matters not, he fays, whe- " ther it be called Salem or Salim, fince the " Hebrews very Jeldom make ufe of vowel- " letters in the middle ; and according to " the pleafure of readers and the variety " of countries, the fame words are pro- " nounced with different founds and ac- «' cents." Now Jerom is here to be under- stood either of the Matres LeSlionis >ltf ; and it, is very true that thefe are feldom ufed in the facred books of the Hebrews, and which makes the ufe of vowel-points the more neceffary; and if the Matres Leffio- nis were expunged upon the introduction of the points, as is fuggefted by fome, then the points muft have been before Jerom % time, and confequently not the invention of the men of Tiberias ; fince it feems the above letters were rarely ufed in his time as placed between confonants, as Dabar, and other * Epift. Evagrlo, torn. 3. fol. 13. F. [ l 77 ] other words obferved by him (hew : or elfe he is to be underftood of vowel-points go- ing along with letters; and thefc he might truly fay, were 'very rarely ufed, becaufe pointed Bibles in his time were very rare : but then he fuppofes fuch were ufed, tho' but feldom, and this Dr. Owen ° took to be his fen fe; " either, fays he, I cannot un- " derftand him, or he does poiitively af- " firm, that the Hebrew, had the ufe of " vowels, in his epiftle to Evagn'us ;" upon which he obferves, " if they did it per- " raro, they did it, and then they had them ; though, in thefe days to keep up their credit in teaching, they did not much ufe them -, nor can this be fpoken of the found of vowels, for furely, they ** did not feldom ufe the founds cf vowels, " if they fpoke often." And to this fenfe, the words of yero??i are quoted hy R. Aza- riab*-, and from whence he concludes, that the points were really in being before his time, and fo they are underftood by others J ; to fay no more, as not only the vowel-points and accents are faid to be the N in- ° Cf the Divine Original of the Scriptures, p, 285. * imre Binah, c. 59 fol. 181. 1. X Simeon de Mus, jofeph. de Voyfin. apud Owen. Theologoumcn, p, 4 }2. a <( [ 178 ] invention of the men of Tiberias, after the finishing of the Talmud, but the diftinclion of verfes alfo ; it is certain, that Jerom, who lived a century or two before thefe preten- ded Tiber ians are faid to live, frequently § fpeaks of verfes in the Hebrew books, and diftinguifhed by him into colons and com- mas which the accents make; and of which mention is made before him in the Jeru- falem Talmud, and even in the Mijnab, as will be feen hereafter; yea, in the New Teftament, Luke iv. 17. Aft* viii. 32. A. D. 370. About this time lived Epipbanitis, bi- fhop of Cyprus; he flourifhed in the times of Valens, Gratian, and Theodojius, and wrote a book againft various herefies ; and among them takes notice of thofe of the Nicolaitans, and their followers the Gno- fticks, &c. who had a fort of deities they paid honour to, and v/hich they called by bar- barous names ; and one of them was called Caulaucauch, a word taken from If. xxviii. 13. as he obferves ; upon which he gives' the text in Hebrew, thus, " Saulajau Sau- " lafau, $ Prsefat. in Jofuam, Paralipomen. Efaiam & Ezekiel. p Eiiphan. contr. Hieref. 1. r. ha;ref. 25. [ >79 ] u , lafau, Caulaiicauch, Caulaucauch, Zier- €i jam, Zierfam" exactly agreeing with the prefent pun&uation, only the Sbeva in the lad word is pronounced as an i; which may be owing to the copier, and is fometimes not pronounced at all, as before obferved, and when it is. it is differently : and very nearly to the fame manner of poin- ting, is his quotation of Pf. ex. 3, accor- ding to the Hebrew text, " Merem meffaar u La&til ' jeledecbeth^ '; and fo of If. xxvi. 2, 3. the likenefs is very great and much the fame r . ] {u^obzILpiphanius took thefe He- brew pafTages from Origens Hexapla, a work in being in his time ; and if fo, this carries the punctuation ftill higher \ of which more hereafter. Moreover, the fir/ft word ob- ferved, was fo pronounced by fome here- ticks, if not in the firft, yet in the fecond century. A. D. 360. About this time lived R. Afe, the head of a fchool or academy at Sura in Babylon 1 -, he is laid to write a large book concerning N 2 point- 1 Tb. 1. 2. hser. 65. r lb. 1. 3. hasr. 76. vid. Mont- faucon. Hexapla Origen. vol. 2. p. 130 ' Vid. Ganz, Tzemacn David, par. i.fol.33. 1. 2. [ iSo ) pointing, and the cabalijlic fecr^fs in it, which book R. Nachman*, who lived about the year 1200, fays, was then in th^ir acade- my. IN ovv if this Kabli fo early wrote a book about the points, they mud then, and be- fore that time be in ufe, and mint have been fome time before in ufe, to be reduced to an art, and brought under certain rules, and treated on at large. A. D. 340. About this time lived R. Hillell, the prince, the lafl of thofe who was promo- ted to doctorfhip in the land of IJrael, as before obferved. Now R. Zacuth* ipeaks of a copy of the book of 24, called the Bible, written by R. Hillell, by which all books were corrected in the year 956 or 984, (according to the c Jewijh account) and that he faw a part of it fold in Africa, and that it had been written in his time 900 years, and obferves that Kimcbi fays in his gram- mar, that the Pe?jtateuch was at Toletolo, or Toledo. Some, as Schickard* and Cuntfus % , are of opinion, that this Hillell, was the famous * Apud BuxtorfF. de Pun ft. Antiq. par. i. p. 55. u Ju- chafin, fol. 132. I. w Bechinat haperuihim, p. 51- & Jus Reg, Heb. c. 2. theor. 5. f. 4. x De Repub- lic. Heb. i. i.e. 1*. [ '8. ] famous Hillell that lived before the times of Chrijiy and flourished ioo years before the deftruction of the fecond temple ; and if fo, fince his copy was pointed, as will prefently befeen, it would prove the points to be as early; but he is more generally thought to be Hillell the prince, before- mentioned ; for that he mould be a Spanifl) jfew, who lived about 600 years ago, as Morinus y fuggefts, is not credible ; fince it can't he thought he was an obfcure perfon, but of fome note, from whom, for the fake of honour, the copy had its name, and efpecially as by it all copies were cor- rected ; beiides, the above *Jewifo chrono- loger, who gives the account of it, fays, the copy he faw had been written 900 years before his time, and he lived about the year 1 500. Now this copy had the points, as is certain from what Kimcbi fays, who lived in the 12th century; he obferves', that the word W\l, in Pf cix. 10. is writ- ten with a broad Kamets, and in the copy of Hillell, at Toletolo, or Toledo, it is writ- ten concerning it in the Majorat, that it is no where elfe with Chateph, i. e. with N 3 Ka- y Exercitat. Eibl.l. i.e. 2. p. 29. z Comment, in Pfai. icg. 10. [ 182 } Kamets -Chatefh ; and in another work" of his, he fays of the word nDl^n, in 2 Sam. xiii. Mem is with Segol, which is not ufual, and is in the room of Pat bach-, and in the book of Hlllell, which is at Toletolo or Toledo, it is with Pathach; and the learned Mercer h obferves, that the word HJHj m Prov. xxiv. 14. is, in a M S. written with a Tzere, but in the margin it is remarked, that in Hill 11 it is written with a Sfg"^/. Wherefore the points mud: be annexed to the Bible as early as the times of Hillell, and before. In the library at Berlin is a Hebrew MS. written by £//^j > the pointer, con- taining the Pentateuch, the 5 Megillot, with the book of ^o^, and fome chapters out of the Prophets, with Maforetlcal obfervations in the margin ; which, if what is faid of it could be eftablifhed, it would be full as antient as Hillell\ copy : at the end of it the writer has put his name, and declares that he wrote it, and pointed it, and finiihed it in the year fromthe creation of the world 4094; and Andrew Mullerus, fometime provoft at Berlin, wrote at the beginning of it, a Seoher Shorafli. rad. £2*C'« k Ccmm^nt. in Prov- xxiv. 14. [ i8 3 ] it, that this copy was written by Elias in the ifland of Rhodes, A. C. 334; but La Croze* the late librarian, fays, that at the end of the book there are manifeft traces of letters blotted out, and others put in, and that the colour of the ink, and form of the parchment clearly mewed, that it could not then be written fcarce 400 years. There are feveral antient copies of the Bible pointed, but the precife age of them cannot be afcertained. The yews in Chi- na, have a very antient Hebrew Bible in Pekin, 12.16. to be not at all differing from ours c ; by which it lhould feem that it is pointed, or otherwife it would differ. A copy called Sinai, a correct copy of the Pentateuch, has the accents, as Elias Le- vita acknowledges d , who obferves that the nrft word in Exod. xviii. j . is with Gera- Jhim, but in Sinai with a Rebiah -, and he alfo gives another inflance of a different ac- centuation, but adds, that he knew not who was the compoier oi it. R. Nacb- man t , who lived about the year 1200, fays, he fearched mod diligently in all the Baby- N 4 lo iian * A} ud Wolf. Biblioth. Heb. p. 166. 16;. c Se- medo's ii;itoryot China, par«iiC. d SepherShi- bre Luchot. • Apud Buxtorff. ut fupra. t «8 4 ] Ionian' and Jerufalem copies, and in Hil- fell's, and could not find any where a Da* gejh in thofe three guttural letters, n n> V, but found it in x,in three places, Lev. xxiii. 17. Cn?#. xliii. 26. and E;srtf viii. 18. by which it appears, that not only HillelPs copy, but the Babylonian and Jerufalem co- pies were pointed. Ben Melech, on Ezek. xxiv. 10. obferves, that R. Jonah writes, that he found the word Harkach with a Kamets under He in they erufalem copy, but in the Babylonian copy, he found it with a Fat hack. There was a Jerufalem copy made mention of by feveral, that was a pointed one; Muftatus* fays, that the word ^Htt, in Deut. vi. 4. is pointed with >SVg- n fiR* niriyrr ha cznnn vis Sy'^rrV * t • " : 3- ni** yrm *viR rr OTtfw* "fcjh- The reft of the fpecimen, throughout the whole chapter, is agreeable to this; both Fabricius and Montfaucon have given another fpecimen of the Hexapla, on Hof. xi. i. the fame which Walton* has tran- scribed from a copy of cardinal Barberini, from whom they feem to have taken it, which does not fo exactly agree With the modern pointing as the other does ; but Montfaucon* has given two more fpecimens, one i Hexapla Origen. Tom. i. p. 2. &c. T Biblia Poly- glott. Tom. 6. 72. Interpr. Ed. Roman, p. 133. s Prze- liminar. ad Hexapla. c. i. p. 16. BpsM^ TSxpix. EAw»/a E3- cur ay. cup x& cazptq uaapsq oluSx S'wa aCcotf nfyuvix. «A (pvi SfWjU. apax^ EAwtjW. |U.p«%j(p£.9- oA 2iu)y,ep E'Awjk m «p «[ji wp [ igo ] one out of the OBapla of P/l ii. 6. and an- other out of the Fnneapla of Hab. ii. 4. which perfectly agree with the prefent punctuation; and it is furprifing they mould, when it is confidered, that particularly the fpecimen of the whole firll chapter of Ge- nefis is collected from fragments preferved in various writers, and thofe but little ikilled in the Hebrew language, and who fbme- times wrote differently one from another ; and that thefe have patted through the hands of various copiers, entirely unac- quainted with that language ; and yet Fa- bricius complains not of any difficulty in collecting it; Montfaucon indeed does 1 , and it is pretty much he mould, fince he wrote after Fabricius ; this mews that he did not confult him, and that he had not his ipeci- menfrc: n aim; and therefore it is the more furprifing that they mould fo nearly a- gree, the difference between them being chiefly not in the vowel-points, but in the powers of fome few of the confonant let- ters. With what precifion and exactnefs, agreeable to the modern punctuation, may it reafonably be fuppofed were the Hexa- pla of Origen, as firft publifhed by him, and 1 HexaplaGen. p. 14. [ >9* ] and as it would have appeared had it been pfeferved; and who muft have had a poin- ted Bib'h. before him when he compoled it ; and the moft exqnifite care, circum- fpeclion and diligence muft have been uicd by him, to obfe~ve every letter and every point, fo as to write each word in Greek characters, and give them a proper regular pronunciation. Though I muft confefs, that fince Origen was but indifferently fkilled in the Hebrew language, as Huetius* has obferved, and fb father Simon*; I greatly fufpect he had, by fome means or other obtained a copy of the Hebrew Bi- ble, written in Greek characters, perhaps from a Jew with whom he was acquain- ted, well verfed in the Hebrew language, both letters and points ; for it was allowed by the Jews * to write the Hebrew text in the characters of any language, though not to read it fo written in their iynagogues ; and efpecially they allowed of writing it in Greek characters, it may be for the ufe of the Hellenijtic Jews ; nay they allowed the facred books to be written in Greek cha- racters ■ Origenian. 1. 2. c. 1. f. 2. p. 26. * Difquifir. Critic, 9. p. 61. * T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 115. 1, & Megillah, fol, 9. I, & Debarim Rabba, f. x. fol. 233. 1. [ 102 ] rafters only, for fo it is faid in the Mifnah*, •* there is no difference between the (fa- ** cred) books, the Phylacteries, and Me- «.* zuzah (the parchments on the door- f* ports ) only that the books may be writ- 44 ten in every tongue, but the Phylacteries " and Mezitzab may not be written but in *' the A/fyrian (i. e. in Hebrew characters). " Rabbi Simeon Ben Gamaliel fays, they * don't allow the books to be written but in * £ Greek;" and the deciiion was, according to Simeon, zs Maimonides*obferves ; and who agreeable to this fays, •« they may not ** write the Phylacteries and Mezuzah but * l in AJfyrian characters, but they allow * c the (facred) books to be written alfo in " Greek, and in that only." I fufpect therefore, I fay, that Origen lighted on one of thofe copies, and what ferves to ftrength- en the fufpicion is, that in his Hexapla, A- donai is put for Jehovah, as the Rabbins read it§. Now what he did in compiling his Hexapla, was placing the feveral copies, as he fou ad them, in order, in diftinct co- lumns as follows; firft, the Hebrew text in Hebrew letters, as then in ufe with the Jews, * Megillah, c. i. f. 8. T. Hierof. Sabbat, fol. 15.3. * Tephiilin, c. 1. s. 19. % Vid. Epiphan. contr. Hreref. 3. hisr. 76. [ i93 1 Jews, as Eufebius afTures x , who doubtlefs law the work itfelf; and next a copy of the fame in Greek characters, he had fomc- where met with ; then followed the Greek verfions oiAquila, Symmachus, the Septua^ gint, and Theodotion : but be it in which way it may, whether the compofition of the Hebrew copy in Greek characters, was Orige?is y or another's, it feems a clear cafe that a pointed Bible muft. then be in being, and was made ufe of; -and that there was a regular punctuation, and that by the fpecimen the prefent punctuation agrees with it; which obfervation fufficiently con- futes and deftroys thofe notions and vulgar mirtakes fo generally received, of the in- vention of the points by the men of Tibe- rias* and of their being invented after the writing of the Talmud, and of their being unknown in the times of Jerom; all which muft now be retracted. A. D. 2co. In this century, and the preceding, lived the Rabbins of Tiberias, fo frequently men- tioned in the 'Jerufalem Talmud, fmifhed in the year 230, as before obferved; at this O time * Ecclefiaft. Hift. 1. 6. c. 16. [ J 94 ] time as there were many fynagogues of the Jews at Tiberias, fo there was a famous academy; and now lived the true men of Tiberias, fpoken of in Jewi/Jj writings, and at this time only, as to any number of them; for in the following century, uni- verfities and promotions ceafed in the land of Ifrael. Thefe men, fo famous in Jew- ijh writings for their knowledge of the He- brew language, and the purity and ele- gance of it, and the right manner of read- ing and pronouncing it, lived before the times of Jerom, and fo not after the nnifh- ing of the Talmud, as E/ias fays ; for Je- rom manifeftly refers to them, and to the fentiments the J-ews had of them, for their knowledge of the law, and the beauty and elegance of their language*. But though thefe men ftudied the Hebrew language, and were very expert in it, and in the af- fair of pointing, yet they were not the in- ventors of the points •> which may be con- cluded from what Aben Ezra fays* of them ; " I have {ten, fays he, the books t( which the wife men of Tiberias examin- " ed, and fifteen of their elders gave it 9t upon * Qu£eft. feu Trad. Heb. in Gen. T. 3. fol. 73. I. K. y Comment, in Exbd. 25. 31, [ W 1 " upon oath, that three times, they dili- * f gently confidered every word and every u point, every full and deficient word, and f* behold, Tod was written in the word " ntPVn"* i- e. in£;cW. xxv. 31. by which it appears that the Bible was not pointed by them, but pointed Bibles, which they had, were examined by them ; fo that pointed Bibles were in being before their time - y they were pointed to their hands ; they only fearched into them, and ftudied them, and became very expert and accu- rate in their knowledge of the points : hence the fame writer, in another work * of his fays, that from them, the men of Tibe- rias were the Maforetes; from them we have the whole pointing ; not that they were the authors and inventors of the points ; but that by them they were handed down to them with great accuracy and exadtnefs ; for he exprefly fays in an- other work of his *, that " the men of the great fynagogue taught the people the fenfe of the fcriptures by the accents, and by the kings and minijiers ; fo he calls the O 2 vowel- z Tzachut fol. 138, 2. npud Buxtorf. de Punft. Antiqj. P- 11. * Mozne Leflion Hakodelh apud .Buxtorf. lb. p. 13, 14. [ 196 ] vowel-points, Cholem, Shurek, &c. and were inftead of eyes to the blind; there- fore in their foot-fteps we go forth, them we follow, and on them we lean in all cxpofitions of the fcripture." But what- foever fkill the men of Tiberias might at- tain to in the ftudy of the points, they ap- pear to be very unfit for, and unequal to fuch a work as the invention of them. Hear what Dr. Lightfoot a has obferved of them, who was thoroughly acquainted with their characters, as to be learned from the above Talmud. " There are fome who " believe the holy Bible to be pointed by " the men of Tiberias ; I do not wonder " at the impudence of the Jews who in- " vented this ftory ; but I wonder at the " credulity of Chriftians who applaud it. " Recollect, I befeech you, the names of " the Rabbins of Tiberias, from the firft fi- '< tuation of the univerfity to the time " that it expired ; and what at length do f( you find, but a kind of men mad with *« Tharijaifm, bewitching with traditions < c and bewitched, blind, guileful, doting, " they mull pardon me, if I fay magical " and monftrous ? men how unfit, how unable, * Works vol. ii. Chorograph. Cent. c. 81. p. 73. 74- t '97 ] ** unable, how foolim, for the undertake £: ing fo divine a work ?" Then he gives the names of many of them, and obfervw trHr childifhnefs, fophiftry, froth, and poifon, and adds, " if you can believe the the forme/ word, as it mould feem, having in their copy the points of the latter, as it fometimes has, they put Adonai inflead of it ; which mews that the points then were. A. D. 190. Clemens of Alexandria lived and wrote about this time, and is thought to make mention of the Hebrew points and accents, where he fays c , there are fome, who in reading, * Frsefat. 3. ad Maforet. e Stromat. 1. 3. p. 442. [ 199 ] reading, by the tone 'of the voice pervert the Scriptures to their own pleafure, and by a tranipofition nvccv TrpovooSiuv kocl giy- puv (which Sylburgius his interpreter ren- ders) of certain accents and points, what are wifely and profitably commanded, force to their own liking j" in which he has re- fpecT: to a text in Mai. hi. 1$. and which he vindicates againft fome heretics of his time ; but not to the Greek verfion of it, and the accents of that ; for thofe in the oppofition fay, there were no accents in the .Greek tongue for ages after d j but to the Hebrew text, and the points and ac- cents in that ; and the rather this may be fuppofed, feeing it appears in feveral parts of his writings, that he had fome know- ledge of the Hebrew tongue. A little before Clemens, Irenceus wrote, who, tho' he had but afmall degree of knowledge of the Hebrew language,yet fomething of it he O 4 endea- d Some fay they began in the 7th century, vid. Velafti Difiert. deLit. Grasc. Pronunciat. par 4. c. 2 P- 9^- Roma?, 1 75 1. It it laid the ancienter the MSS. are, the fewer are the accents, and that thofe which exceed a thoufand years have none at all, Mirtifb. Sarpedon (alias Frideric ReifTen- berg). Diifert. de Vera Attic, Pronunciat par. 3.C. 1. p. 48. Romx, 1750; but Gregorius Placentinius makes thein much more ancient. See his Epitome Graic. Paleograph. c. u, p. 88 Roma:, 1735. The controverfy about the Greek ac- cents has been oi late years revived at Rome. [ 200 ] endeavoured to get, triat he might anfwer the heretics of his time, who were fond of introducing foreign words and their fig- nifications into their fchemes. The firft and ancient Hebrew letters, he fays e , were but ten ; which Feuardentius his annotator explains of the ten from Aleph to Tod in- clulive, becaufe thefe were the firft and chief from whence all the reft were formed ; and indeed the cabalijlic Jews ■ fay the Tod is the beginning of all letters ; and Hermannus Hugo * obferves, that all the Hebrew characters are compofed from the fingle letter Tod varioufly joined toge- ther 5 but Irenaus adds, M that every one «5 of the letters are written by fifteen, the «< laft letter coupled to the firft." f* Now what he means by fifteen Dr. Grabe fays he could not devife. I fufpect he means the fifteen vowel-points, as fome grammarians h reckon them, and call them five long, five fhort, and five moft fhort, which Irenaus might have fome knowledge of from thofe who taught him the little Hebrew he had ; for that he ccnfulted the Rabbins of his time * Adv. haeref. 1. t. c. 41. f R. Abraham Dior, in Jet- zirah p. 5S. Ed. Rittangel. ? De prima Scribendi Orig. c. p. 64. h Vid. Balmefii Mikaeh Abraham p. 25. lin. 3. Se 2O'. lin. 6. [ 20! ] time is clear from what he before fays of the Hebrews and their language, " Sicut me favour and eafe in the times of Antoninus j and having more eafe and leifure, it was the fitteft opportunity of letting about this work of collecting their traditions from feveral parts ; which were put together by the above Rabbi, that they might not be loft : according to the author of Cq/h'*, this year 150 is the year 150 from the defTruclion of the fe- cond temple, which brings it to the year of Chriji 220 -, but R. Abraham Ben Da- vid, b and R. Menachem c place the Mifnah m 120 from the deftruction, which is A. D. 190 ; but Morimts d himfelf owns that Rab- benu Hakados compiled the Mifnaiot or traditions almoft two hundred years before the council of Nice, and that council was but little more than three hundred years after P Avodah Zarab* c 3. f. 3. * Comment, in lb, a Par 3. c. 67. fo R. Serira in Juchafm fol. 115. and R. Azariah Meor Enayim c. 24. fol. 95, 1. b Sepher Ca- bala. c Apud Ganz Tzemach David, par 1. fol. 30, 2. d De finceritate Hfb Text. i. 1. Exercit. 1. c, 2. p. ?7- [ 20 4 ] after the birth of Chrifi. The general regard paid to the Mlfnah by the Jews in all parts, in Palejiine and in Babylon, the puzzle the Gemarijls are at in many places to underftand it, many of the traditions in it being the fame that are obferved or re- ferred to in the New Teftament, are proofs of the antiquity of it ; and though it is de- nied, yet it is moft clear that Jerom had knowledge of it as a written book > his words are, that q " the traditions of the " P hart fees are what to this day are called «* SeuTsputreig (fecondary laws or the Mif- " nah, and are fuch old wives fables, that ** I cannot bear evolvere to turn them over; " for neither will the bignefs of the book " admit of it, and moft of the things in " it are fo filthy that I am afhamed to fpeak " of them ;" in which he not only gives the work its proper name, a fecondary law or Mi/nab, but fpeaks of it as a book, and of a confiderable bulk, it being bigger than our New Teftament, and there are things in it which agree with the character he gives of it, and fuch as well deferved his cenfure, as Dr. Wotton * thinks ; though *» Epirt. Algafias Qu. 10. fol. 55. I, Tom. 3. • Mif- eellaneous Difcourfes, &c. p. 94. [ 205 ] though I muft confefs in this I am of a different mind ; but chufe rather to fub- fcribe to what the learned Wagenfeil fays *, that in the Mifnah as abftra&ed from the Gemara, " there is no fable nor apologue in it, nor any thing very foolifh, nor very re- mote from reafon j it contains mere laws and traditions." Jerom therefore fays this upon hearfay, and it is plain by his own words he had not read it ; or, it may be, rather he refers to the Jerufalem Talmud, which confifls both of the Mi/nah and Ge- mara -, and not only the matter but the bulk of the book 'Jerom fpeaks of better agrees with that, which is a large folio ; and being finifhed in the year 230, as be- fore obferved, there was time enough for Jerom to have knowledge of it ; however, I think it is beyond all doubt, that there was a collection of the Jewijh traditions call- ed in his time Mifnab or Mifnaiot, and that this was a written book, in fome form or an- other, either by itfelf or with the Gemara, of which Jerom had knowledge; and that Jerom faw the Mifnah itfelf is the Opinio?, of the learned Dr. Bernard in his letter to the bimop of Fern, prefixed to the • Praefat ad Tela Ignea, p. 57, 58. [ 206 ] the Mi/nab of Sitrenbujiits -f ; and Jeroffi in the fame epiftle makes mention of the Mifnic doctors by name, as Rab, Akiba, Simeon, and Hillell, who delivered to the Jews the tradition of walking 2000 feet on a fabbath day ; and a little after he fays, l< on certain days when they (the Jewifo c< doctors) explain their traditions they " ufually fay to their difciples, 0; u gillah, c. 4. f. 4. • Avcdah zarah, c. 2. f. 5. or whether it was God that fpoke to the church? now this could not be determined by the letters or confonants which are the fame ; but by the vowel-points, which dif- tinguifh the affixes : according to R. Jfi- mael it was to be read feminine "W" 7 as if fpoken by God to the church -, but this R. jfo/kua denied ; Not fo, fays he, but tjhti mafculine, and fo fpoken by the church to God. Now though thefe two Rabbins might have an unpointed bible before them, yet the foundation of their reafon- ing lay in the points ; for their difpute was not barely how the word was pro- nounced, but how it was read', and it is obfervable, that it is the modern punctua- tion of this word that is by this inftance eftablifhedj to which may be added, that the Maforeth is exprefly made mention of in the Mijhah b as the hedge of the law, one branch of which is concerned with the points and accents, and to the authors of it thofe that oppofe the points afcribe them. Now R. Akiba, whofe faying this is, flourifhed about eighty years after Chriit, and died in the year 120, in the P 2 war b Plrke Abot, c. 3. f. 13. vid. Leufden in ib. [ 212 1 war of Adrian againfr. the Jews ; in whom the glory of the law is laid to ceafe, be- caufe he gave his mind to fearch out the meaning of every apex, tittle, and point in it, as it was foretold of him that he mould * : the extraordinary point in the letter n in Hpim, Numb. ix. 10. is ob- ferved in the Mifnah -f. A. D. 1 20. About this time, according to the Jewifi chronology , lived Simeon Ben yochai a. difciple of R. Akiba author of the book of Zohar ; the authority and antiquity of which book is not called in queftion by any of the yews, no not by E/ias Levita himfeif, who fir ft afferted the points to be the invention of the men of Ttberias j yet declared 4 , if any one could convince him that his opinion was contrary to the book of Zohar, he mould be content to have it rejected. What may be urged in favour of the antiquity of that book, is not only, that the perfons introduced fpeaking in it, and whofe * Mifn. Sotah, c. 9. f 15. Bartenora In ib T. Bab. Me, nachot t'ol. 29, 2. f Pefadiim, c. 9. f. 2. c Garni Tzemacfr David, par. x. t'ol 30, n* d Prjefat. 3. ad Maforet. [ 2'3 1 whofe fayings are recorded, were as early or earlier than the time to which it is placed ; but the. neatnefs of the language in which it is written, which far exceeds any thing written after this time ; as alfo there being no mention made of the Tal- mud in it, though there e is of the Targums of Onkelos and 'Jonathan. Some things objected to its antiquity may be only inter- polations. R. Azariah fays *, it was written before the Mifnah was compiled. According to Majius -f it was written a little after the deftruction of Jerufalem. Now in this book it is faid, " the letters " are the body, and the points are the fpi- " rit or foul;" and the text in Dan. xii. 3. is thus paraphrafed, they that be wife Jh all Jhine, the letters and points ; as the bright - nejsy the modulation of the accents ; they that turn many to right eoufnefs, thefe are the paufes of the accents f ; fo Nehemiah viii. 8. is interpreted in it, of the paufes of the accents, and of the Maforeth 8 ; and in another place h " Jehovah is called 11 E/ohim, becaufe he is the river of mer- P 3 cies; e Zohar in Gen. fol. 6 1, i . * Imre Binah, c. 59. fol. 179, 2. t Comment, in Jolh. 1, 3, * Zohar in Gen. fol. l* 3. g In Exod. fol. 82, 4. h lb, ia Lev. fol. 4, 3. Ed. Sultzbach. [ 214 ] cies ; and it is written mercy, and pointed " by Ekbim -," yea, the very names of the points and accents are mentioned in it in yarious places >, as Cho/em, Schurek, Chi- reky Pathacb, Segol, Sbeva, Kajnetz, Tzere, Zarka, S ego It a, Shalfhelet, &c. and elfewhere mention is made of the feven vowels, which are by gramma- rians called Kametz, Tzere, Cbirek, Cbolem, Shurek, Pathach, Segal; fb fome of the extraordinary points or pricks, on certain words are obferved in it, as that on. the word for he kijfed him, Gen. xxxiii. 4. and on the word for afar off, in Numbers ix. 10. * ; the double letters in the Hebrew tongue, the pronunciation of which de- pends upon the points, are made mention of in this book ra . A. D. 100. In the time before this date, or in the firft century, the Targums of Jonathan and Onkelos were written ; the one is upon the ' lb. in Ges». fol. I, 2. & 26, 3. & 38. 1. 2. & 71, 2. Tikkure zohar praefat. fol. 6, 2. & 7, 1. i lb. in Gen. fol. 98, 4. m In Gen. fol. 38, 1. [ 215 3 the prophets, and the other upon the Pen- tateuch, and are by Buxtorf* faid to be the moft ancient books of all the Hebrews, Jonathan flourifhing a little before Chrift, and Onkelos a little after; though fome write that they knew one another ; how- ever, they were in this century : it is certain alfo there was a Targum on Job, as ancient -j- as R. Gamaliel, the mafter of the ApoftJe Paul; and Onkelos muft be cotemporary with him, if what is faid J is true, that he burnt at Gamaliel's funeral as much as was worth feventy Tyrian pounds. The Targums are now in our printed bibles pointed ; but whether they were fo when firft written cannot be faid. Ellas Levita n is very pofitive and fays, without doubt the Targumifls wrote their paraphrafes without points ; and affirms alfo, that they were not pointed by the Maforetes, but by men of note long after their time ; but this is all faid to {tive. an hypothefis of his own, that there was no pointing before the men of "Tiberias; P 4 that * Biblioth. Rabbin, p. 293. f T. Hierof. Sabbat, fol. 15, 3- X T. Bab Avodah zarah fol. 11, 1. " Pra;fat. ad Methurgeman, fol. 2, 1 . [ 2.6 ] that the points of them were then in a corrupt ftatc, and very irregular ; and fo indeed Bux- torj * found them, and took great pains to re- flore them ; and which not only fuppofes their being, but it may be that fuch a ftate was owing to their great antiquity and the long neglect of them. With fome Jewijh com- mentators "Jonathan is obferved in fome places to tranflate and paraphrafe accord- ing to the points. Kimcbi on 2 Sam. xix. 14. obferves, that inftead of he bowed, Jonathan renders it pafiively, was bowed, by which it feems, he fays, that he read DO with a Tzere under Tod, but the Maforah teftifies of it that it is with a Patach under the Tod; ^nd. on Hof. v. 15. he remarks, that in the word lOtPtf* the Aleph and Shin are with a Sheva, agreeable to which is the 'Tar gum of Jonathan; and Jarchi on Ezek. xxvii. 16. obferves, that as to the point Dagejh, Jonathan explains the word that has it fometimes literally, and fome- times allegorically ; for in that way he fometimes paraphrafed otherwife than in the copy before him ; fo the Jerufalem Targumijl on Gen. xiv. 5. what Onkelos and FJeudo-Jonathan take for the proper name » Praefat, ad Bibl, Iieb. [ 2i; ] name of a place, he inftead of Ziizim in Ham, has it, the iilujirious ones among them-, and fo it is quoted in Berefoit Rabba % on which the commentator b obferves, that Zuzim is allegorically explained, as if it had the fignification of fplendor and luftre, and Be bam, which is with a Kamelz, as if it was written with a Segol ; but if the points were not then known, there could be no foundation for fuch an allegorical in- terpretation. Capellus c himfelf owns, that 'Jonathan and Onkelos made ufe of an He- brew copy different from what the Septua- gint did, and almoft the fame we now have from the Maforetes ; and indeed On- kelos fcarce ever departs from the modern punctuation, and it will be difficult to produce a fingle inftance proving that he ufed an unpointed Bible. A. D. 70. yofephus, the famous Jewijh hiftorian, flourished about this time. Scarce any thing can be expected from him concern- ing the Hebrew Points, who wrote in Greek, and conformed Hebrew words to the a Parafh. 42 fol. ij, 2. k In Mattanot Cehunnah in ib. c Critica, p. 324.. L *« ] the genius of that language, and who read and pronounced confonants, as well as vowels, different from the Hebrew words. There is a paffage of his which is thought to militate againft the antiquity and necef- iity of the vowel-points, when he fays d , that the facred letters engraven on the mitre of the high prieft, meaning the word 'Jehovah, zrefoi/r vowels ; which are fuppofed to be a fufficient number of vowels for the Hebrew language, at leaft, if another or two are added to them : but, to take off the force of this objection, if there is any in • it, let it be obferved, ift. Jojephus's want of fkill in the Hebrew tongue, with which he is charged by fome learned men ; the Syro-Chaldean language being commonly fpoken by the Jews in his time, and which, perhaps, may ferve alfo to account for his different pronuncia- tion of Hebrew words in fome places. 2dly, What he calls vowels, and which fome think may be ufed inftead of vowels, are allowed by the fame to have alfo the power of confonants ; and it is certain, that the Van, was ufed as a confonant be- fore, and in the times of Jofepbus ; fo Da- vid «• DeBcllo jud, 1. 5.C. 5-f. 2. [ 2i 9 3 vid is read Aa&J, in Matt. i. i. 6. & faffim, and in the very name "Jehovah he fpeaks pf; for the Samaritans* pronounced it Jabe; and 1 and lare fometimes changed for one another in the Hebrew language, as in Bathjhua for Bathjheba, i Chron. iii. 5. and Jofephus mull: have knov/n that the Tod is ufed in the Bible as a confonant, in a multitude of proper names of men and places, and in other words, and even in his own name. 3dly, If the facred name "Jehovah confifted of vowels only, it could not be pronounced ; for as confonants can- not be pronounced without vowels, fo nei- ther can vowels without confonants -, and though the word is by the Jews faid to be ineffable, yet not becaufe it could not be pronounced, for it was pronounced by the blafphemer in the times of Mofes, by Hi- ram> by the former wife men to their chil- dren once a week *, and by the high prien: in the fanctuary, as they allow f ; but be- caufe as they thought it was not lawful to pronounce it, at leaft in common, as fay both * Theodoret. in Gen. Qu. 15. vid. Epiphan. contra Hx- rcf. 1. 1. har. 40. * T. Bab. Kiddufhin, fbl. 71, 1. f Mifn. Sotah, c. 7. f. 6. T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 39, 2. [ 220 ] both Philo g and Jofephus h -, and fo in the Mifnah \ he is faid to have no part in the world to come who pronounces the name 'Jehovah with its own letters. When the ancient Greek writers fay it is unutterable, as the author of Delphi Pbamicizantes ob- ferves k , it is only as written by the Greeks, who fcarce admit of u as a confonant, and cannot exprefs afpirates in the middle and end of a word, as this word requires ; but then he adds, not becaufe it cannot be pronounced, for it may be pronounced ac- cording to the Hebrew letters, with which it is written. 4thly, The three letters in the name Jehovah, for there are no more in it of a different kind, can at mod be only confidered as mat res leBionis, as they are called, and fo ufed in the room of vowels -, but then thefe are often wanting in the Hebrew text, and in places where they might be expected, and where their prefence would be neceffary, if this were their ufe, and there were no other vowels or vowel-points, and therefore are inefficient to fupply the place of them. 5 thly 8 De vitaMofis, 1. 3. p 670. b Antiqu. 1. 2. c. 12. f. a. l Sanhedrin, c. n. f. r. k Dickinfon, c. 6. P-S7- [ 221 ] cthly, After all, ypappciTce. and (puvyevTtz are the fame in Jofepbus as in the Greek epigram in Eujebius \ and they the fame with q>mtj the human and articulate voice, which, as Capellus m obferves, confifts not of vowels only, but of confonants alfo ; and both in the one as in the other, the tetragram- maton, or the name of four letters, Jehovah is thought to be meant ; or of feven letters, four confonants and three vowel-points ; hence S 'caliger n fays, " there is no neceffity e( by (puvyevra to underftand vowels, in " the above Greek epigram, fince "Jofepbus ** exprefly calls the four letters of the te- " tragrammaton thofe good figs, on whom be ce peace, at which time there was no dif- €< fenlion between them ; wherefore with ?' us there is nothing full and deficient, " neither firft and laft, no Ken' and Cbe- " tib, but what are in the order of the " fcriptures which is now in the hands of " the Rabbans; and the moft correct books ci are the moft in efteem with us, and we " follow, or depend upon the reading of " Ben Naphtali:" and it is certain their Bibles had the fame Majorette notes and obfervations in common with the Rab- batiites; fo it is obferved by them *, that the * Menachcm in Dod MordecaS, c. 10 p. 130. that Me- nachem was a Karaite, vid. Trigland, de feft. Karsorum, c. ix. p. 187, 5 [ 238 ] the letter n in twenty places is written at' the end of a word, but not read, which agrees with the prefent Maforah. R. Aa- ro?i, a Karaite, published a Hebrew gram- mar in 158 1, in which he never deferts, as can be obferved, the modern punctuation of the Bible, and confults the Maforah in words written defectively, or in any other irregular way, and is full of Maforetic ob- fervations, fuch as the Rabbanites pro- duce * ; and a Karaite -f-, of the fame name, Ttfho wrote a commentary on the law in 1294, frequently refers to the points, and makes mention of the names of them, as, 'Tzere, Pathach, Sheva, Hatafh-camets, Cholem, Sburek, Dagefh. This feet, the Karaites, would never have admitted the prefent punctuation, if they had not be- lieved it obtained in the Bible of old, and came from God himfelf ; and as others re- late c , they ftrongly affirm, that the vowel- points of the Hebrew Bible are from Mo- fes and the prophets. The fenfe of the Ka- raites about the points is with me an invinci- ble * Vid. Wolfii AccefT. sd Notitiam Karseorum, p. 37. & Bibli th. Heb. p. 119. f Vid. Simon. Difqu. Critic, c. 12. p. 95, 96. vid. MafTechetSopherim, c. 6. f. 4. c Le- geri Epift. Hottinger. in Thefaur. Philolog. p. 54. [ 239 ] ble proof of the great antiquity, and againfl the novelty of them; for from the time that this fed: rofe up, it was not poffible for the Pbarljees, Rabbanltes, Maforetic, or tra- ditionary Jews call them by what names you will, to have introduced fuch an in- vention as the vowel-points, in any pe- riod of time whatever, but thefe men would have objected to them as fuch, and would never have received them ; it is to me a demonstration that the vowel -points were in being before the fchifm was, which was about the time before given, and were univerfally regarded by the Jews, fo early, as of a divine original. A. 164. Ante Chriftum. The Keries and Cetlbs, of which 'Ellas fays d there are 848, are various readings, or differences of the marginal reading from the written text. That thefe are of great antiquity is certain ; fince they are not only mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud c , but in the Jerufalem Talmud '*, particularly the various reading of Hagg. i. 8. and in the d Praefat. 3. ad Maforet. e T. Bab. Nedarim, fol. 37, 2. Sopherim, c. 6. f. 5. 8. &. c. 7. f. 1, 2, 3, 4. & c. 9. f. 8. * Maccot, fol. 32, 1. .5 t 240 ] the book of Zohar f ; though when thefc marginal readings were firft made or be- gan to be made, is not certain : the Jews fay g , they are a tradition of Mofes from mount Sinai 5 but that cannot be, fince his books were not then written, and much lefs the books of the prophets ; fome Chriftians indeed are of opinion, as Broughton, Ainfworh^ and Wafmuth, that both the text and marginal reading are of divine infpiration ; and it mull be owned; that in many places they may be both taken into the fenfe of the pafTage, and much enrich it, and both are taken in by " our tranflators in Prov. xix. 7. and in the margin of 2 Sam. xxiii. 13. and in other verfions 5 but they are by others fuppofed to be put by Ezra and the men of the fyna- gogue, on the return from the captivity, who, upon revifing the books of fcripture, and feveral copies of it, obferved various readings j fo Kimchi, on 1 Kings xvii. 14. fays, the copies were perplexed or diflurbed in the captivity h ; they found one copy fo* and another fo -, and fome they did not up.j derffcand, f In Deut. fol. it 9, 3. & 226, 3. « T. Bab. Nedar. ut fupra, Schulchan Aruch. par. c. 141. f. S. ^ Vid. B?r» Chayim Prsefat. ad Eibl. Heb e col. 1. [ 241 ] ftand, and fome of which they did not chufe to put into the text, nor to can: away, and therefore put one within in the text, and the other without in the margin, to be ufed at difcretion ; and in his preface to the former prophets he obferves much the fame : " In the firft captivity the copies " were loft or removed out of their place, " (were out of order) and the wife men u that knew the law were dead j and the " men of the great fynagogue, who re- *' ftored the law to its former ftate, found " variations in the copies, and they went " after the greater number (of copies) ac- Light'foot, Hor. Heb in Matt. 5. 18. p. 140. O- 49 . 5. in Hierem. c. 3'. 4°- fo1 ' l6o « Vlde Loc ' Heb> fol. 85. B. [ 243 1 nied, and were in being before the pre- tended Maforetes of Tiberias. Nay, the forms and figures of letters unufual, or of an unufual pofition, marked by the Mafo~ retes are obferved in the Talmud * ; fo that thefe Maforetic remarks were before thofe men were, faid to be after the finifh- ingof that. Thefe readings feem to be de- figned not as corrections and emendations of the text, but only fome as various read- ings, and others as euphemifms, to be re- garded by readers as may feem good to them, and others as obferving anomalous punctuations ; but in none was it intended that alterations mould be made in the text, but that that mould ftand as it is, and was found : but it fecms better with Carpzoviuj k tofuppofc that thefe marginal readings were made after the times of An- tiocbus, when the temple was purified and worfhip in it restored -, and the autograph of Ezra, perhaps, and many copies of it being destroyed, though not all, (fee Maccab. i. 59, 66. and iii. 49, and xii. 9.) it was thought proper to revile the R 2 bocks « T. Bab. Kiddulhin, fol. 30,' 1. &66. 2. Bava Bathra, fol. 109, 2. Sanhedrin, fol. io}, 2. MafTech. Sop.ierim c. 9. f. 7. k Critic. Sacr. p. 342. [ 244 ] books of the fcripture ; and obferving dif- ferent readings in the copies they found, they placed them in the margin for the faid uies ; and therefore I have put the date of the original of them as above : now though thefe greatly refpect words and letters, yet in fome inftances the change of confonants appears to be in the mar- gin for the fake of vowels found in the text not fo fuitable to the confonants in it ; and therefore the vowels muft be in the text when the Keri was put in the mar- gin, as the learned Pocock l has obferved in the Keri and Cetib of Pf. xxx. 4. " for, fays he, unlefs the Maforetes, or whoever put the Keri in the margin had found »Y"IV/D» fo as it is now pointed, with vowels agreeing to the word ^TTD, vhat need had they to fubftitute it ? iince the fenfe aswell, if not better, flows by read- ing it H*1VD i but if in other copies they had found it HTfi» an d without vowel-points, why did they not dafh out the Fau, and read it fo ? and if they had found mVD, with its own vowels, in which they read it, they would never have dared to have caft them away without neceffity, and put thofe in their 1 Miicellan. Not. in Port. Mofis, p. 64, 65. [ 2 45 ] their room, proper to an infinitive 5 as it is faid, the fame commonly is the reafon of others, in which Vau is poftponed to Ka» metz, 1. Sam. xxvii. it. Jojh. xv. 63* Pf. ci. 5. and to Pat bach, Pf. v. 9." fo that it appears to be the doctrine of the points, and the anomalous ones obferved, that is fometimes the caufe of the marginal Keri, See If. xxxvi. 12. where the points under the word in the text better agree with that in the margin, and feems to be the reafon of the marginal reading. Some of thofe Keries may not be fo ancient as the date above ; but additions may be made by fome in later times ; yet they feem chiefly to be of great antiquity, as appears by what has been obferved of the Targums and ancient Greek copies ; and Buxtorf™ has given fome rules to difcern the one from the other. A. 277. Ante Chriftum. In this year, according to bifhop Vfher n , Ptolemy Philadelpbus king of Egypt, being defirous of erecting a library in Alexandria, R 3 employed m Anticritica, par. z. c. 4. p. 501. * Annal. Vet. Teft. p. 480. t 246 ] employed Demetrius his librarian to collect books for that purpofe, who in a letter to the king preferved by Eufebius °, tells him that he had diligently executed his orders ; but that with fome few other books, there remained the books of the law of the Jews to be got, which lie fays were con- tained in Hebrew letters and vowels ; for what elfe can be meant by (pavy, as diflin- guifhed from letters ? not the pronun- ciation and found, which thofe volumes could not be faid to lie in, but the vowel- points, by which the letters were read and pronounced, and are annexed to them for that purpofe ; fo that it feems at this time the books of the Jews were written not only in Hebrew letters, but with Hebrew points, and in their own characters, as Demetrius fays p , which were different both from the Egyptian and Syrian, as he affirms ; and which deferves to be remarked, as what may be of fome fervice to mew what were the Hebrew characters then in ufe : and though it is commonly fuppofed that the feventy interpreters ufed an unpointed copy from which they translated, whence came Praepar. Evangel. 1. 8. c. 3. p. 351. t Apud Eufeb. p. 350. Vid. Ariltex Hift. 70. p. 4, 5. Ed. Oxon. 1692. r 247 i came fo many miftakes to be made in their verfion ; yet Hottinger^ has obf rved near fifty places in which for Kametz they read Tzereor Segol; (oLeufden * obferves, that they read words with wrong vowels, as Tzere for Kametz, Pf, xl. 5. Patach for Tzere, Pf vii. i2. Chirek for Patach, Pf vii. 7. Patach for &•£#/, iy xci. 3. and which might be owing either to a vitiated pointed copy before them, which led them wrong; or to an unpointed copy, and trufting to their memory, put one point for another ; though Dr. Lightfoot T fuggefts they pur- pofely u ufed an unpricked Bible, in which M the words written without vowels might " be bended divers ways, and into di- * c vers fenfes, and different from the mean- * c ing of the original ; and yet if the tranf- " lation was queftioned they might prick " or vowel the word fo as to agree to " their tranflation : how they have dealt " in this kind there is none that ever laid " the Hebrew Bible and the SepJuagint to- " gether, but hath obiervedj" though he adds, " their differences from the ori- R 4 " ginal, s Thefaur. Philolog. 1. i. c. 3. p. 354, &c. * Philo- log. Heb. Mixt. Dhiert. 4. p. 31. " ' Works, vol. 1. p. 490. • [ 24 8 ] r * ginal, which were innumerable, were ** partly of ignorance, they themfelves not " being able to read the text always true, " in a copy unvowelled ; but this ignorance " was alio voluntary in them ; they not *' caring to miftake, lb that they might do '* it with their own fecurity jf" and fo Mr. Broughton * fays, " that the feventy had ** not the vowelled Bible, both for the rare- "■ nefs, and becaufe they never meant to " give the truth ;" but be it that they ufed an unpointed Bible purpofely, or a pointed one vitiated, it (hews that points were in ufe in their time, and very necef- fary : and it may be obferved, that the Pentateuch, which fome, as Jofepbus and others, think was the only part of fcrip- ture tranflated by them, is almoft every where tranflated in agreement with the modern punctuation ; and Jerom * long ago obferved this, that the five books of Mofes tranflated by them more agreed with the Hebrew than any other. It is an ob- fervation of Capdlus -f himfelf, that the feventy interpreters, who lived about 300 years s Works, p. 6-0, (S<. * Qucerh feu Trad. Heb. in Gen. fol 6c. D. Tom. 3. f Orat. tie Nom. Tetragram. p. 1 S3, 191"', 192. [ 2 49 ] years before Chrift, inftead of the tetra- grammaton or the word 'Jehovah, always read Adonai, and always render it by xvpto$, a word not expreffive of effence, as Jeho- vah is, but of lordthip, as Adonai is ; and that they are followed in this by the Apof- tles of Chrill, and the reft of the writers of the New Teftament, and the ancient fathers of the church ; and that from them the Greek interpreters of the Old Tefta- ment never depart, as Aqnila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Now what could lead them to read Adonai, and fometimes Elo- him inftead of Jehovah, and translate the word accordingly ? not the confonant let- ters of Jehovah, but the points of Adonai and Elohim put unto it as they now are; and Capellus * plainly conferTes that this word had the points of Adonai, and fome- times of Elohim in their time ; for he fays, the feventy when niiT has the points of C»nbtt oftner render it kv^ib xvpls, as Pf. lxviii. 21. £? pajjim, and fometimes ttuptog, and 9eog, as in Amos iii. 7. &c. from whence it is conjectured that for Adonai Jehovah they read Adonai Elohim. A. * lb. p. 146. [ 2 5° ] A, 454. Ante Chriftum. In this year, according to bifhop UJfter', Ezra was returned from Babylon, and was at Jerufalem, and read, and expounded the law to the people of the Jews there. It is the generally received notion of the Jews, that the vowel-points were annexed to the letters of the facred Books by Ezra ; not but that they fuppofe they were origi- nally from Mofes and the prophets, and that they are equally of divine authority as the letters ; only they imagine they were delivered down from them by oral tradi- tion to the times of Ezra, and by him af- fixed to the letters ; and Ellas, who in- vented the ftory of the men of Tiberias, is of the fame mind, only with this dif- ference, that the oral tradition of the points was carried down to thofe men, and they put them to the letters : as much like a fiction as this oral tradition looks, as it undoubtedly does, yet it is little lefs, if any, what Capellas and Walton al- low, efpecially the latter; that the point- ing of the Maforetes is not arbitrary, and at their pleafure, but according to the found, J Annal. Vet. Teft. p. 197. [ *5i ] found, pronunciation, true and accuftomed reading, always in ufe, handed down fuc- ceffively to their times, and which contains the true fenfe and meaning of the Holy Ghoft. Dr. 'John Prideaux u , an oppofer of the antiquity of the points, yet thinks it probable that fome of the points and accents for the diftin&ion of the text, and, for the direction of the reading, were de- vifed by Ezra, and by the fucceeding Ma- jor etes before the Talmudifts, and were pre- ferved in feparate parchments and meets, and that they were ufed and increafed to the times of the Siberian Maforetes, who were after the Talmudijls ; which is giv- ing up the invention of them by the men of Tiberias, and afcribing the ori- ginal of them to Ezra. Many who are clear for the divine authority of the points and accents are content they mould be afcribed to Ezra, fince he was divinely infpired, as Buxtorf and others ; and it may be fafely concluded that the points and accents were in being in his time, fince the Mafora/j which was begun by him, or about his time w , at leaft by the men of hi« u Viginti & duas Lettiones, Left. 12. p. 196, 197. w Cafaubon. Epift. ep. 390. Porthsfio, p. 468. [ * 5 2 1 his fynagogue, is concerned about the points and accents, as well as other things, as has been obfervedj and befides, the Scribes, which were afliftant to Ezra in reading the law, cannot well be thought to lead, at lead: (o well, to read it dijlinclly, and caufe the people to underftand the reading of it, even men, women, and children, without the points. Not to take any fur- ther notice of the fenfe the Talmudi/ls, both 'Jervfalem and Babylonian, give of the text^in Neb. viii. 8. I now refer to, which has been quoted already. Dr. Humphrey Prideaux, though he took that fide of the queftion, which denies that the vowel- points were affixed by Ezra, and of the fame divine authority with the reft of the text, yet allows, that they came into ufe a little after the time of Ezra, being then neceffary for the reading and teaching of the Hebrew text * ; which is not only an acknowledgement of the great ufefulnefs of the points, but carries the antiquity of them very high; and I fee not if they were needful for the reading and teaching of the Hebrew text a little after the time of Ezra, why they were not as neceffary in the time * Conne&ion, par. i. b. 5. p. 352, 353. [ 253 1 time of Ezra; for was the neceflity of them. owing to the Hebrew language, then ceafijg to be vulgarly fpoken, fo, according to him, it did ceafe to be in the times of Ezra ; though I apprehend that is a miftake, for it was fome hundreds of years after, ere it ceafed to be vulgarly fpoken. There is nothing to be obferved be- tween the times of Ezra and Mofes rela- tive to the points ; for I lay no ftrefs on the different pronunciation of Shibboleth t in Jud. xii. 6. though Schindler x is of opi- nion that from hence it appears, that the point on the right and left hand of tP, was then in ufe ; and fo by confequence the other points alfo. Elias Levita* roundly afferts, that the copy of the law which was given by Mo- fes to the children of IJrael was without points and accents ; but this is faid with- out proof, and is what no man is able to prove. He quotes Aben Ezra y , who fays, the points were delivered at Sinai, but the tables of the law were not pointed, which feems to be a flat contradiction, at leaft it is what is very improbable. Much better does * Lex. Pentaglott. col. 1792. vid. Balmefii. Gram. Heb. p. 14. lin. 9. 14. 16. * Prsefat. 3. ad Maforet. ? Zach She- phataim in lb. [ 2 54 ] does another writer x argue, whom he mentions, who in anfwer to the queftion, How do we know that the points and ac- cents are of God ? fays, " it may be re- ** plied, what is written in Deut. xxvii. «* 8. and thou fh alt write upon the Jlones all " the words of this law very plainly; but *« without the points and accents, which " explain the words, no man, he fays, can " understand them clearly and plainly" and whatever may be faid for the king's writing out a copy of the law, and reading in it all the days of his life Deut. xvii. 1 8, 19. and for the priefts reading it once a year in the hearing of ali Ifrael, which yet is not very eafy to account for, with- out the points, fo as to be underftood, Deut. xxxi. 11. yet how the common people fhould be able to read it to their children, and teach them the knowledge of it with- out the points, is ftill more difficult of belief. The common opinion of the yews is, either that the points and accents were delivered to Mofes on mount Sinai, yet only as to the power of pronouncing and reading, but not as to their marks and fi- gures • R. Levi bar Jofeph Semadar, in ib. [ *55 1 gures in writing ; but that the true man- ner of reading the fcriptures was propa- gated and preferved by oral tradition to the times of Ezra -, or that they were given to Mofes at Sinai, but were omitted in wri- ting for the mod part afterward, and Co were forgotten, 'till Ezra came and reftored thtm. But it rather feems that they were as early as the Hebrew letters ; and fince it is not improbable that thefe were before the flood, and before the confufion of tongues, the points were alfo ; and could the fenfe of Gen. xi. i. given by a late writer % be eftabliihed, it would be out of all doubt; which is this, and the whole earth was of one language, i. e. the Hebrew language, as afterwards called, and of one fpeech, or words, that is, according to this writer, words diftinguifhed by acute or {harp points ; deriving the word ufed from *nn to parpen, whereby he thinks, the tautology in the text is avoided ; and to which may be added, that the latter claufe of the text is plural : yet I fear the word will not bear this fenfe, fince the lingular and plural words ufed, the one in one claufe, and the other in the other, mull have * Kalf. de Ling. Htb. Natal, p. 33, 37, 38, 35. [ 2 5 6 ] have a different derivation, which is not ufual of a word in the fame text. If the book of Jetzirab was compiled by Abraham, to whom the Jews b com- monly afcribe it, though fometimes to Adam, the points might be traced to his time; for in that book frequent mention is made of the double letters Begad Cephat, or Begad Cepbrat, as there Co called c , be- caufe they have a double pronunciation, which pronunciation depends upon the points, their having or not having in them the Dagejh lene. But though there is no reafon to believe that the book was written either by Abraham or Adam, yet it is an ancient one, and by this inftance it carries the antiquity of the points higher than is now commonly allowed unto them ; for the book is fpoken of in the Talmud*-, and if it was written by R. Akiba, who is the only one mentioned by the Jews as the au- thor of it, befides Adam and Abraham, he died in the beginning of the fecond cen- tury ; though if Jonathan Ben Uzziel wrote a fupplement to it, which was as a com- b Cofri, par 4. c. 27. Juchafin, fol. 52, 2. e C. I. f. 2, 9, 10, & c. 2. f. 1. & c. 4. f. 1, 2, 3. d T. Bab. Sar.hedrin, fol. 65, 2. t *57 1 commentary on it> as is faid % it murr. be before his time, fince Jonathan was cotem- porary with Chriil, or a little after him % and it may be obferved, that the double pronunciation of the above letters was in ufe in the times of Chriff, as appears from the words, Armageddon, Capernaum, Eu- phrates, Joppa, Pafcha, Sarepta, and o* thers. It is not only the opinion of fome Jewi/b * writers, that the vowel-points, as well as << letters, were given by God himfelf to Adam, as the author of Cofri*, and his commen- tator Mufcatus *, and of R. Azariah h , and of others -, but fome Chriftian writers l / • alfo, afcribe them to Adam ; and indeed, if the Hebrew letters were of his invention, as many have thought, and Walton k him- ■"'■ - felf thinks, there can be no reafonable doubt but the vowels were alfo ; but be this as it may, I am inclined to believe that the vowels were coeval with the let- ters, and that the penmen of the facred fcriptures, feverally annexed, the vowel- S points e Vid. Wolfii Bibliothec. Heb. p. 28. f Par. 4. c, 25. * In lb. fol. 229, c. h Meor Enayim, c. -9. , ! Al- lied. Chronolog. p. 267. vid. Buxtorf. de Punft. Antiqu. paj\' 2 p. 309, 310. k Prolegom. 2. f. 7. [ * 5 8 ] points to letters in their writings. My reafons are thefe : I. The perfection of language requires vowels. No language can be perfect with- out them ; they are the life and foul of lan- guage ; letters without them are indeed dead letters -, the confonants are ftubborn and immoveable things, they can't be moved or pronounced without vowels, which are, as Plato fays l , the bond of let- ters, by which they are joined, and with- out which they can't be coupled together : can it be thought, therefore, that the He- brew language, the firft, and mod perfect of all languages, mould be without them, which, if this was the cafe, would be the molt imperfect of all the orieiital languages ? for notwithftanding what has been faid to the contrary, the Samaritan had its points, though differing from the Hebrew, as Je- rom obferves m , and fo a later writer n has obferved it has. The Syrians, Chaldceans, Arabs, and Perjians, had vowel-points like wife, as Hottinger affirms °, and fo dean Pridcaux p . The invention of the Syriac i Sophifta p. 177. m Prasfat ad Reg. T. 3. fol. 5. L, n Petrus a Valle in Antiqu. Eccl. Orient, p. 184. ° The- faur. Philolcg. p. 403. p Connexion, par. 1. B. 5. p. Sv * [ 2 59 ] Syriac vowel-points is indeed by fome 8 af- cribed to Epbrem Syrus, who lived in the 4th century ; and as for the Etbiopic lan- guage, the vowels are incorporated into the confonants, and are a part of them, and lb muft be ab origine, and coeval with them ; and even thofe who are for carting away the vowel-points feem to be fenlible of a neceffity of fubftituting fomething in their room, the matres leftionis, as they call them, »lft to which fome add n i but thefe are not fufficient, being wanting in a great number of words ; witnefs alfo the various methods of reading Hebrew, contrived by men ; but why mould they be at pains to find out a method of reading and pro- nouncing the Hebrew language, when there is fuch a plain one at hand, ready prepared for them, and of which Walton himfelf fays r , that it is a moil profitable and ufe- ful invention no man can deny ? 2. The nature and genius of the He- brew language require points ; without thefe the difference can't be difcerned between nouns and verbs, in fome inflances, as -m, with many others -, between verbs active, S 2 and i Vid. Fabritii Bibliothec. Gr. Tom. 5. p. 320. r fro* legom. 8, f. 1Q-. [ 26o ] and verbs paffive, between fome conjuga- tions, moods, tenfes, and perfons, Ka/, Pie/, Pual ; imperatives and infinitives, are proofs hereof -, nor can the Vau converfive of tenfes be obferved r , which yet is ufed fre- quently throughout the Bible, and with- out which, the formation of fome of the tenfes by letters would be ufelefs. Mori- nus • himfelf fays, " that without the " points a grammar cannot be written, as *' Elias rightly obferves ; for example, de- " fcribe the conjugation Ka/ without M points, and immediately you'll be at a I 1 fiand, and much more in Pie/;" and Walton l alfo owns the ufe of them in the inveftigation of the roots. The pronun- ciation of fome letters depends upon the points as has been obferved. 3. The vowel-points are neceiTary and ufeful to the more ealy learning, reading, and pronouncing the Hebrew language. What menvwell fkilled in the language may be able to do is one thing, and what learners of it, and beginners in it can do is another thing; men well verfed in it may r Vid. Cofri, par. 2. c. 80. * Epift. Buxtorfio in An- tiqu. Eccl. Orients], p. 392. * Introduct. Orient. Ling. p. 5 . [ »6i J may chufe to read without them ; and To a man that is mafter of Brachygraphy may chufe to read what he has written in fhort hand, and to which he is ufed, rather than in long hand ; but this is no proof of the perfection and propriety of his Brachygra- phy* " A tongue, as Dr. Lightfoot fays°, " cannot firft be learnt without vowels, *•• though at laft fkill and practice may * e make it to be read without ; grammar ** and not nature makes men to do this :" and a late learned writer has obferved w , that 70. [ *7 ] by the points ; and how have the fame in- terpreters, by changing points and letters, fpoiled the famous prophecy of the Mejjiab in If ix. 6. where, inftead of everlajiing Father, the Prince of -peace, they tranflate I will bring upon the princes peace ? though the pafTage is otherwife produced by Clemens of Alexandria % more agreeable to the Hebrew text ; which fhe ws that the Septuagint ver- fion is not in the fame ftate now it formerly was. The learned Vitringa * has obferved, that " the Greek interpreter of Alexaii- H dria, who came forth under the name u and number of the Seventy, not being " expert in the Jerufalem reading, has " often in his unhappy and unlearned ver- *• fion, fo deformed the prophet (Ifaiah? s) " difcourfe, in the more obfcure places, " that Ifaiah cannot be known again in " Ifaiah :" and through negligence or dif- ufe of, or want of the points, the Greek in- terpreters have made miftakes, when one would think it was almoft impomble they mould ; thus '32 differently pointed, or without any points, may fignify fons or builders. e Paedagog. 1. 1. c. 5. See alfo Eufeb. Demonftrat. Evangel. I.7. c.i. p. 336, 337, * Pr*fat. ad Com- ment, in Ifaiam, Vol. 1. p. 5. I 268 ] builders. They have taken the word in the firft fenfe in 1 King v. 18. and contrary to the context and plain fenfe of the words, read, Solomon s Jons and Hiram's Jons hewed them, the ftones. The fame word, con- fiding of the fame letters, as di^erently pointed, has two or three fenfes, and fome- times half a dozen, and even eight or ten, as the word "Q"?. How difficult therefore muft it be to attain unto, and fettle the true fenfe, as in fuch and fuch a place, at leaft to common perfons ; and for thefe the bible was originally written, as well as for learned men. 5. It will be difficult to affert and main- tain the perfpicuity of the fcripture, lay- ing afide the vowel-points and accents; and make it to comport with the wifdom of God to deliver out his laws, the rule of man's conduct both towards himfelf and one another, and doctrines defigned to make men wife unto falvation, and to in- ftrucl: them in matters of the greateft mo- ment for time and eternity: to deliver thefe, I fay, in ambiguous words, that admit of various fenfes, and at beft give a fenfe dif- ficult to attain unto by men of the deepeft learning and of the greateft capacity. It is * the [ 26 9 ] the part of a wife law-giver to exprefs his laws, and of a king to publifh his edicts, and of a teacher to give forth his doctrines and inftructions in the cleared manner, in the plainer!: terms, in words the mod eafy to be underftood; and not in ambiguous language capable of admitting divers fenfes, and fuch as is contrary to what is intended ; and can it be thought that God, our law- giver and king, and who by his word pro- pofes to teach men to profit, and to lead them by the way they mould go, would act otherwife ? 6. Nor mall we be able, I fear, to fup- port the infallibility of the fcripture, that part of it the Old Teftament, as a fure rule of faith and practice, when by taking away or laying alide the points, it becomes flexi- ble, and may be turned as a nofe of wax to any thing to ferve a purpofe, to counte- nance any doctrine or practice agreeable to the different taftes and inclinations of men ; lince hereby it will admit of different fenfes, and fo in confequence muff be uncertain, and not to be depended on : and, I fear it is this wantonnefs of fpirit that has led many to throw away the points and ac- cents, that they might be under no re- ftraints [ 2 7° I ftraint, but at full liberty to interpret fcrip- tures as their fancy inclines, and their intereft leads ; but if the points give the true fenfe and mind of the Holy Spirit in the facred writings, which has been owned by fuch who have oppofed the divine origi- nal of them, why mould they be laid afide, to make way for any fenfe the fancy of men may impofe upon them ? Walton in fo many words affirms f , that " they (the Maforetes) " exprefs in their punctuation the true fenfe " of the Holv Ghoft, which was dictated " to the holy penmen, and by them com- " mitted to writing, and preferved both by 4< Jews and Christians" ; and that " they " pointed the text according to the true " and received reading, which exprefled the " true fenfe of the Holy Ghoft, and not as " they pleafed; nor is it lawful for any " one to reject their reading at pleafure, " but all are tied to it, unlefs fome error " or better reading can be clearly proved ; g " and Capellus himfelf fays h ,