HEBREW GRAMMAR, FOURTEENTH EDITION AS REVISED BY DR. E. RÖDIGER. TRANSLATED BY T. J. CONANT, PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN MADISON UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, N. Y. WITH THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE EDITIONS SUBSEQUENT TO THE ELEVENTH, TO WHICH ARE ADDED, A COURSE OF EXERCISES IN HEBREW GRAMMAR, AND A HEBREW CHRESTOMATHY, PREPARED BY THE TRANSLATOR. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. PHILADELPHIA: GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-STREET. MDCCCXLVI. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by D. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE fourteenth edition of the Hebrew Grammar of Gesenius is now offered to the public by the translator of the eleventh edition, by whom this work was first made accessible to students in the English language. The conviction expressed in his preface to that edition, that its publicalion in this country would subserve the interests of Hebrew literature, has been fully sustained by the result. After a full trial of the merits of this work, both in America and in England,* its republication is now demanded in its latest and most improved form. The writer believes it to be no more than justice to him, that he should be allowed to answer this demand; and to enjoy any advantages resulting from the increasing popularity of a work, the merits of which have become known through his labours. Of the general character of this grammar it is now unnecessary to speak. It passed through thirteen editions with continual improvements from the author's own hand. The fourteenth edition was prepared, after the death of Gesenius, by his friend and former pupil Prof. Rödiger, one of the most accurate oriental scholars of the age, who for some time lectured on Hebrew Grammar in the University at Halle, with the work of Gesenius for his text-book. Traces of his accurate scholarship are found, in the form of corrections and additions, in every part of the work; and some portions have been rewritten, but on the same general philological principles and in the same spirit as the preceding editions. In the sections on the important subject of the Hebrew tenses he has substituted, injudiciously I think, the terms Perfect and Imperfect for Praeterite and * The translation appeared in 1839, and an accurate reprint of it was soon after published in London. Future, and has given in § 123 a corresponding modification to the expression of the original import of these tenses. So subtile and refined a distinction cannot have been the original conception of these forms. The obvious and strongly marked division of time into Past and Future was doubtless the primary one; and from this simple and clearly ori. ginal import of the two forms, Gesenius has, with admirable skill, derived their various secondary and related uses, and shown how naturally the latter spring from the former. Rödiger, by adapting his nomenclature to the secondary instead of the primary signification and uses of a tense, has given an unphilosophical view of the relation of the primary and secondary to each other, and rendered that relation obscure to the inquirer.* Whether these strictures are deemed just or not, all will doubtless admit the propriety of retaining in the translation the names of the tenses in common use; those adopted by Rödiger being unknown to the lexicons and other works which the student must use in connexion with the grammar. This remark applies also to the terms conversive and consecutive. Those who may prefer to follow Rödiger. have only to substitute Perfect and Imperfect for Praeterite and Future, and consecutive for conversive. The Exercises, which follow the translation, are designed to facilitate the study of the grammar. They were prepared after several years' observation, as a teacher, of the difficulties which embarrass the student in his first attempt to learn an oriental language. They have been used with great advantage by a teacher under my direction during the last seven years, and by teachers in other Institutions.-The principles of reading and orthography, of inflexion, &c., are necessarily scattered through numerous sections and subdivisions in the grammar. A judicious summary of these principles, grouping together those points which mutually illustrate each other, will save much of the student's time and labour, and give him a clearer impression of the whole than he can obtain by his own unassisted study of the grammar. A comparison of Sect. II. and Sect. VII. of the Exercises with the §§ of the grammar there referred to, will show the utility of such a mode of treating the subject. Occasionally, several statements in the grammar are con * I have added therefore, at the end of the volume, Gesenius' general statement of the import of the two tense-forms, on which he bases his treatment of the subject in the succeeding §§, as given also in the fourteenth edition. Gesenius' view of the original form of the Heb. article is given and commented on by Rödiger, (§ 35, Rem. 1,) whose reasons for differing from him are not satisfactory to me. He does not attempt to account for its punctuation, although it is, according to his own view, an integral part of the form. |