good, or by writing the positive twice, as, Tob, Tob, very good, or best. v. The Hebrew verb has, strictly speaking, but one conjugation, but that conjugation has seven voices, or modes of signification: Paal or Kal, Piail and Hiphil are active; Niphal, Pual, and Hophal are passive; and Hithpael is both active and passive. The verb has three moods, the indicative, the imperative, and the infinitive; and two tenses only, the preterite and the future, which is the case with the whole class of languages denominated Shemitic. VI. In stating that the Hebrew verb has only two tenses, or times, I hardly know whether the circumstance ought to be regarded as an imperfection in words, or a perfection in things; as a defect in grammar, or a superior accuracy in philosophy. The greatest poet of our own times says: "In all the days of Past and Future, for In life there is no present." BYRON'S Manfred, act ii. And nothing can be more strictly and rigidly true; for even in expressing the word Present, while it exists only in the intention, it is part of the future, and in writing it, ere the action of the hand is completed, the first syllable is already become part of the past. Popularly however, as time is said to have three modes of existence, past, present, and future, so every language has some contrivance for expressing them; and as the Hebrew has no regular present tense, it supplies the want of it by the use of the participle Benoni, or active, and as it cannot say he learns, says he is learning. And in another respect the language, with its two tenses, is not so destitute as we should at first sight expect; for the particle Wa, and, when prefixed to, and read with, the future tense, gives it a past signification, with much of the character of the Greek aorist, or time indefinite. VII. I shall now proceed to give a list of the most remarkable Hebrew words which have occurred to me in the course of my reading, pointing out their analogies with the words of such other languages as I am acquainted with. F Hebrew Words. Igereth, a letter, epistle ......... Analogies. Angarah (Persic), a writing. Adam, proper name of the first man.. Adima (Sanskrit), first. Adamah, earth, ground Aon, first begotten Acharon, hinder, following, future, last "Out of it wast thou taken." Ge {nesis, iii. 19. Aion, Greek. Hayam Haacharon, the western J sea, or the Mediterranean - Icarium Mare, Greek and Latin. The Greeks found the sea named by the Asiatics, did not understand the etymology, and invented the fable of Icarus to account for it. A real name can hardly arise from a fictitious event, or in the language of Shakspeare Nothing can come of nothing." This word is also likely to have suggested the Acheron of the Greeks, one of the rivers of Hell. Bash, to be ashamed Bashful, English. 66 Bohu, emptiness (chaos), Gen. i. 2.. In the Generations of Sanchoniatho this word is personified as the wife of Colpias. Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines. This word is remarkable as being compounded of Hebrew and Greek, from the radical letters Gba, a hill, and Chthon, ground. Haras, to lay waste, to destroy....... Harass, English. Chebel, a line, rope, cord........................................ Cable, English. This appears to be the etymology of the Copts, the natives of Lower Egypt, on the shore of the Mediterranean. Chemed, beauty. Chemdah, wishing, desiring Charoots, fine gold Cheres, the sun Tit, clay ..................... Camdeo, the Hindu god of love. Chryses, a priest of Apollo. Homer. ...With the Persic Tan, body; Titan, Greek. The Titans were giants, children of the Earth. The sun was a Titan in some Theogonies, and in the 19th Psalm is figuratively described as a giant. Caph, the palm of the hand......... This appears to be the root of the Latin Capio, contracted from Caph, Ego. Captus, taken, i. e. with the palm of the hand closed on it. Caiph, a rock . Kephas (Greek), Peter. Hebrew Words. Chetoneth, a close coat ....... Chiton, Greek. Analogies. Migraoth, to lessen, shorten, narrow.. Mikros (Greek), little. Moom, a stain, blemish Lo-Moom, without spot Mook, to deride Momos, a spot, Greek. ................ Amumon, Greek. ..... Mock, English. Metil, a forged, or wrought bar Metallum, Latin. of iron Maieh, the womb......... Mar, bitter Nut, to shake, to tremble Metal, English. Mare (Latin and Italian), the sea. Nisæus (Greek), a name of Bacchus, the grape personified. This is the of the name of Nysa, or Nyssa, which were at once sacred to Bacchus, and celebrated for their wines. Atishah, sneezing. This word appears to be imitative of the sound. Amas, to load, lade a beast of burden.. Amass (English), to heap together. Anak, the progenitor of a race of Anax, the son of Cœlus, and Terra. giants Ereb, evening Erebus (Greek), the son of Chaos 1 and Darkness. "From Night the Day sprang forth and shining air, Whom to the love of Erebus she gave." HESIOD'S Theogony. Airabon, a pledge Arrabon, Greek. Airech, or Erech, whatever is ar- This word appears to enter into the ranged, or ordered .......... J composition of several mythological Greek names, such as Erechtheus, Erechthonius, &c., in some accounts celebrated as the first teachers of agriculture, as the last word implies from Arach (Hebrew), to prepare, and Chthon (Greek), the ground. Pheni, face, countenance... With the Arabic word Hiat, life. Penates, the domestic gods of the Romans, or those in whose presence they conceived their ordinary life to be passed. Phar, a bull, bullock, Juvencus......With the definite article Hay pre fixed and coalescing seems to be the origin of our English word Heifer, as the Persic word Gaw, which is generic, is of our Cow. Tsidon, or Sidon, a celebrated city of Phoenicia, now called Said. The name is probably derived from its tutelary god Hercules, or the sun, in Arabic, Sid, lord, with the Tenwin, or Nunnation (final on), Sidon. With the Arabic definite article Al prefixed, and a Greek termination, Al- Sid-es, or Alcides. Hebrew Words. Analogies. Tsar, an enemy. Tsarar, to be hostile. The second word appears to be formed from the first, by the addition of the Coptic verb, Er, esse, Rechush, substance, goods, pos Call, English. Kitten, a young cat. sessions.... Raphai, Rephaim, or sons of Raphah. I am disposed to believe that this stange word may be Aphar, dust, earth, reversed, and that the Hebrew Rephaim, and the Greek Titans (Terræ Filii) referred to the antiquity of particular races of men, as Autochthones, or Aborigines, or coeval with the earth which they inhabited. In Psalm lxxxviii. 11. Rephaim is translated dead; and the buried, in perfect conformity both with the Hebrew and Arabic idiom, may easily have been called sons or children of the earth. Sud, to whitewash Sud (Turkish), milk. Sar, a prince, with the Coptic verb, Er, esse. Sarar, to bear dominion, to have rule. Shabah, to carry away cattle.......... This is a very probable etymology of the Sabeans, or plundering Arabs of the desert. See Job, i. 15. Shalishah, Baal Shalishah, Beth Shalishah. Who was this god, or who were these gods? The second word Shalishah is unquestionably cognate with Shelshah, three. Was it a Philistine city sacred to the Zeus Triophthalmos, or Jupiter with three eyes, mentioned by Pausanias, and identified by Sir William Jones with the Indian Siva, or have we here the Hindu Triad itself, and was it the house or temple of Brahmah, Vishnu, and Siva? The etymology of Palestine is Sanskrit, from Pali, a shepherd, and Stan or Istan, place. Shenhabim, elephants' teeth, ivory, from Shain, a tooth; and perhaps Habem is a corruption by transposition from Behaimah, a large quadruped, applied to the elephant and hippopotamos. (Surigx, a Tammuz, a deity of the Syrians, identical with the Adonis of the Greeks. Both are names of the sun, and I believe Tammuz, or Thammuz, is a corrupted Chaldee form of the Hebrew Shemesh, the sun. Tarshish, the sea................ Tarisha, the ocean, Sanskrit. In various passages of the Old Testament Tarshish does not appear to denote any particular place, but the sea itself, and ships of Tarshish to be as nearly as possible equivalent to the Homeric expression ἐν νήεσσι ποντοποροίσι, in sea-crossing ships. 69 CHAP. VIII. ON THE ETHIOPIC LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. "Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, Paradise Lost, book iv. I. THERE are few countries of the ancient world, the history of which is shrouded in more impenetrable darkness than that of Ethiopia. The little information we possess respecting it tends rather to excite than to gratify curiosity, to raise doubts rather than to satisfy them, for while Herodotus represents Ethiopia as civilized by Egypt, the account of Diodorus is precisely the reverse, and he describes the former as the parent and oldest settled country, and the latter as a colony, and comparatively recent. Respecting the early history of Ethiopia, chronology affords us very little assistance, and geography opens many sources of doubt and error from the ambiguity of the name. Cush in the Hebrew Scriptures, is to the best of my recollection uniformly rendered Ethiopia by the Septuagint, and the translators of the English version, and there are certainly three countries of the name of Cush mentioned in the Old Testament. Cush describes sometimes south-eastern Africa, or Abyssinia, sometimes northern Arabia, and perhaps the whole peninsula, and sometimes a country to the east of the Euphrates. Lieut. Wilford says, that in Hindu geography, Cusha Dwipa is Persia; and the scripture Cuthah may mean the whole, or a part of that country, and a portion also of Mesopotamia. There can be no doubt, however, that when Herodotus speaks of Ethiopia in the following passage, he limits the term to the south-east of Africa. After describing Arabia, he says, Ethiopia, which is the extremity of the habitable world, is contiguous to this country on the south |