Note 30 — CONSIDERATIONS, &c.

Some striking illustrations of this position are to be found in the Appendix to Mr. Stanley’s recent volume on Sinai and Palestine. This Appendix consists of a vocabulary of topographical words in Hebrew and English. Great care has been taken in giving the precise English for the corresponding Hebrew term. Referring to the previous part of his work, he says, “I have often had occasion to refer to the richness and precision of the local vocabulary of the Hebrew language. In the authorized version this is unfortunately lost; not so much by the incorrect rendering of any particular word, as by the promiscuous use of the same English word for different Hebrew words, or of different English words for the same Hebrew word.” And again: “The geographical passages of the Bible seem to shine with new light as these words acquire their proper force. How keenly, for example, are we led to notice the early tendency to personify and treat as living creatures the great objects of nature, when we find that the ‘springs’ are the ‘eyes,’ the bright, glistening, life-giving eyes of the thirsty East; that the mountains have not merely summits and sides, but ‘heads,’ ‘shoulders,’ ‘ears,’ ‘ribs,’ ‘loins,’ &c.” This whole Appendix is deeply interesting to the Hebrew student. He must feel at the same time how much the mere English student of Scripture suffers in the absence of the same knowledge.