Abraham gave up the ghost and died, is truly translated. In answer to this bold assertion, I say, that in the single word " vayigvang, which is rendered gave up the ghost,' there is no authority for a word of the four which are made out of this verb; it cannot be a verb, a noun, and an adverb.” “The word heremes is but one word, which certainly cannot make a participle active and a noun; viz. creeping thing. The word Wheremes is a noun, and is truly rendered, the reptile, and should be so rendered; Gen. i. 26, ch. vii. 14, xiii. 17, 19. 1 Kings iv. 33. Ezek. xxxviii. 20, &c. &c." "I have not followed the common version, like our critics: the word yichaou cannot be rendered [as] in the common version both save and alive, as this objector contends: if she were saved, common sense says she would be alive."3 It is evident that the English expressions to be with child, to give up the ghost, creeping thing, to save alive, convey the same meaning, or nearly so, as the words to conceive, to expire, reptile, to preserve," though the latter may be considered as more strictly literal. On the principle laid down by Mr. Bellamy it may be maintained that he went out is not an accurate translation of NY; or he stretched forth, of nu; or he rose up, of surrexit; because in all these instances a single verb is translated a pronoun, a verb, and an adverb. A translation may be considered exactly literal, if it corresponds word for word with the original: it may be considered accurate, if it conveys the sense of the original in corresponding words or equivalent expressions. 66 On examining the 134 passages in which Mr. W. has charged Mr. B. with violations of the Hebrew grammar, I find they may be arranged in 3 classes. 1st, those which Mr. B. acknowledges to be errata. 2nd, Those respecting which he has returned no answer. 3rd, Those respecting which he has endeavoured to vindicate his New Translation. Of the first class there are only 2. Gen. i. 17, and iii. 11. Of the second class there are no less than 55, considerably more than a third of the whole number. With regard to these passages Mr. W's objections to the New Version remain, I apprehend, unanswered. I will now request the attention of your readers to a few passages out of Mr. W's 134, concerning which Mr. B. has replied to the strictures of Mr. W. It would occupy too much room to quote Mr. Whittaker on Mr. Bellamy at full length. 1 will therefore abstract from them as much as appears necessary to Bellamy p. 68, 69. Bellamy p. 131. 3 Bellamy p. 182. the point at issue. Gen. i. 2. " (Part. præs. sing. fœm. Pihel) The New Translator's note says that this word does not belong to the Pihel, but to the hiphil form......" Whittaker. " No one can doubt, that when the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, God was the cause." Bellamy. Mr. B. does not and cannot deny that belongs to the conjugation Pihel, not Hiphil. Mr. W's. argument therefore remains in full force. Gen. iv. 4." (3d pers. sing. præt. Hiph.) And Abel,he also brought of the firstlings of his flock." King's Bible. " But Abel came even with firstlings of his sheep." "New Version. Mr. Bellamy's interpretation would have been correct, had the original been (3d pers. sing. pret. Kal.) See Grammar." W. "The verb is in Hiphil; but the authorised version plainly supposes by the words, And Abel he also, &c. that Cain brought of the firstlings of his flock as well as Abel. It is not possible to preserve the literal Hiphil in all cases, nor is it at all necessary, because understood; as in the verb vayishkon, and he placed, " vayashkinou, and set up, Josh. xviii. 1. Thus the translators have given the true sense in these two passages: the same is frequent throughout the authorised version." B. A faithful translator is bound to give a literal and grammatical translation, where the idiom of the two languages will admit of it, which is clearly the case in the present instance, in which there is not the slightest difficulty or obscurity. signifies to bring,' or 'to cause to come,' and the passage is clearly and correctly translated in the authorised version. Josh. xviii. 1. is rightly translated in the King's Bible, and set up. The verb is in Hiphil, and signifies to cause to abide,' 'to cause to stand,'' to cause to remain,' &c. 'Set' in English corresponds with the Hiphil conjugation in Hebrew. Its primary meaning is evidently to cause to sit;' as 'to lay,' is 'to cause to lie ;' to raise,'' to cause to rise,' &c. Mr. B. accuses Mr. W. of "utter defection in the grammar of the sacred language," because he has ventured to assert that Nin one passage is the 3d pers. sing. pret. Kal, and in another he participle Benoni sing. masc. If Mr. W. errs, he has the consolation of erring in good company. It is scarcely necessary * There are so many errors of the press in Mr. Bellamy's work, besides those noticed in the table of errata, that I have been obliged to correct them here and in some other places. &c." הוחל בָּא to remind the Hebrew scholar that the 3d sing. pret. Kal, and the part Benoni sing. masc. are the same in the verb No2. venit, &c. et venit; veniet: 8 veniens." Taylor's Heb. Conc. in verb. M. "Verbum et similia, hic," (i. e. in præterito conj. Kal)" sic flectuntur &c. Partic,” (i. e. Part. Benoni) "a Ni est 8 Buxtorf. Epit. Gram. Heb. Nota in verb. NY. Gen. iv. 26. (3d pers. sing. pret. Hophal, from ) Then began men to call upon the name of the LORD. King's Bible. Who began to profane in the name of Jehovah. New Version.--[The word] literally means, a beginning was made, captum est, as Montanus renders it; another meaning has been attached to it, viz. it was profane, then it was a profane thing to call upon the name of the LORD. The New Translator has apparently given it both these meanings, and omitted the word p altogether." W. "I have said that the word man [men] is not in the original Hebrew. I have preferred the marginal reading, which agrees with the Hebrew. No man knowing any thing of the original can doubt the sense in [of] the New Translation. But our critic thinks the New Translation is rather fanciful: such fanciers were the marginal translators, and the translator, of the Vulgate. But I have omitted the translation of NP likra, [likro] says this writer. This I deny the marginal reading says, profanely called upon,' which is a good reading. The true meaning is, to call on the name of the Lord in an irreverent or profane manner. Therefore, whether we say, called profanely, or began to profane, it amounts to the same; to call, in that sense, is to profane!" B. This exquisite reasoning of Mr. Bellamy requires very little comment. The verb certainly cannot have two significations at the same time. If it signifies ' cœptum est,' the sense in which the King's Bible takes it, it cannot at the same time signify profanum fuit.' Mr. B. is reduced to this alternative: either he has translated MN who began to profane; in which case he has given a new and unwarranted sense to both words, besides giving Hophal the sense of Hiphil, and has given no translation of p to call, or he has translated who began, and has given the new sense of to profane to 7p. In either case he has given a new sense 6 : I have sought iu vain for this marginal reading in two Bibles: in both I read, or to call themselves by the name of the Lord." to, for I challenge Mr. Bellamy to produce any competent authority for giving the sense of who' to this adverb. I have in vain searched Taylor's Hebrew Concordance and Noldius's Concordantiæ Particularum for any thing like this sense of the word. If Mr. Bellamy is allowed to give new senses to words and sentences, and to quote Mr. Bellamy's authority alone in support of these new senses, the controversy can never have an end; but if he is required to support his innovations, not by assertion, but by satisfactory proof, the question as to his competence will very soon be decided in the mind of every one who has any grammatical knowledge of the Hebrew language. Mr. Bellamy complains of the attacks which have been made on his New Version. Be it remembered that he threw the first stone, by accusing the learned and able translators of our authorised version, of ignorance and repeated blunders, and of the strange and unheard-of absurdity of giving an indecent translation to passages, which have no indecent meaning in the original He brew.' Falmouth, Oct. 1820. LATIN POEMS. AD POSTUMUM, 2 KIMCHI. Ut recuperata Salute Genio et Musis indulgeat, NON evasimus integri Qua non sævior altera Terris incubuit; tamen Exacta est, et adhuc, POSTUME, vivimus. Sulcant æquora navitæ, Nec salsa adsiliunt littoribus vada. "The indelicate sense in the following passages of the authorised version, 16 NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW, but for obvious reasons I have not specified them. Gen. xxxv. 22. xxxviii. 9. &c. &c." Bellamy's Critical Examination, p. 29. By M. Mathevon de Curnieu. Postumus is Le Chevalier de Parny, a French poet, whom the French call the rival of Tibullus.-EDIT. 1 Jam, spirante Favonio, Rident prata novis picta coloribus ; Et mulcent variis cantibus æthera; Lymphis et liquido murmure rivuli ;- Mox æstas aderit, quam modo frugifer Cessurus gelidis ipse Aquilonibus. Certam continuis mensibus orbitam Præscripsit Deus, et mitibus asperas Alternat vicibus vices; Errant perpetuis sidera cursibus; Orbes, ipsaque firmat diuturnitas Et, quas Sol peragrat, signiferas domos. Et morsu tacito nos minuit dies Inclusos spatio brevi, Currentesque viam non iterabilem. Ergo, POSTUME, dum licet, Vitæ (nam fugiunt) gaudia callido AD F. M.,' Poëtam Lusitanum, ex gravi morbo convalescentem, CARMEN. (Auctore Mathevon de Curnieu. 1804.) SIC est; neque humanæ immerito gemens Francesco Manoel, a Lyric poet of the first rank, who died at Paris in 1819, Feb. 25.-EDIT. |