GESENIUS, FRIENICH HEINRICH WiLuELlr, one of the greatest modern German Orientalists and biblical scholars, was b. at Nordhausen, in Prussian Saxony, Feb. 3, 1785, and educated_first at the gymnasium of his native town, afterwards at the univer sities of Helmstedt and u. After having been a. short time teacher in the peda gogium at Helmstedt, he became in 1806 a theological repetent in Gottingen; and in 1809, on the proposal of Johann you Mailer, was appointed professor of ancient litera ture in the gymnasium of Heiligenstadt. In 1810, however, he received a call to Halle as extraordinary professor of theology, and was made an ordinary professor in the following year. In 1810-12,` he published, in two volumes, a Hebrew and Chaldee Diction ary of the Old Testament, which underwent improvements in several subsequent editions, after he made a journey to Paris and Oxford in the summer of 1820, to make researches in the Semitic languages. In the two years following the publication of this dictionary, appeared his Ilebrdisches Elementarbuch (2 Bde., Halle, 1813-14), consisting of a Hebrew grammar and reading-book. This work, as it has been improved in the recent editions of Gesenius's distinguished pupil and literary executor, prof. ROdiger of Halle, and the lexicon already mentioned' are still the grammar and dictionary of the 01(1 Testament most in use, not only throughout Germany, but in Great Britain and in America. The best English translations of the dictionary founded on the Latin edition are those of Robin son (American), and of Tregelles ; the best of the grammar are those of Davies (London) and of Conant (New York). In 1815, another work was published by Gesenius on the history of the Hebrew. langtiage (Kriti,sche Gesch. d. Hebr. Sprache u. &imp, Leip.), and
a treatise, De Pentaleuchi Samaritani Origine, idole et auetoritate (Halle). Besides a trans lation of Isaiah with a commentary in 3 vols. (Leip. 1820-21), we are to Gesenius for a larger Hebrew grammar Grammatisch-Icritisches Lchrgebitude d. Sprach (2 I3de., Leip. 1817), as well as for a larger lexicographical work) lbesaurus philolooco-criticas Lingua Hebraicco et Chaldaiece Veteris Testuinenti), of which the first part was published in 1829, but which was completed only in 1858 by prof. ROdiger. Gesenius contributed also sonic papers on oriental antiquity to Ersch and Gruber's All gemeine Encyclopddie; and his notes to the German translation of Burckhardes• Travels in Syria and Palestine, throw light on many points connected with biblical geography. He died Oct. 23, 1842, and a memorial of him appeared in the following year (Creseniax, eine Erinnerung an seine Freunde, Berlin, 1843).—Many of the results of the rationaliz ing method of interpreting the Old Testament, which characterizes all the works of Gesenius, have been unable to stand the progress of biblical science, and he has certainly been surpassed by Ewald in insight into the genius of the Hebrew language, and jts bearing on the interpretation of Hebrew life and 'thought, as well as in all that qualifies the critic for a true historical, msthetical, and religious appreciation of the lkera.ture preserved to us in the Old Testament. Yet his intense devotion to his favorite studies, and the advance which he made beyond all his predecessors in the establishment of more certain principles of Hebrew philology, undoubtedly entitle him to be regarded as having constituted a new epoch in the scientific study of the Old Testament.