It is undeniable that,it is much easier to explain the discordant statements which are found, for instance, in the parallel numbers of the 2d chapter of Ezra and the 7th of Nehemiah, by having re course to either of these suppositions, than it is to conceive how such very dissimilar signs and sounds, as the entire names of the Hebrew numerals are, could be so repeatedly confounded as they appear to have been. This adequacy of the theory to account for the phenomena constitutes the internal argument for its admission. Gesenius has also, in his Geschichte der Hebriiischen Sprache, p. 173, adduced the following external grounds for its adoption: the fact that both letters and numeral notes are found in other languages of the Syro Arabian family, so that neither is altogether alien to their genius; letters, namely, in Syriac, Arabic, and later Hebrew; numeral figures on the Phoeni cian coins and Palmyrene inscriptions (those em ployed by the Arabs and transmitted through them to us are, it is well known, of Indian origin). And although particular instances are more easily ex plained on the one supposition than on the other, yet he considers that analogy, as well as the majority of examples, favours the belief that the numerals were expressed, in the ancient copies, by letters; that they were then liable to frequent con fusion; and that they were finally written out at length in words, as in our present text.
There is an easy transition from these abbrevia tions to those of the later Hebrew, or Rabbinical writers, which are nothing more than a very ex tended use and development of the same principles of stenography. Rabbinical abbreviations, as de fined by Danz, in his valuable Rabbinismus Enu cleatus, ?65, are either perfect, when the initial letters only of several words are written together, and a double mark is placed between such a group of letters, as in the common abbreviation of the Hebrew names of the books of Job, Proverbs, and Psalms (the last letters only of words are also written in Cabbalistical abbreviations); or imperfect, where more than one letter of a single word is written, and a single mark isplaced, at the end to denote the mutilation, as inv+ for The perfect abbreviations are called by the Rabbinical writers mn+ri i. e., capitals of words. When proper names, as frequently happens, are abbrevi ated in this manner, it is usual to form the mass of consonants into proper syllables by means of the vowel Patach, and to consider Tod and Vau as representatives of I and U. Thus ?ziinn, Ram bam, the abbreviation of Rabbi Mosheh ben Maimon,' and +eri, Rashi, that of ` Rabbi Shelo moh Jarchi,' are apposite illustrations of this method of contraction. Some acquaintance with the Rab binical abbreviations is necessary to understand the Masoretic notes in the margin of the ordinary editions of the Hebrew text; and a considerable familiarity with them is essential to those who wish, with ease and profit, to consult the Talmud and Jewish commentators. The elder Buxtorf wrote a
valuable treatise on these abbreviations, under the title De Abbreviaturis Hebraicis, which has often been reprinted; but, from the inexhaustible nature of the subject, O. G. Tychsen added two valuable supplements, in 1768, and Selig incorporated them with his own researches in his Compendia vacua Hebraico-Rabbinicarum, Lips. 1780, which is the completest work of the kind extant.
With regard to the abbreviations in the MSS.
of the New Testament, it may be observed that they have furnished little matter for critical in quiry. Those that exist are almost exclusively confined to common and easily supplied words, e. g., God, Lord, father, son, &c.; or to the termi nations of formation and inflexion, in which case they fall more properly under the province of general Greek Palmography. They very rarely furnish any hint of the mode in which a various reading has arisen, as has been suggested, for instance, in the case of and Kvpit.p in Romans xii. IL The use of letters for numerals, however, according to Eichhom's Einleit. ins N. T. iv. 199, is not only found in some MSS. now extant, but, in the instance of the number 666, in Rev.
xiii. 18, can be traced up to the time of the apostles; partly on the testimony of Irenmus, and partly because those MSS. which wrote the num ber out in words differ in the gender of the first word, some writing 4axorrtot, some 4aubo-zat, some gEaK6o-La. The early fathers have also unhesitatingly availed themselves of the theory that numbers were originally denoted by letters, whenever they wished to explain a difficulty in numbers. Thus Severus of Antioch (cited by Theophylact) accounts for the difference of the hour of our Lord's crucifixion, as stated in Mark xv. 25, and John xbc. 14, by the mistake of y (3) for s (6). Eichhorn has given a lithographed table of the most usual abbreviations in the MSS. of the New Testament.
Lastly, the abbreviations by which Origen, in his Hexapla,' cites the Septuagint and other Greek versions, deserves some notice. The nature of this work rendered a compendious mode of reference necessary; and, accordingly, numeral letters and initials are the chief expedients em ployed. A large list of them may be seen in Montfaucon's edition of the Hexaplaf and Eich horn (Einleit. ins A. T. i. 548-50) has given those which are most important.—J. N.
ABDON servile ; Sept. 'Afl&iv), the son of Hillel, of the tribe of Ephraim, and tenth judge of Israel. He succeeded Elon and judged Israel eight years. His administration appears to have been peaceful; for nothing is recorded of him but that he had forty sons and thirty nephews, who rode on young asses—a mark of their conse quence (Judg. xii. 13-15). Abdon died E.D. 1112. [B EDAN. ] There were three other persons of this name, which appears to have been rather common (r Chron. viii. 23; ix. 36; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 20).—J.K.