GENERATION. Considerable obscurity at tends the use of this word in the English Version, which arises from the translators having merged the various meanings of the same original word, and even of several different words, in one com mon term, 'generation.' The remark is too just that, in the literal translations of the Scriptures, the word generation ' generally occurs wherever the Latin has generatio, and the Greek Tufa, or -yeveacs (Rees's Ency., art. Generation '). The following instances seem to require the original words to be understood in some or other of their derivative senses-Gen. ii. 4, These are the ge nerations' ot-6r) ; Sept. ij pipXos .yev&Ecos ; Vulg. generationes), rather orig,in,' history,' etc. The same Greek words, Matt. i. r, are rendered genealogy,' etc., by recent translators Campbell has 'lineage.' Gen. v. 1, The book o'f the gene rations' (3-1-61n nno ; Sept. as befOre ; Vulg. liber generationis) is properly a fanzily register, a tory of Adam. The same words, Gen. xxxvii. 2, mean a history of Jacob and his descendants ; sc also Gen. vi. 9, x. r, and elsewhere. Gen. vii. 'In this generation (Mil 1111; Sept. EP raj yeve'ci. rdurv, Vulg. in generatione hen.) is evidently in this age.' Gen. xv. 16, In the fourth generation ' (111; Sept. -yeveci; Vulg. generatio) is an instance of the word in the sense of a certain assignea period. Ps. xlix. 19, The generation of his fathers' 0'1111N 111-111, Sept. rar4on; wird), Gesenius renders the dwelling of his fathers,' i.e., the grave, and adduces Is. xxxviii. 12. Ps. lxxiii. 15, The generation of thy child ren ' (T)1 111; Sept. yeped rcl)p vidip coil) is class,' order," description ; ' as in Prov. xxx. 12, 13, 14. Is. Mi. 8, Who shall declare his gene ration ?' (1111 ; Sept. rip -yepeizo ainor, ris ben-y25 crezat ; Vulg. generatth) Lowth renders manner of life,' in translation and note, but adduces no precedent. Some consider it equivalent to VIT, ver. : -yeved. (Sept.) answers to 3rvr, Esther ix. 2S. Josephus uses iroVvilv yEveciv, /-1;ztiq. i. to. 3 (Hengsteriberg, Christology of the Old Testanzent, vol. ii. p. 290, Edin. 1856 ; Pauli, Analect. He braic. p. 162, Oxford, 1839). Alichaelis renders it, Where was the providence that cared for his life ?' Gesenius and Rosemniiller, Who of his contemporaries reflected ?' Who can scribe his length of life ?' In the N. T., 1Ylatt.
17, yepeal is a series of persons, a succession from the same stock ; so used by Josephus (.4ntiy. i. 7. 2) ; Philo ( Vit. Afos., vol. i. p. 603) ; Alatt. iii. 7, -yevpiluara gxcovaiv, is well rendered by Dothlridge and others brood of vipers.' Matt. xxiv. 34, 3'7 y€1,€.6. ann; means the generation or persons then living contemporary with Christ (see Macknight's Harmony for an illustration of this sense). Luke xvi. 8, Els yepedy 70 &on-63v, in their tion,' etc., wiser in regard to their dealings with the nzen of their generation ; Rosenmiiller gives, inter se. In Pet. ii. 9, -yevos exXocrap, is a cho sen people,' quoted from Sept. Vers. of Is. xliii. 20. The ancient Greeks, and, if we may credit Hero dotus and Diodorus Siculus, the Egyptians also, assigned a certain perioa' to a generation. The Greeks reckoned three generations for every hun dred years, e., 33:i years to each. Herod. ii. 142, -yEpeal rpeis cipopWp bcarbi, &al earz, three genera tions of men make one hundred years.' This is nearly the present computation. To the same effect Clem. Alexandrinus speaks (Strom. i. 2); so also Phavorinus, who, citing the age of Nestor from Homer (Ili. 250), TCP On Soo yeveal, two generations,' says, it means that ini-Eken ret E0. Kovra erch 'he was above sixty years old.' The Greeks, however, assigned different periods to a .yeven. at different times (Perizonius, 01-4. /Egypt., p. 175, seq. ; Jensius, Fercul. Literar., p. 6). The ancient Hebrews also reckoned by the generation, and assigned different spaces of time to it at dif ferent periods of their history. In the time of Abraham it was one hundred years (comp. Gen. xv. 16, in the fourth generation they shall come hither'). This is explained in verse 13, and in Exod. xii. 4o, to be four hundred years. Caleb was fourth in descent from Judah, and Moses and Aaron were fowl/1 from Levi. In Dent. i. 35, ii.
14, Moses uses the term for thirty-eight years. In later times (Baruch vi., in the Epistle of Jere miah, ver. 2) ^yEveCt. clearly means ten years. In Matt. i. 17, yEvea means a single descent from father to son. Homer uses the word in the same sense (B. i. 250) ; also Herodotus (i. 3).— J. F. D.