The history of the Hebrevv language, as far as we can trace its course by the changes in the dic tion of the documents in which it is preserved, may be here conveniently divided into that of the period preceding, and that of the period succeed ing, the Exile. If it be a matter of surprise that the thousand years which intervened between Moses and the Captivity should not have produced sufficient change in the language to warrant its his tory during that time being distributed into subor dinate divisions, the following considemtions may excuse this arrangement. It is one of the signal characteristics of the Hebrew language, as seen in all the books prior to the Exile, that notwithstand ing the existence of some isolated, but important, archaisms, such as in the form of the pronoun, etc. (the best collection of which may be seen in Haver nick, /. c. p. 183, sq.), it preserves an unparalleled general uniformity of structure. The extent to which this uniformity prevails may be estimated either by the fact that it has furnished many mo dern scholars, who reason from the analogies dis covered in the changes in other languages in a given period, with an argument to shew that the Pentateuch could not have been written at so remote a date as is generally believed (Gesenius, Cesth. der Hebr. Sprathe, sec. 8) ; or, by the con elusion, a fortiori, which Havernick, whose ex press object it is to vindicate its received antiquity, candidly concedes, that the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah are the earliest in which the language differs sensibly from that in the historical portions of the Pentateuch' (Einleit. p. 180). We are here solely concerned with the fact that this uniformity of type exists. The general causes to which it is to be ascribed are to be sought in the genius of the language itself, as less susceptible of change ; in the stationary civilization of the Hebrews during the period ; and in their compara tive isolation, as regarded nations of foreign lan guage (see Ewald's Hebr. Gram. sec. 7). The particular causes depend on the age and author assigned to each book falling within this period, and involve questions utterly alien to the scope of this article.
In the canonical books belonging- to the first period, the Hebrew language appears in a state of mature development. Although it still preserves the charms of freshness and simplicity, yet it has attained great regularity of formation, and such a precision of syntactical arrangement as ensures both energy and distinctness. Some common notions of its laxity and indefiniteness have no other foundation than the very inadequate scholarship of the persons who form them. A clearer insight into the organism of lang-uage absolutely, joined to such a study of the cognate Syro-Arabian idioms as would reveal the secret, but no less certain, laws of its syntactical coherence, would shew them to what degree the simplicity of Hebrew is compatible with grammatical precision.
One of the most remarkable features in the lan guage of this period is the difference which distin guishes the diction of poetry from that of prose. This difference consists in the use of unusual words and flexions (many of which are considered to be Aramaisms or Archaisms, although in this case these terms are nearly identical), and in a harmonic arrangement of thoughts, as seen both in the parallelism of members in a single verse, and in the strophic order of longer portions ; the delicate art of which Ewald has traced with pre-eminent success in his Poetische Bikher des All. Bundes, vol. I. rHEBREW POETRY, 553.] The Babylonian captivity is assigned as the com mencement of that decline and corruption which mark the second period in the history of the He brew language ; but the Assynan deportation of the ten tribes, in the year B.C. 720, was probably the first means of bringing the Aramaic idiom into injurious proximity to it. The Exile, however, forms the epoch at which the language shews evi dent signs of that encroachment of the Aramaic on its integrity, which afterwards ended in its com plete extinction. The diction of the different hooks of this period discovers various grades of this Aramaic influence , and in some cases ap proaches so nearly to the type of the first period, that it has been ascribed to mere imitation.
An interesting question has been raised as to the precise time at which the Hebrew ceased to be the living vernacular language of the Jews. Some learned men, among whom are Kimchi, Buxtorf, and Walton, maintain that the J ews entirely lost the living use of Hebrew dunng the Captivity. Others, as Pfeiffer and Loscher, argue that it is quite unreasonable, considering the duration and other circumstances of the Exile, to suppose that the Jews did not retain the partial use of their native tongue fo; some time after their return to Palestine, and lose it by slow degrees at last. The points on which the question chiefly turns, are the sense in which the words tv-ven and TrIV, in Neh. viii. 8 ; xiii. 24, are to be taken ; and Hengstenberg, in his Authentic a'es Daniel, p.
299, sq., and Gesenius, in his Gerch. Hebr.
5rache, sec. 13, are the best modern advocates of either view. But, on whichever side the truth may be here, it is certain that the language con tinued to be understood and used in writing by the educated, for some time after the Exile, as is evi dent from the date of the latest Biblical books ; and it is found in the inscriptions on the coins of the Maccabees. No decisive evidence, however, shews at what exact time it became a virtually dead language ; although there is every reason to con clude that, more than a century before the Chris tian era, it gave place altogether in writing, as before in speech, to that con-upt Aramaic dialect, which some have called the Syro-Chaldaic, and that it was thenceforth solely studied, as the lan guage of the sacred books, by the learned.
The palmographical history of the Hebrew lan guage requires a brief notice, at least as far as regards the results of modern inquiries. The ear liest. monuments of Hebrew writing which we pos sess are the genuine coins of the Maccabees, which date from the year B.C. 143. The character in which their inscriptions are expressed bears a very near resemblance to the Samaritan alphabet, and both are evidently derived from the Phcenician alphabet. The Talmud also, and Origen and Jelome, both attest the fact that an ancient He brew character had fallen into disuse ; and, by stating that the Samaritans employed it, and by giving some descriptions of its form, they distinctly prove that the ancient character spoken of was essentially the same as that on the Hasmonxan coins. It is, therefore, considered to be established beyond a doubt that, before the Exile, the Hebrews used this ancient character (the Talmud even calls it the Hebrew'). At what period, however, the square Hebrew character of our printed books was first adopted, is a matter of some dispute. The Talmud, and Origen and Jerome, ascribe the change to Ezra ; and those who, like Gesenius. admit this tradition to be true in a limited sense, reconcile it with the late use of the ancient letters on the coins, by appealing to the parallel use of the Kufic character on the Mohammedan coins, for several centuries after the Nischi was employed for writing ; or, by supposing that the Maccabees had a mercantile interest in imitating the coinage of the Phcenicians. The other opinion is that, as the square Hebrew character has not, to all ap pearance, been developed directly- out of the ancient stiff Phcenician type, but out of an alphabet bear ing near affinity to that found in the Palmyrene inscriptions, a combination of this palxogiaphical fact with the intercourse which took place between the Jews and the Syrians under the Seleucidx, renders it probable that the square character was first adopted at some inconsiderable but undefin able time before the Christian era. Either of these theories is compatible with the supposition that the square character underwent many successive mo difications in the next centuries, before it attained its full caligraphical perfection. The passage in Matt. v. 18 is considered to prove that the copies of the law were already written in the square cha racter, as the joa' of the ancient alphabet is as large a letter as the aleph; and the Talmud and Jerome speak as if the Hebrew MSS. of the O. T. were, in their time, already provided with the final letters, the Taggin, the point on the brokcn horizontal stroke.of n, and other calligraphical The origin of the vowel-points is to be ascribed to the effort which the Jewish learned men made to preserve the pronunciation of their sacred lan guage, at a time when its extinction as a living tongue endangered the loss of the traditional memory of its sound. Every kind of evidence renders it probable that these signs for the pronun ciation were first introduced about the seventh century of the Christian era, that is, after the completion of the Talmud, and that the minute and complex system which we possess was gra dually developed, from a few indispensable signs, to its present elaborateness. The existence of the present complete system can, however, be traced back to the eleventh century. The skilful investi gation of Hupfeld (in the Studien unel Kritiken for 183o) has proved that the vowel-points were unknown to Jerome and the Talmud ; but, as far as regards the former, we are able to make a high estimate of the degree to which the traditionaiy pronunciation, prior to the use of the points, ac corded with our Masoretic signs : for Jerome describes a pronunciation which agrees wonderfully well with our vocalisation. We are thus called on to avail ourselves thankfully of the Masoretic punctuation, on the double ground that it represents the Jewish traditional pronunciation, and that the Hebrew language, unless when read according to its laws, does not enter into its full dialectual har mony with its Syro-Arabian sisters.—J. N.