LEUSDEN, joHN, was born at Utrecht 1624, and died in 1699. For nearly fifty years 1 sustained a very high reputation as professor Hebrew in the recently founded university of I native city. He had well qualified himself for tl duties of this office by careful study of theology at the Oriental languages at Utrecht, and afterwan of the sacred original of the O. T. under the tuiti( of a very learned Rabbi of Amsterdam. Fc writings have descended to us from the Biblic scholars of former days of more solid utility th: Leusden's. If they are defective in originality genius (the amount of which quality, however, it impossible rightly to determine in works like o author's), they undoubtedly afford evidence of th( author's varied resources of learnina, adorned 1 clearness of method and an easy style ; charactc istics which made Leusden one of the most r nowned and successful teachers of his age. E numerous works were all Biblical, and may I classed as (t) Critical, (2) Introductory, and ( Exegetical. Under the first head we have valuable Biblia Hebrew accuratissima notis L braids et lernmatibus illustrata: typis yosephi Athias., Amstel. 1617 [2d edit. 16671. This was the first critical edition by a Clnistian editor [` YEstimatissima primum numeratis versibus, pri maque a Christiano adhibitis MSS. facta.' Stein schneider, Catal. Boa.] In 1694_ he joined Eisen menger in publishing a IIebrew Bible without points. The Greek Scriptures also received his careful attention, as is proved by his editions ot the Greek Test. in 1675, 1688, 1693, 1698, 1701, and by his edition of the Septuagint, Amster. 1683. After his death, Schaaf completed a valuable edition of the Syriac New Test. (with Tremellius' version), which Leusden hacl begun. Under this first head we may also place his Hebrew Lexicon (1655) ; Elementary Ifebr. Gram., which was translated into English, French, and German (1665); his Compendia of the O. T. and the N. T. (comprising selections of the originals, with' translations and grammatical notes in Latin), frequently reprinted ; his Onomasticon Sacr. (1665, 1654), and his still useful Clovis Ifebr. Vet. Test. (containing the Masa retie notes, etc., besides much urammatical and philological information), first published in 1683, and his Clavis Gr,Tc. P. (1672). His contribu
tions to the second head of Introduction (Einleit ung) and sacred archmology were not less valuable than the works we have already commended. Of these we mention three (sometimes to be met with in one vol.) as very useful to the Biblical student: Philo logus con/livens QUIESE1077CS Hebr. qua' circa V. Test. Hebr. fere rnoveri solent (the best editions contain his edition and translation of Alaimonides' Precepts of Moses, p. 56) ; Philologus Hebrzro-nrix tus, una cum Spicikg. Philol. (containing treatises on several interesting points of Hebrew antiquities and Talmudical science) ; Philologus diebrav-Gra ens ;eneralis, in which questions relating to the sacred Greek of the Christian Scriptures, its He braisms, the Syriac and other translations, its in spired authors, etc. etc , are well and succinctly handled (with this work occurs Leusden's transla tion into Hebrew of all the Chaldee portions of the O. T.) Under the last, or Exegetical head, we have less to record. In 1656 (reprinted in 1692) Leusden published in a Latin translation, David Kimchi's Commentary on the prophet Jonah (Yonas illustratus), and in the following year a similar work (again after David Kimchi) on Joel and Obadiah (Yoe/ explicatus, adjunctus Obadjas* illus. tratzts). We must not conclude the list of the learned labours of this diligent scholar and worthy man without mentioning his editions (with the help of Villemandy and Morinus) of Bochart's Works, and the works of our own learned countrymen, Lightfoot (whose works he published in Latin, in 3 vols. folio, in the last year of his life) and Poole (whose Synopsis occurs in its very best form in Leusden's edition, 5 vols. folio, 1654). Justice, on the whole, has been done to this ornament of the church of Holland. Much information re specting his life and writings is contained in Bur mann (7'raject. erudit.), Fabiicius (Hirt. Biblioth. Fabric., i. 244), Walch (Biblioth. Theol. Selecta, vols. iv.), Iliographie universelle anc. et mod. (1819), xxiv. 357, Kalisch (Ilebr. Gra/11. , part ii. [Historical Introd.1, p. 37), and in Arnold (Herzog., viii. 345, 346)•—P. H.