Preface
The need of a new Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament has been so long felt that no
elaborate explanation of the appearance of the present work seems called for. Wilhelm Gesenius, the
father of modern Hebrew Lexicography, died in 1842. His Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum
in V.T. Libros, representing a much riper stage of his lexicongraphical work than his earlier
Hebrew dictionaries, was published in 1833, and the corresponding issue of his Hebräisches und
Chaldäisches Handwörterbűch űber das Alte Testament, upon which the later German
editions more or less directly depend, appeared in 1834. The Thesaurus philologicus Criticus Linguae
Hebracae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testmenti, begun by Gesenius some years earlier, and not completed
at his death, was substantially finished by Roediger in 1853, although the concluding part, containing
Indices, Additions, and Corrections, was not published until1858. The results of Gesenius's most advanced
work were promptly put before English-speaking students. In 1824 appeared Gibb's translation of the Neues
Hebräischdeutsches Handwörterbuch, issued by Gesenius in 1815, and in 1836 Edward
Robinson published his translation of the Latin work of 1833. This broad-minded, sound, and faithful
scholar added to the successive editions of the book in its English form the newest materials and
conclusions in the field of Hebrew word-study, receiving large and valuable contributions in manuscript
from Gesenius himself, and, after the latter's death, carefully incorporating into his translation the
substance of the Thesaurus, as its fasciculi appeared.
But the last revision of Robinson's Gesenius was made in 1854, and Robinson died in 1863.
The last English edition of Gesenius, prepared by Tregelles, and likewise including additions from the
Thesaurus, dates as far back as 1859. In the meantime Semitic studies have been pursued on all
hands with energy and success. The language and text of the Old Testament have been subjected to a
minute and searching inquiry before unknown. The languages cognate with Hebrew have claimed the attention
of specialists in nearly all civilized countries. Wide fields of research have been opened, the very
existence of which was a surprise, and have invited explorers. Arabic, ancient and modern, Ethiopic,
with its allied dialects, Aramaic, in its various literatures and localities, have all yielded new
treasures; while the discovery and decipherment of inscriptions from Babylonia and Assyria, Phoenicia,
Northern Africa, Southern Arabia, and other old abodes of Semitic peoples, have contributed to a far
more comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the Hebrew vocabulary in its sources and its usage than
was possible forty or fifty years ago. In Germany an attempt has been made to keep pace with advancing
knowledge by frequent editions of the Handwörterbuch, as well as by the brilliant and suggestive,
though unequal, Wörterbuch of Siegfried and Stade (in 1892-3), but in England
and America, there has not been heretofore even so much as a serious attempt.
The present Editors consider themselves fortunate in thus having the opportunity afforded
by an evident demand. Arrangements have been made whereby the rights connected with 'Robinson's Gesenius'
are carried over to the present work, and exclusive authority to sue the most recent German editions has
been secured. They have felt, however, that the task which they had undertaken could not be rightly
discharged by merely adding new knowledge to the old, or by substituting more recent opinions for others
grown obsolete, or by any other form of superficial revision. At an early stage of the work they reached
the conviction that their first and perhaps chief duty was to make a fresh and, as far as possible,
exhaustive study of the Old Testament materials, determine the actual uses of words by detailed examination
of every passage, comparing, at the same time, their employment in the related languages, and thus fix
their proper meaning in Hebrew.
In the matter of etymologies they have endeavoured to carry out the method of sound philology,
making it their aim to exclude arbitrary and fanciful conjectures, and in cases of uncertainty to afford
the student the means of judging of the materials on which a decision depends. They cold not have been
satisfied to pursue the course chosen by Professors Siegfried and Stade in excluding the etymological
feature almost entirely from their lexicon. This method deprives the student of all knowledge as to the
extra-Biblical history and relationship of his words and of the stimulus to study the cognate languages,
and lessens his opportunity of growing familiar with the modes of word-formation. It greatly simplifies,
of course, the task of the lexicographer. The Editors acknowledge, at once, that their labours would have
ended much sooner if they had not included the etymology of words, and they are sensible of the exposure
to criticism at a thousand points which results from their undertaking to do so. They have cheerfully
assumed this burden, and are ready to accept this criticism, from which they hope to learn much. Here,
if anywhere, it is certain that results must, in many cases, long remain provisional. They have preferred
to make what contribution they could to the final settlement of these difficult questions. For like reasons
they have been unwilling to follow Buhl in excluding the explanation of the meaning of proper names,
hazardous as such explanations often are.
That the Editors have made use of the Thesaurus of Gesenius on every page, with
increasing admiration for the tireless diligence, philological insight, and strong good sense of this great
Lexicographer, and recognition of Robinson's wisdom in allowing him to speak directly to English students
by the admirable translation and editorship of the Lexicon Manuale, need not be emphasized. They
have also made free reference to Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar, in the successive editions prepared by Professor
Kautzsch, follower of Gesenius at Halle, and, since 1898, to the excellent English translation of this
book made by Messrs. Collins and Cowley, which appeared in that year. The grammars of Ewald, Olshausen,
Böttcher, Stade, August Mxller, and König, the Syntax of A. B. Davidson, and other grammatical
works have been cited as occasion required.Nöldeke's contributions to Hebrew Lexicography and Grammar have
been constantly used, with the works of Lagarde and Barth of the formation of nouns, of Gerber on denominative
verbs, and many which cannot be catalogued here. All the critical commentaries, and a great number and
variety of textual, topographical, and geographical works, with monographs and articles bearing on
every possible aspect of Old Testament language, have been examined.
The published materials for the study of the languages cognate with Hebrew have reached
such proportions as to tax even the most industrious in any extended comparison of kindred words. For
the Arabic, constant use has been made of dictionaries of Lane, Freytag, Dozy, Wahrmund, the beirût
fathers and others besides. The Editors have found themselves sharing with peculiar keenness in the
unavailing regret of scholars that Mr. Lane's magnificent plan of complete Arabic lexicography was
not destined to be realized. Fränkel's Äramäische Fremdwörter im Arabishen has been constantly
used. For the vast and increasing storehouse of Assyrian-as yet most imperfectly explored-the dictionaries
of Delitzsch, and, as far as the times of its appearance allowed, Muss-Arnolt have been employed, as
well as Meissner's Supplement, and many special vocabularies. Paul Haupt, Bezold, Guyard,
Strassmaier, Zimmern, Jensen, Winckler, Scheil, Sayce, King, Johns, R. F. Harper, and many writers
in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, the Beiträge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft,
and other publications, have been laid under contribution. A place of honour must here be given to
Eberhard Schrader, the founder of Assyriology in Germany whose fruitful work has been prematurely cut
short by impaired health, and the Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek begun by him is mentioned here
many times. Winckler is of course recognized as the chief editor of the inscriptions from Tel il-Amarna.
For Syriac, the Thesaurus of R. Payne Smith and the Lexicon of Brockelmann have been
always at hand, with Castell accessible in case of need. Constant reference has been made to
Nöldeke's Syrische Grammatik (now, fortunately, translated), as well as his older works, the
Neu-Syrische Grammatik, and the priceless Mandäische Grammatik. Duval and Nestle also
have been laid under contribution. The Aramaic of the Targums and other Jewish-Aramaic documents, as
well as the post-Biblical Hebrew have been examined in the dictionaries of Buxtorf, J. Levy, Jastrow,
and Dalman, the collections of Bacher, the grammars of Strack, Marti, and Dalman, the editions of
Lagarde, Berliner, and Merx, as well as the older publications. The Christian Aramaic of Palestine
has been studied in the treatment of Schwally and Schulthess. In the Aramaic Appendix frequent references
have been made not only to the grammars of Kautzsch and Dalman, but also to Krauss's Griechische u.
Lateinische Lehnwörter im Talmud, and especially to the independent and valuable pamphlets of
Scheftelowitz; Arisches im Alten Testment I and II. The Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus has been
used in the primary editions of Schechter, of Neubauer and Cowley, of Schechter and Taylor, of E. N.
Adler, G. Margoliouth, I. Lévi and Gaster, as well as in the more compact editions of Strack and
Lévi, and the admirable facsimile issued by the Clarendon Press. Dillman has been the main
authority for Ethiopic, with resort, from time to time, to Prätorius and Charles. North-Semitic
inscriptions have yielded their material through the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, the
Répertoire d'Épigraphie Sémitique, the collections of de Vogüé, Euting, and others, and especially
in recent years by the aid of the Handbooks of Lidzbarski and G. A. Cooke, and the Glossary of S. A.
Cook. The important Aramaic texts from Egypt, of the fifth century BC which have been just published
by Cowley and Sayce, have also been utilized for the Aramaic Lexicon. The lexical matter of Southern
Arabia has been gathered from the Corpus, from the inscriptions published by Osiander, M. Levy,
Halévy, Mordtmann, D. H. Müller (including the discoveries of Langer), Glaser, and others. Egyptian
parallels have been adduced mainly form Wiedemann, Bondi, Erman, Steindorff and Spiegelberg, with
occasional reference to Lepsius, Brugsch and Ebers. In all these departments, where active work is going
on, fugitive materials have of course been found in many places, often scattered and sometimes remote.
It has been the purpose to recognize good textual emendations, but not to swell the list
by conjectures which appeared to lack a sound basis. There is still much to do in textual criticism, and
much which has been done since the printing of this Lexicon began would receive recognition if extensive
revision were now possible. Among the critical discussion of the Hebrew texts which have been frequently
used are those of Geiger, Graetz, Wellhausen (Samuel, Minor Prophets), Perles, Oort, Cornill
(Ezekiel, Jeremiah), Beer (Job), Driver (Samuel), Burney (Kings), the several
Parts of the Polychrome Bible, the Notes by translators in Kautzsch's Altes Testament, as well as
those found in the Commentaries (especially the two recently completed series published under the editorship
of Nowack and Marti, respectively, and the Old Testament volumes of the International Critical Commentary,
edited by Professors Briggs and Driver), and in many periodicals.
As to the arrangement of the work, the Editors decided at an early stage of their preparations
to follow the Thesaurus, and the principal dictionaries of other Semitic languages, in classifying
words according to their stems, and not to adopt the purely alphabetical order which has been common in
Hebrew dictionaries. The relation of Semitic derivatives to the stems is such as to make this method of
grouping them an obvious demand from the scientific point of view. It is true that practical objections
to it may be offered, but these do not appear convincing. One is that it compels the Editor to seem to
decide, by placing each word under a given stem, some questions of etymology which in his own mind are
still open. The number of such cases, however, is comparatively small, and the uncertainty can always
be expressed by a word of caution. And even if the objection were much more important it would be better
to assume the burden of it, in order to give students of Hebrew, from the outset, the immense advantage
of familiarity with the structure and formative laws of the Hebrew vocabulary in their daily work. Another
objection incidental to this arrangement is thought to be the increased difficulty of reference. This
difficulty will diminish rapidly as students advance in knowledge, and by the practice of setting words
formed by prefix or affix-or otherwise hard for the beginner to trace-a second time in their alphabetical
place, with cross-references, it is hoped to do away with the difficulty almost entirely.
The Aramaic of the Bible has been separated from the Hebrew, and placed by itself at the
end of the book, as a separate and subordinate element of the language of the Old Testament. This is a
change from that older practice which, since it was adopted here, has been made also by Siegfried and Stade,
and by Buhl, and which the Editors believe will commend itself on grounds of evident propriety.
The question of adding an English-Hebrew Index has been carefully considered. With reluctance
it has been decided, for practical reasons, not to do so. The original limits proposed for the Lexicon
have already been far exceeded, and the additional time, space, and cost which an Index would require
have presented a barrier which the Editors could not see their way to remove.
The work has consumed a much longer time than was anticipated at the outset. Twenty-three
years have passed since it was undertaken, and nearly fifteen since the issue of the First Part, in
June, 1891. Several causes have prevented an earlier completion of it. Not only have the Editors been
engaged in the active duties of their professorships, to which they were obliged to subordinate even
so important a work as this, but they have more than once encountered serious interruptions from
unforeseen circumstances of a personal nature. But, above all, the task itself has proved a greater
one than they supposed it to be. The field has been large, the questions have been many, and often
difficult, the consideration of usage, involved, as it is, with that of textual changes and of fresh
proposals in exegesis, has required an enormous amount of time; the study of etymologies is involved
with masses of new material, rapidly increasing and as yet imperfectly published and digested; the critical
discussion of the many related topics is of great extent and scattered through many books and periodicals.
Even tentative conclusions can be reached often only through a careful weighing of facts yielded by prolong
investigation. And so the process has gone on year after year. The Editors are quite aware that the patience
of purchasers has been put to a severe test. They would be glad to think that they may find in the result
a partial compensation.
They know, indeed that this result is far from perfect. Their most earnest care has not
been able to exclude errors; the First Part, in particular, was printed under unfavourable
conditions, and the years since the earlier Parts were issued have brought new knowledge at many points.
It was not possible, nor would it have been just to owners of these Parts, to make considerable changes
in the plates. Such changes have been limited, almost wholly, to obvious misprints, and occasional errors
in citation. A selected, and restricted, list of some of the more important Addenda et Corrigenda
is appended to the volume. The Editors venture to hope that in the future they may be able to utilize the
additional material which is now in their hands.
A list of abbreviations was issued with Part I. This has been now revised and enlarged,
and it is hoped that by its aid the abbreviations made necessary by the fullness of reference, on the
one hand, and the requirements of space, on the other, will be quite intelligible.
Thanks are due to many scholars who have shown an interest in the work, and have contributed
to its value by their suggestions. Prominent among these are Professor Hermann L. Strack, D.D., of Berlin;
Professor George F. Moore, D.D., of Harvard University; and, for the Biblical Aramaic, Stanley A.
Cook, Esq., of Cambridge, who has kindly read the proofs of the Aramaic Appendix, and made various
additions and improvements. Dr. Eberhard Nestle, of Maulbronn, Professors Theodore Nöldeke, of Strassburg,
Henry Preserved Smith, D.D., of Amherst, Mass., Thomas Kelly Cheyne, D.D., of Oxford, Richard J. H.
Gottheil, Ph.D., of Columbia University, New York, A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D., and William Emery Barnes,
D.D., of Cambridge, T. W. Davies of the University College of North Wales, and Max Margolis, of the
University of California, as well as Mr. H. W. Sheppard, of Bromley, Kent, and others, have laid the
Editors under obligation by sending important comments, or lists of corrections. Any further communications
which may advance the cause of Hebrew scholarship, and promote a more thorough comprehension of the Old
Testament Scriptures by supplying material for a possible future edition of the Lexicon, will be cordially
welcomed.
It is impossible to bring this Preface to a close without especial reference to the
relations between the Editors and their Publishers, in America and in England. The new Hebrew Lexicon
owes its origins to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, of Boston, Mass., holders of the copyright
of 'Robinson's Gesenius,' and long its publishers. The present editors were authorized by them to
undertake the work as a revision of that book. The late Mr. Henry O. Houghton, senior member of the
firm, gave the project his especial attention, devoting much time to personal conference with the
American editors, and making a visit to Oxford for a discussion of the matter with Professor Driver,
and with the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, whose co-operation he secured. It is a matter of deep
regret that his life was not spared to see the completion of an enterprise in which he took so sympathetic
an interest. We desire to record our appreciation of that interest, and of the considerable patience
with which he-and the other members of this publishing house both before and since his death-have met
the delays in finishing the work.
We are under similar obligations to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press. Since assuming
a share in this enterprise they have shown unfailing regard for it as a serious contribution to Hebrew
learning. The Editors have many courtesies to acknowledge from successive Secretaries of the Claredon
Press, the Master of Pembroke, Professor Bartholomew Price, D.D., P. Lyttleton Gell, Esq., and C. Cannan, Esq.
We desire to express our thanks to the printers, to whose painstaking care in the
composition-made complicated and difficult by the great variety of type, including half a dozen
founts of foreign characters-in the correcting and in the press-work, the excellent appearance of the
page is due; to Horace Hart, M.A., under whose direction they have worked; and not the least to J. C.
Pembrey, M.A., chief Oriental proof-reader, whose sharp eye little escapes, and whose personal enthusiasm
is always concentrated upon the book in hand.
The merits of the work-if it have them-are dependent to a large degree on the hearty
cooperation of all these, whose service we gratefully acknowledge.
In thus sending out into the world a book to which have gone many years of life and
much persistent effort, our most earnest wish is that it shall be of real use to students, as a key
with which they may unlock for themselves the rich treasure-house of the Old Testament.
THE EDITORS
March 1906