The form 'ibrι is, in the language of Semitic grammarians, a relative noun, presupposing the word 'Eber as the name of the tribe, place, or common ancestor, from whom the Hebrews are designated. Accordingly we find Eber as a nation side by side with Assyria in the obscure poetical passage Num. xxiv. 24, and Eber as ancestor of the Hebrews in the genealogical lists of Gen. x., xi. Here we must apparently distinguish two records. According to Gen. xi. (and Gen. x. 24) Eber is the great-grandson of Shein through Arphaxad, and ancestor of Terah through Peleg, Reu, Serug, and Nahor. These are not to be taken a3 the names of individual men. Several of them are designations of places or districts near the upper waters of the Euphrates and Tigris, and among other circumstances the place at the head of the series assigned to the district of Arrapachitis (Arphaxad), through which a migration from Ararat to the lands occupied by the Semites in historical times would first pass, suggests the probability that the genealogy is not even meant to exhibit a table of ethnological affinities, but rather presents a geographical sketch of the early movements of the Hebrews, who are personified under the name of Eber. If this is so we can hardly venture to assert (with some scholars) that the author of the list (the Levitical Elohist) extended the name of Hebrews to all descendants of Terah. The case is different with another and apparently older record of which a fragment seems to be preserved in Gen. x. 21, 25-30. Here there is no intermediate link between Shem and Eber. Sons of Shem and sons of Eber appear to be coextensive ideas, and to the latter are reckoned not only the descendants of Peleg (Aramaeans, Israelites, Ishmaelite Arabs, <fcc.), but the South Arabian tribes of Joktan. We possess no information which casts light on this wide conception of the sons of Eber, and in the ordinary language of the Old Testament Hebrew and Israelite are strictly synonymous.

Compare, however, the interesting conjectures of Sprenger, Alte Geographie Arabiens (Bera, 1875), p. 294, who identifies Peleg with Falag in Central Arabia, and finds in the record a witness to the truth of the view that Arabia is the original centre of the Semitic dispersion, a view which is shared by other scholars, as Hitzig {Geschichte Israels, pp. 26, S9), and Schrader (Z. D. Μ. G., 1873, pp. 397-424). In this connexion it is perhaps worth while to note the Arabic Gentile name Obri, belonging to Obra, a minor division of the Joktanic tribe of the Azd {Lubb-il-l·ubdb, ed. Veth, p. 175).

When it is recognized that Eber in Genesis is not an actual personage but an ethnological or geographical abstraction, we are thrown back on etymological conjecture as to the origin of the name of Hebrews. 'Eber means the further bauk of a river, from a root meaning to cross. Hence in Gen. xiv. 13 the Septuagint renders Abram the Hebrew by ό τrepciπ∕ς, “the crosser.” Grammatically more accurate, while resting on the same etymology, is the rendering of Aquila, o πeρaιτη<s, “the man from the other side” of the Euphrates, which is the explanation of Jewish tradition {Brβshit Rabba, and Rashi) and still generally adopted. It is, however, far from satisfactory, and almost of necessity depends on the theory that the name was fixed upon the Hebrew immigrants by the earlier inhabitants of Canaan. A modified form of the etymology takes 'eber in the Arabic sense of a riverbank, and makes the Hebrews “dwellers in a land of rivers” (Steiner in the Bibel-Lex., ii. 613). This goes well with Peleg (watercourse), as in Arabia we have the district Falag, so named because it is furrowed by waters (Sprenger, Ceog. Arab., p. 234). The name “Hebrew Languages— By the Hebrew language we understand the ancient tongue of the Hebrews in Canaan —the language in which the Old Testament is composed, with the exception of the Aramaic passages (Jer. x. 11; Ezra iv. 8-vi. 18; vii. 12-26; Dan. ii. 4-vii. 28). But we do not find that this language was called Hebrew by those who spoke it. It is the lip, i.e., speech of Canaan, Isa. xix. 18, or, as spoken in Southern Palestine, ΓP∏*)∏* Jewish (2 Kings xviii. 26; Neh. xiii. 24). The later Jews call it the holy tongue in contrast to the profane Aramaic dialect (commonly though improperly enough called Syro-Chaldaic) which long before the time of Christ had superseded the old language as the vernacular of the Jews. This change had already taken place at the time when the expression “in Hebrew” (Ιβράίστί.) first occurs (Prologue to Sirach); and both in the Apocrypha and in the New Testament the ambiguous term, naming the language after those who used it, often denotes the contemporary vernacular, not the obsolete idiom of the Old Testament. But the other sense was admissible (e.g., Rev. ix. 11, and so frequently in Josephus), and naturally became the prevalent one among Christian writers who had little occasion to speak of anything but the Old Testament Hebrew. In modern usage it is incorrect to call the Jewish Aramaic Hebrew; though uneducated Jews apply the name even to the corrupt German and Spanish jargons which they are accustomed to write and print in Hebrew characters.

Character and Philological Relations of Hebrew.— Hebrew is a language of the group which since Eichhorn has generally been known as Semitic, and of which Arabic and Ethiopie (Southern Semitic), the various dialects of Aramaic, and the language of the Assyrian and Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions are the other chief representatives. From its geographical position as the language of Palestine between the Aramaeans of the north and the Arabs of the south, Hebrew has been called AIiddle Semitic. Or Aramaic Assyrian and Hebrew may be grouped together as Northern Semitic in contrast to Arabic and Ethiopie. The affinities of the Semitic languages are so close that they may fairly be compared with a sub-group of the Indo-Germanic family—for example, with the Teutonic languages. The fundamental unity of the Semitic vocabulary is easily observed from the absence of compounds (except in proper names) and from the fact that almost all words are derived from their roots in definite patterns (measures') as regular as those of grammatical inflexion. The roots regularly consist of three consonants (seldom four or five), the accompanying vowels having no radical value, but shifting according to grammatical rules to express various embodiments of the root idea. The triliteral roots are substantially common to the whole Semitic group, subject to certain consonantal permutations, of which the most important are strikingly analogous to those laid down by Grimm for the Teutonic languages.

There are four sounds in Arabic unknown to Hebrew and Aramaic, and for which the former regularly has a sibilant, the latter a lingual—in one case a deep guttural. This guttural (JJ), and the palatal letters which in the following table are represented by d, s, t, z, are peculiar Semitic sounds. [table]

On the last equation see Lagarde, Semiticα, i. 22; Noldeke in Z. D. Μ. G., xxxii., 405; and on the permutation of consonants in general, Merx, Gram. Syr., § 24; Stade in Mοrgeηl. Forschungen (1875), p. 179 se<p Whether the Arabic or Aramaic forms are the older is disputed. No one maintains that the Hebrew forms are original.

Derivation from the roots and inflexion proceed partly by the reduplication of root letters and the addition of certain preformatives and afformatives (more rarely by the insertion of formative consonants in the body of the root), partly by modifications of the vowels with which the radicals are pronounced. Almost every root expresses in its origin something that can be grasped by the senses, and the mechanism by which words are formed from the root is adapted to present sensible notions in a variety of nuances and in all possible embodiments and connexions, so that there are regular forms to express in a single word the intensity, the repetition, the production of the root idea—the place, the instrument, the time of its occurrence, and so forth. Thus the expression of intellectual ideas is necessarily metaphorical, almost every word being capable of a material sense or at least conveying the distinct suggestion of some sensible notion. For example, the names of passione depict their physiological expression; “to confer honour” means also “to make heavy,” and so on. The same concrete character, the same inadequacy to convey purely abstract thoughts without a substratum appealing to the senses, appears in the grammatical structure of the Semitic tongues,—for example, in the absence of the neuter gender, in the extreme paucity of particles, in the scanty provision for the subordination of propositions, which deprives the Semitic style of all involved periods and reduces it to a succession of short sentences linked by the simple copula and. The fundamental element of these languages is the noun, and in the fundamental type of sentence the predicate is a noun set down without any copula and therefore without distinction of past, present, or future time. The finite verb is developed from nominal forms (participial or infinitive), and is equally without distinction of time. Instead of tenses we find two forms, the perfect and the imperfect, which are used according as the speaker contemplates the verbal action as a thing complete or as conditional, imperfect, or in process. It lies in the nature of this distinction that the imperfect alone has moods. In their later stages the languages seek to supply the lack of tenses by circumlocutions with a substantive verb and participles. Other notable features common to the Semitic tongues are the use of appended suffixes to denote the possessive pronouns with a substantive, or the accusative of a personal pronoun with a verb, and the expression of the genitive relation by what is called construction or annexation, the governing noun being placed immediately before the genitive, and if possible slightly shortened in pronunciation so that the two words may run together as one idea. A characteristic of the later stages of the languages is the resolution of this relation into a prepositional clause.

Theβe and other peculiarities are sufficient to establish the original unity of the group, and entitle us to postulate an original language from which all the Semitic dialects have sprung. Of the relation of this language to other linguistic stems, especially to the Indo-Germanic on the east and the North-African languages on the west, we cannot yet speak with certainty; but it appears that the present system of triliteral roots has grown out of an earlier biliteral system which, so far as it can be reconstructed, must form the basis of scientific inquiry into the ultimate affinities of the Semitic group.

Before the rise of comparative philology it was a familiar opinion that Hebrew is the original speech of mankind. Taken from the Jews, and as already expressed in the Palestinian Targum on Gen. xi. 1, this opinion drew its main support from etymologies and other data in the earlier chapters of Genesis, which, however, were as plausibly turned by Syriac writers in favour of their own tongue. Till quite recently many excellent scholars (including Ewald) have claimed for Hebrew the greatest relative antiquity among Semitic tongues. But though Hebrew has by far the oldest literature, this does not prove that its structure comes nearest to the original Semitic language. And it is now generally recognized that in grammatical structure the Arabic, shut up within its native deserts till the epoch of Islam, preserved much more of the original Semitic forms than either Hebrew or Aramaic. In its richer vocalization, in the possession of distinct case-endings, in the use for feminine nouns of the affbrmative t, which in the northern dialect has passed through h (originally audible as in Egyptian Arabic) into a mere vowel, in the more extensive range of passive and modal forms, and in other refinements of inflexion, Arabic represents no later development, but the original wealth and primitive subtlety of Semitic speech, as appears not only from fragmentary survivals in the other dialects but from an examination of the process of decay which has brought the spoken Arabic of the present day into a grammatical condition closely parallel to the Old Testament Hebrew. But while Arabic is in many respects the elder brother, it is not the parent of Hebrew or Aramaic. Each member of the group had an independent development from a stage prior to any existing language, though it would seem that Hebrew did not branch off’ from Aramaic so soon as from Arabic, while in its later stages it came under direct Aramaic influence.

Among the points in which Hebrew differs both from Arabic and Aramaic may be mentioned the consonantal relations already spoken of, the system of tone long vowels, the use of Waw consecutive, the ∏ of the causative and reflexive stems and of the article, and the compensation for omitting the reduplication of gutturals and r by lengthening a preceding vowel. Again, Hebrew agrees with Arabic against Aramaic in possessing a prefixed article, in the use of the Nifal (Arab. vπ. ), and in other minor points. But in more notable features Hebrew and Aramaic agree against Arabic, as in the absence of broken plurals, the place of the accent, the aspiration of certain letters whenever they are preceded by a vowel sound, and the substitution of y for w as the first radical of roots. To give further details would carry us too far into comparative grammar. Speaking generally, it may be said that Hebreλv is less copious in vocabulary than Arabic (in which tongue, however, the abundance of synonyms is largely due to an artificial combination of several dialects), and less rich in subtle distinctions of grammatical form and refinements of syntax. On the other hand, Hebrew is much superior to Aramaic in flexibility of structure, in fulness of vowels, and in all the qualities which adapt a language for poetical expression.

Geographical Sphere and History of Hebrew as a Spoken Language.— The Hebrew spoken by the Israelites in Canaan was separated only by very minor differences (like those of our provincial dialects) from the speech of neighbouring tribes. We know this for the Moabite language from the stone of Mesha; and the indications furnished by proper names, as well as the acknowledged affinity of Israel with these tribes, make the same thing probable for Ammon and Edom. More remarkable is the fact that the Phoenicians and Canaanites, with whom the Israelites acknowledged no brotherhood, spoke a language which, at least as written, differs but little from Biblical Hebrew. This observation has been used in support of the very old idea that the Hebrews originally spoke Aramaic, and changed their language in Canaan. But an exacter study of the Phoenician inscriptions shows differences from Hebrew which suffice to constitute a distinct dialect, and combine with other indications to favour the view that the descendants of Abraham brought their Hebrew idiom with them from Haran. And in this connexion it is important to observe that the old Assyrian, which preceded Aramaic in regions with which the book of Genesis connects the origins of Abraham, is in many respects closely akin to Hebrew. As the origin of Hebrew is lost in the obscurity that hangs over the early movements of the Semitic tribes, so we know very little of the changes which the language underwent in Canaan. The existence of local differences of speech is proved by Judges xii. 6; but the attempt to make out in the Old Testament records a northern and a Judaean dialect, or even besides' these a third dialect for the Simeonites of the extreme south, has led to no certain results. In general it may be said that the Biblical text supplies inadequate data for studying the history of the language. Semitic writing, especially a purely consonantal text such as the Old Testament originally was, gives an imperfect picture of the very grammatical and phonetic details most likely to vary dialectically or in course of time. The later punctuation (including the notation of vowels), and even many things in the present consonantal text, represent the formal pronunciation of the Synagogue as it took shape after Hebrew became a dead language—for even the Septuagint has often a more primitive pronunciation of proper names. This modern system being applied to all parts of the Old Testament alike, many archaisms were obliterated or disguised, and the earlier and later writings present in the received text a grammatical uniformity which is certainly not original. It is true that occasional consonantal forms inconsistent with the accompanying vowels have survived—especially in the books least read by the Jews—and appear in the light of comparative grammar as indications of more primitive forms. These sporadic survivals show that the correction of obsolete forms was not carried through with perfect consistency; but we are never safe to argue as if we possessed the original form of the texts.

In the Pentateuch, for example, the form Kl∏ stands not only for ΝΙΠ (3d personal prom masc.) but for K'Π (the feminine). And hence a favourite argument was drawn for the superior antiquity of this part of the Old Testament. But the same thing is found elsewhere (Frensdorff, Mass. JVörterb., p. 233), especially in Babylonian codices of the prophets (Geiger, Urschrift, p. 236; Z. D. Μ. G., xxviii. 676). The feminine can never by any possibility have been pronounced hu, but the old orthography was probably J<∏ for hu and hi alike (Nöldeke in Bibel-Lexikon, id supra, after Levy).

The chief historical changes in the Hebrew language which we can still trace are due to Aramaic influence. The Northern Israelites were in immediate contact with Aramaean populations and some Aramaic loan-words were used, at least in Northern Israel, from a very early date. At the time of Hezekiah Aramaic seems to have been the usual language of diplomacy spoken by the statesmen of Judah and Assyria alike (2 Kings xviii. 26). After the fall of Samaria the Hebrew population of Northern Israel was partly deported, their place being taken by new colonists most of whom probably had Aramaic as their mothertongue. It is not therefore surprising that even in the language of Judea increasing signs of Aramaic influence appear before the Exile. The fall of the Jewish kingdom accelerated the decay of Hebrew as a spoken language. Not indeed that the captives forgot their own tongue in Babylon, as older scholars supposed on the basis of Jewish tradition. The Exilic and post-Exile prophets do not write in a lifeless tongue, and Hebrew was still the language of Jerusalem in the time of Nehemiah (ch. xiii.) in the middle of the 5th century b.c. But after the Exile the petty people of the Jews were in daily intercourse with a surrounding Aramaean population, aud the Aramaic tongue, which was the official language of the western provinces of the Persian empire, began to take rank as the recognized medium of polite intercourse and letters...