from the Father, he shall testify of me." Here the incarnate Word, who was from eternity in the bosom of the Father, promises, upon his return to the Father, to send from him the Holy Spirit to be the Comforter and Guide of his people. And the same eternal Word was from the beginning, as we shall see hereafter, the Revealer of God's counsels to men.

We remark, again, that the description of Wisdom (Chap. viii. 22-31), does not apply so naturally to a mere attribute of God as to a true personal being; and that its remarkable agreement with those passages of the New Testament which speak of our Lord in his preexistent state, warrants us to regard it as an adumbration, by the Spirit of prophecy, of this great "mystery of godliness." We prefix to our remarks upon it the following

TRANSLATION.

"Jehovah possessed me (or, obtained me) as the beginning of his way, before his works, of old. From everlasting was I founded, from the beginning, before the earth was. When there were no deeps was I born; when there were no fountains laden with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I born; when he had not yet made the earth and the fields and the first of the clods of the world. When he prepared the heavens, there was I ; when he set a circuit upon the face of the deep; when he established the clouds above; when the fountains of the deep were made strong; when he appointed to the sea its limit, that the waters should not pass its border (or, his command). And I was at his side as one brought up by him (or, as an artificer); and I was daily a delight [to him]; exulting before him all the time; exulting in the habitable abode of his earth; and my delight was with the sons of men."

ANNOTATIONS.

Vs. 22. Jehovah possessed me (or, obtained me) as the beginning of his way, before his works, from olden time.

has ,יְהוָה קָנֹנִי רֵאשִׁית דַּרְכּוֹ ,The first clause of this verse

been the subject of the most earnest controversy. The Septuagint renders it: κύριος ἔκτισέ με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ; the Lord created me the beginning of his way. In this the Chal

1 John 15: 26.

2

dee Targum agrees with it: God created me in the beginning of his creation; the Syriac version: the Lord created me in the beginning of his creation; and the Arabic: the Lord created me the beginning of his ways. The other Greek versions, on the contrary, employ the word ẻкτýσαтo, possessed. So also the Vulgate: Dominus possedit me in initio viarum suarum. Since all the ancient fathers of the Church agreed in understanding this passage of the hypostatic Wisdom of God in the person of the Logos, Arius, following the version of the Septuagint, maintained that he is, in the proper sense of the word, a created being, though brought into existence before all other creatures, above them all in dignity, and the one through whom God made them all. The orthodox, on the contrary, denied to the word

the sense of creation, and, interpreting it in harmony with the word in, I was born, which occurs in the 24th and 25th verses, understood it of the eternal generation of the Logos from the Father, in such a sense that he is himself of the same substance with the Father, and cöeternal with him. 3

The more recent interpreters are also divided in their opinions in respect to the signification of in this passage. Michaelis and Schultens render it "possedit," possessed; Ziegler, "warb um mich," acquired, and adds in a note: "Er warb um mich, oder besass mich. Beydes kann

can קְכָה

heissen." He acquired me, or possessed me. mean both. De Wette renders: "bereitete mich," prepared me. Many, as Gesenius, Muntinghe, Umbreit, Bertheau, Stuart, render: created me. But since these latter understand wisdom here as simply a divine attribute personified, which must have been cöeternal with the divine being, they are compelled to admit that it is only in a figurative

See in Walton's Polyglott.

2 See Remains of Origen's Hexapla by Montfaucon, in loco.

3 Which, excluding all idea of the literal generation of substance, amounts in reality to the proposition that the first and second persons in the Godhead hold to each other eternally the relation of Father and Son. This idea of the proper eternity of the Son and his equality with the Father in respect to substance (duoovoía) was brought out more definitely by the Arian controversy.

On the question

way that she is said to have been created. of the signification of in this verse, Prof. Stuart remarks: "Philology, at all events, must have its proper place, independent of party views." To this we fully assent; and we propose to show, in a philological way, what is the true Hebrew usage of the word in question. We preface our remarks by the following from Prof. Stuart, which well represents the views of Gesenius as expressed in his Lexicon : " then means originally, to erect any thing, to set it up or make it steadfast. As naturally flowing from this come the meanings: to create, to found, exemplified in Deut. xxxii. 6; Ps. cxxxix. 13; Gen. xiv. 19, 22. Moreover the Arabic (P) means to create. Then come the derived meanings: prepare, acquire, and lastly, to acquire by purchase, i. e. to buy. But the simple sense of possedit, as given by the Vulgate, has no footing in the Hebrew." After such a statement, the reader may be somewhat surprised to learn that of the eighty-two cases in which the verb p appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is used, by the concession of all, seventy-six times in the sense of getting or acquiring; and that the specific usage, to get by purchase, buy, is by far the most common. The classification of these seventy-six cases, according to frequency, is as follows:

1

1. To get by purchase, buy, as a house, field, wife (Ruth iv. 10); 58 2. To get by human labor, to buy in a figurative sense, especially wisdom.

So often in the book of Proverbs;

3. To get by the exercise of divine power, as Jehovah Israel, for a peculiar possession, i. e. to redeem for himself (Ex. xv. 16; Ps. Lxxiv. 2; Isa. xi. 11), or as Jehovah Mount Zion (Ps. Lxxviii. 54); 4. To get in a general sense, as Eve a son, with Jehovah as her helper (Gen. iv. 1).

Total

13

4

1

76

The passage last quoted (Gen. iv. 1) is the first in which the verb occurs, and there it has its true generic sense. From the context we learn that the manner of getting was that of

1 Stuart in loco.

2 We have before us a list of all these passages, but it is unnecessary to specify them. They may be seen in any Hebrew Concordance.

conceiving and bringing forth; but the verb itself has no such meaning.

There remain six cases only to be examined. Of these Deut. xxxii. 6 may be at once disposed of. It means to redeem for himself as his peculiar people, as in the examples given above, No. 3.

We will next examine Isaiah i. 3: p, which must either be rendered: the ox knoweth his buyer; or, the ox knoweth his owner. The latter is the rendering adopted by Gesenius himself, as well as by De Wette, Alexander and translators generally. Etymologically, it presents no difficulty; for the transition from the idea of possessing one's self of a thing to that of being possessed of it, is easy. Here the analogy of the Greek Táoμaι is very instructive. Properly it means to get, acquire for one's self. But the Perfect Kék

Tηuai (literally, to have acquired for one's self) has come to signify to possess. Hence Keктημévos is master, especially of slaves. Now the Hebrew Participle, having no distinction of tenses, may well answer to both the Present and Aorist of the Greek, one who gets, and, one who has gotten; and to the Perfect, a possessor, master. In precisely the same way the Hebrew and the Greek Tμа (literally, what is gotten), come to signify possession, wealth. Once more,

(

signifies acquisition, especially by purchase the deed of purchase, Tò Bißriov Tîs KTŃσews, as the Sept. render it, Jer. xxxii. 11); then, the thing purchased, as the cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii. 19, Sept., eis kτñow, which is equivalent to eis ктîμa), and also a person bought with money (2, Sept., ȧpyvрávnτos, Gen. xvii. 12; etc.)., moreover, literally something gotten, has come to signify possessions of cattle, precisely like the Greek Tvos from κτάομαι.

If we take in Isa. 1: 3, in the sense of possessor, we may also understand it in the same sense in Gen. 14: 19, 22:7, the possessor of heaven and earth. So

whose is the possession of heaven, וְקִנְיָנֵיהּ שְׁמַיָּא וְאַרְעָא,Onkelos

and earth. The Seventy have exтiσe, created; the Vulgate

แ

has, in v. 19: "qui creavit coelum et terram," but in v. 22: possessorem coeli et terrae." Jarchi's note here is very instructive, and gives the true key to the solution of the question: "Like the words' Maker of heaven and earth': by his making them he has possessed himself of them, so that they are his."1 He does not deny to the word the sense of having obtained, possessed himself of; but he represents this possession as having come by the right of creation. In other words, here answers precisely to the Greek kektŋμévos, possessor, which also conveys the idea of having acquired. The manner of acquiring, in this instance, is undoubtedly that of creation, but this does not give to the verb itself the meaning create, so that Fürst is entirely correct in his remark: "quare ipsum v. neutiquam vi creandi con

dendive dicitur." 2

The two remaining passages are Ps. 139: 13:P ONE, , rendered in our version: For thou hast possessed my reins; and the one now under consideration:

To each of these the sense of the Greek Perfect KÉKтημaι is appropriate. That it suits well the context of the latter passage, no one can deny. We add, therefore, a few words respecting the former. The ground-idea, then, of the 139th Psalm is not the skill and power of God as our Creator, but our intimate relation to God as to Him who has an absolute property in us, and whose presence and power have, from the first, penetrated our inmost being. The reins are mentioned here as the seat of affection and desire. God has had these in his possession from the beginning by right of creation, and therefore his knowledge of them and his power over them is absolute."

The conclusion, then, to which we come, on strictly philological grounds, is that the true idea of is to get, possess one's self of, then, more specifically, to buy; that in a few passages the idea of present possession is most prominent,

3 The second clause of this verse should be rendered: "thou didst cover me in my mother's womb." Compare Ps. 5: 12; 91: 4.