real roots, by being unpointed, in Buxtorf, Castell, &c.-And their amount is considerable such as D, the supposed root of D, Mother; nx, of nx, Brother; ', of D', Sea; &c. although the biliteral nouns themselves are as well entitled to the rank of roots as the foregoing, which are admitted to be such.

6. Several of the real verbs, supposed to be roots, may more naturally be derived from their offspring, thus, 18 to regard or respect, naturally flows from 28, Father;

, to build, from 12, Son; and accordingly, the verb is used in the sense of begetting children, Deut. xxv. 9. "So shall it be done "unto the man, that will not build up his “brother's house." The verb ns, To swear, curse, or devote to destruction, naturally flows from GOD, who was appealed to in these solemn acts, as supreme arbiter. And this, even Michaelis himself, who adopts the received hypothesis, inconsistently admits: "Potius hoc ipsum 8, juravit, denomina❝tivum putem esse ab : quasi dicas, per "Deum aliquid affirmavit.” In like manner, the B. C. in question, although he derives

"

the

the divine name from a triliteral verb, 78, "to be lovely, fair, or admirable," following Cocceius and Vitringa, yet admits that “it

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may be taken as a root by itself." p. 154.

II. Having thus shewn, that the received hypothesis, or Masoretic scheme of deriva tion, is untenable in both its branches, from the genius and history of language; and that the elementary terms of all languages are naturally nouns, or names of the most obvious and striking sensible objects; and necessarily monosyllables, as being easiest of pronunciation: we may safely conclude, from analogy, that the simplest of the divine names, EL, and JAH, are the most ancient of all; the venerable parents

אל.

(ÆL) of Mbx, (ÆL-ŌH); and of its plural D'İN, (ÆL-ŎH-IM: And (JAH), of Mìn3 (JAH-OH), formed from their respective roots, by additional syllables, or by composition; according to the usual progress of language: and, indeed, that they cannot be derivatives, formed either, by contraction or elision, from terms more compounded, I shall next endeavour to prove, by shewing the insufficiency of all the roots hitherto assigned to them.

N. B.

N. B. In adapting the foregoing primitive names of GOD to English pronunciation, I have departed from the Masoretic punctuation; and also from the orthography of the British Critic: 1. Because, the first letter of

AL and its componnds, is not a vowel but a consonant; the softest of the aspirates, Aleph, He, Hheth, (Arabic Hha,) and Ain: As in the proper name Aaron, which is pronounced Haroun by the Arabs. And 2. I have rejected the Pathah furtivum of the Masorites, TELOAH, which is no vowel point; Schultens, Instit. p. 72-118, and seems to have" crept in" unnecessarily, if not mischievously, to confound the etymology; and, perhaps, to assimilate it to 3. the Masoretic punctuation of IEHOVAH; which should rather be pronounced IAHOH: according to the most ancient Greek pronunciation, IA, fortunately preserved in the fragments of Orpheus, and the Clarian Oracle, and Diodorus Siculus; and approved of by Origen and Jerom, the most learned of the Fathers: though long since lost among the Jews; not daring, out of superstition, to pronounce this glorious and awful name," Deut.

Deut. xxviii. 58, as their ancestors evidently did, 1 Kings xviii. 39.

I. SUPPOSED DERIVATIONS OF, EL and 8, ELOH.-1. Some Jewish grammarians, Cocceius and the Hutchinsonian school, derive both from s," to swear" which is justly rejected by Michaelis (as we have seen) and the B. C. p. 141-152.

2. Michaelis adopts the verb as the root, in the sense of benefacere alicui, or benevolus fuit, from the Arabic noun Ali, signifying "good" as intimating the goodness or beneficence of the DEITY; this is certainly a more honourable derivation than the former, which represents him " as an

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object of mere terror”—and more consonant to Scripture and the first philosophy: "Why callest thou me good?" said our blessed SAVIOUR himself" there is none GOOD "but ONE, that is GOD"-None, in whom goodness is an inherent, underived principle of conduct, Matt. xix. 17. And in the sacred commentary of the Persian rites, ascribed to Zoroaster, among several magnificent titles of THE DEITY, we meet Ayalar Αγαθότατος, "BEST OF THE GOOD."-New

ton's

ton's Chronology, p. 353. Whence Plato probably derived his " deifying principle," τ ̓Αγαθον, "THE GOOD"

supreme; noticed by the B. C. p. 141-149. And also the earliest Latin writers, their “ OPTIMUS "MAXIMUS"--his superlative goodness taking the lead of his greatness: And from the Greek Tab-os, the contraction of Ayab-os, might easily have been derived, the German GOTT, and our Saxon or English term GOD; and perhaps all those, ultimately, from the Syriac, Hhad, the contraction of the Hebrew 8, Ahhad, signifying "One"-by an easy transmutation of kindred consonants;—for this ingenious etymological series, we are indebted to Hallenberg, a Danish critic, cited by the Monthly Review, vol. xxxiv. Append. p. 483, which happily illustrates the peculiar force and beauty of our Lord's foregoing argument.

Still, however, Michaelis's derivation appears to be inadmissible, as it is not drawn from the pure source of the Hebrew language; and especially as Michaelis himself, p. 82, admits, that the primitive root 8, EL, is wanting (or obsolete) both in the Arabic

and