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Lord possessed me.' Here there can hardly be a question that the rendering should be created me,' as indeed is recognised in the margin, 'Or, formed. This meaning of the verb is perfectly well established, as in Genesis xiv. 19, and other places. In Proverbs viii. 22, the word is thus rendered in the Septuagint (EKTIσé μe), as it is in Gen. xiv. 19, and as in more than one ancient oriental text. But then, let it be observed, the Authorised corresponds to the theological idea of which Dr. Liddon has made so much in his second Bampton Lecture, to the effect that the personified Wisdom of Prov. viii. is identical with the Logos of the fourth Gospel ;-that the personified Wisdom of Proverbs was therefore a kind of anticipation of that future personage in whom the Logos (in its origin, it should be remembered, a conception not of Christianity, but of Greek philosophy) was to become incarnate;—an anticipation, again, which was unknown and unheard of until some of the ancient Fathers began to speculate about it, long after it could have been of any evidential use as a prophetic anticipation applicable to Christ! This idea, baseless and extravagant as it is, would no doubt find many defenders at the present day; and it may possibly have been the real, though unavowed, reason for the retention of the word 'possessed.' We would not for a moment suggest any intentional deviation from the straight path of exact translation; but clearly a strong bias was likely to arise from such ideas and to sway the mind occupied with them, almost without its own knowledge. While this is true, it is also to be admitted that instances occur in which the meaning 'possessed' is found. It is adopted by the Revised (without much sense and against the parallelism) in Psalm cxxxix. 13, and elsewhere. Still it is not difficult to understand that where a meaning usually deemed heretical comes into a sort of competition with one of the opposite kind, the latter, in the Jerusalem Chamber, will be most likely to be preferred. Accordingly, the Revision retains 'possessed,' while 'formed' is consigned to the margin, and the full meaning produced, created, expressed by the Septuagint as well as by the Targum and the Syriac, is altogether ignored. The margin, however, affords at least some hint of the true state of the case, and for this the reader should not be ungrateful. Instances like Gen. xxxvii. 3, 'coat of many colours,' are rather different from the foregoing, but equally unjustifiable.

The Rule imposed by Convocation requiring a two-thirds majority for altering the Authorised manifestly tended to preserve old renderings, even against the judgment of very decided majorities of the revising body. A vote of 7 to 4, or 11 to 6, or 15 to 8, would, with such a rule, have no force. The rule was thus, in effect, an ingenious device of conservative obstruction, tending and perhaps designed to give the translators of 1611 a great advantage over the more ample knowledge and less dogmatic spirit of the nineteenth century. From

this source have probably proceeded many faulty renderings of the revised text.

(3) The next subject of importance to which the Preface calls attention is the way in which the word denoting the Sacred Name has been rendered-the Hebrew word, that is to say, which, as found in the Masoretic text, has given origin to the English form JEHovah. In reference to this important word, the following particulars should be kept in view.

The Jews from very ancient times, probably long before the Christian era, have refrained from uttering the divine name. Nor is that name now pronounced in the synagogue reading of the Hebrew scriptures. The consequence is that the true pronunciation of this word has long been lost, and is probably now irrecoverable. In the printed Bibles the original JHVн is pointed, that is to say, vocalised, so as to be pronounced adonai (Lord), and in the synagogue reading the same word adonai is read instead of it (with some exceptions in which the word GOD is substituted, and on which we need not dwell). What the origin, the pronunciation, or the meaning of the name Jhvh may have been, can now only be matter of speculation, and the subject need not here occupy much of our attention. We are told by great authorities that the word should be vocalised as Jahve (Yahve), or Jahveh, and that it signifies in effect the Giver of Life; more literally, He that causeth to live. A slightly different account would explain it as simply expressive of existence, as though it meant, He that exists, the Self-existent One, or the Eternal, as rendered by the Jewish translator Benisch. This explanation is closely related to yet another, which is perhaps only an old Rabbinical fancy. It detects in the form Jehovah an abbreviation for the future and past tenses as well as the present participle of the Hebrew verb of existence. According to this the meaning would again be, The Eternal, He who was, who is and who shall be. This is almost too ingenious; but it is not without support, as in Revelation i. 4, where the strongly Hebraising writer gives in Greek a designation of the Almighty which closely corresponds to this last stated derivation of Jhvh. Support for the same view has been found in an inscription on the temple of Isis, quoted by Gesenius from Plutarch, which may be Englished, I am that which was and is and shall be.' The most recent discussion of the subject may be seen in the works mentioned below. 2

Leaving these uncertain points, we have next to notice a fact on which there is no doubt or question whatever. The ancient translators of the Septuagint, about 220 B.C., following the sentiment and usage of their people, refrained from translating, as no doubt they refrained from uttering, the sacred name. They had the word Jhvh indeed in their Hebrew manuscripts; but, not attempting any trans

2 Hebrew Words and Synonyms, Part I. By Rev. Edward G. King, B.D. 1884. Comp. Prof. Driver's Essay on the Tetragrammaton, in Studia Biblica. 1885.

lation of it, they too fell back upon the word adonai. This, however, they rendered in their Greek version by the Greek Kúpios (Lord). Thus Kúpios came by a kind of accident to stand in the Septuagint as the representative of the sacred and unutterable Jhvh-not as being a translation of it (for it was never translated, any more than it was ever uttered), but simply as its substitute or representative. Hence again from the Septuagint version in which this first occurred, the word Lord (Dominus) came into the Latin, and from this again into nearly all modern versions, and more particularly into the Authorised English of 1611. To this must now be added the Revised Version of 1885.

The Revisers observe, 'It has been thought advisable in regard to the word 'JEHOVAH' to follow the usage of the Authorised Version and not to insert it uniformly in place of 'LORD' or 'GOD,' which, when printed in small capitals, represent the words substituted by Jewish custom for the ineffable Name, according to the vowel points by which it is distinguished.' This statement is certainly surprising and was hardly to be expected from a revising Company of our day— except indeed under the constraining influence of long-descended theological prepossessions. For let the reader further observe and weigh the following considerations: the word Jhvh, whatever may have been its lost pronunciation, is a proper name. Probably no one who knows anything about it would think of disputing this. It is everywhere used as a proper name, quite as truly so as the words Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, or any other of the numerous personal names of the Old Testament. Now, Christian revisers may be supposed to be free from the excessive reverence of the Jews, ancient or modern, in regard to this sacred word. Why, therefore, should they not express it as what it really is, a proper name? The only reason that can be suggested is this-that we do not know how it was pronounced. But are we therefore at liberty to alter it entirely, to deprive it of its character of a personal name, and in effect banish it from our English Bible? They who would take this course should remember that we do not know how the names Moses, Abraham, Isaiah, and a hundred others were pronounced; any more than we know how the name Jhvh was pronounced. Yet no translator or reviser either, whether under the influence of Convocation or not, would think of representing these names by a totally different set of words, words altogether different from their originals both in sound and in etymological sense.

It follows from all this that the true representative of the Tetragrammaton is the name itself, whether the form preferred be Jahveh, or the venerable and euphonious JEHOVAH. It is at least to be hoped that the barbarous-looking Yahveh or Yahweh will not become a permanent word of the language. The form Jehovah may in reality be not far from the ancient sound of the word, though formed apparently by the mere adaptation of the vocalisation of adonai, and VOL. XX.-No. 113.

H

although, in this form, of comparatively modern origin. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that the common form as pointed may preserve something of the ancient sound, handed down traditionally from pre-Christian times to the Masoretic punctuators, and by them transmitted to their successors with the vowels of adonai, At any rate the form Jehovah has just the same right to be used as the representative of the unutterable name, as the word Moses or any other name of Hebrew history to be retained as the designation of the person to whom it is given. The exact pronunciation of these personal names is no more known than is that of Jehovah,' but yet no one hesitates to employ them as they stand.

In the recent translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by Mr. Samuel Sharpe the form Jehovah is everywhere consistently employed. This is done with excellent effect; for the word is itself one of expressive and interesting form and sound, and is in no way unworthy to stand as the representative of the Name of Names.

The Revisers must therefore be held to have acted arbitrarily in their treatment of this word; and we are left to the conjecture that here again reasons of the theological kind have had more to do with this adherence to the term 'Lord,' than they would themselves care to admit. The following considerations will illustrate this conclusion. The Kúpios of the Septuagint, the representative in that version of the untranslated Jhvh, is also perpetually recurring in the Christian scriptures. And is not this, some will ask, most significant? Does it not suggest, adumbrate, foretell, anticipate, even though with singular obscurity, the mysterious fact of the identity of the Person denoted by the word Kúpos in the two Testaments?—thus showing prophetically the real nature of Him to whom the Christian Church owes its existence and has given the name of Lord? Against this ingenious theory there is the fatal objection before alluded to, namely, that the idea of the supposed identity was unknown and never thought of until the ingenuity of the Church Fathers had begun to speculate about the Logos, long after the date when the coincidence might have been useful as a proof of anything. Yet the theory is one which is by no means out of favour with English theologians of a certain school. It may be found in the writings even of eminent preachers and scholars like Dr. Liddon and Professor Kennedy of Cambridge. The latter, in his Christmas Day sermon (1882) before the University, expressly makes use of this argument, quite easily assuming that the Lord of the Old Testament must needs be the Lord of the New. Nevertheless, this old fancy of the Fathers, though advanced anew by these eminent scholars, is about as groundless as other ingenious things to be met with in the same ancient writers their statements for instance about demoniacal possessions and their attendant marvels.

The mode of dealing with this word in the Old Testament will

remind some readers of the somewhat analogous way in which the New Testament Revisers have treated the term πνɛûμа, in some places rendering it by 'Spirit,' in others by the word 'Ghost'; this too in bold defiance of their own principle of uniformity of rendering, so very faithfully applied in small and unimportant cases. According to this in itself very proper principle the same Greek word, wherever the sense and context admit, should always be rendered by the same English. But why, then, was not this done in so weighty a case as this of the word πvɛûμɑ?—why, except that to have applied it consistently would have been to leave a great word of the Creeds out of the New Testament ?-and that would have been heresy indeed. Accordingly the rendering 'Ghost' must be retained, at whatever sacrifice of consistency, and even though so excellent a word as 'Spirit' with its depth and richness of signification could so easily and so rightly have been substituted for it-this, too, in every case without a single exception.

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Before taking leave of this subject it may be well to notice the way in which the Revisers have sometimes dealt with the word adonai. Strictly and properly, the form is 'my lord,' or 'my master'; a term of deference and respect used of and to a superior, like Kúpios frequently in the New Testament. So it is in the case of Abraham's servant speaking of his master, Gen. xxiv. 12, 27. In some cases, however, the word has been given by the Revision as the Lord (Gen. xviii. 27, 30, 32; Ps. ii. 4; compare Ps. cx. 1, 5), as if it were the word Jehovah, only not in small capitals. The consequence is that, whereas Abraham speaking to Jehovah addresses him in the familiar form of my lord' (just as he might have done with any human personage), the Revision makes it appear (or rather follows the Authorised, in leaving it to appear) as if the higher title the Lord,' with its religious associations, were employed by Abraham in this familiar conversation with Jehovah. The meaning 'my lord,' is properly adopted by the Revision in Gen. xviii. 3, xix. 19; but here, as if with the purpose of going as far from the exact meaning as possible, a margin has been added, 'Or, O Lord.' Why has this inaccurate margin been added? The Hebrew word does not mean 'O Lord,' but simply my lord,' or, at most, 'O my lord,' as in numerous cases throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Have we merely an oversight in this margin; or is it a result of the same tendency to make the Old Testament correspond as much as possible to ideas of the popular theology of our day?

The proposal has been made by an over-zealous person, and made we believe to the Revisionists, to print all adjectives and pronouns in immediate connection with the Divine name with initial Capitals, in the manner of the Sermons and other Compositions of a certain modern School of Theologians. Happily this attempt to modernise the Old Testament and make it speak the language of a sect has not