BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A HEBREW GRAMMAR, WITH EXERCISES: PART II. The Exceptional Forms and Constructions, preceded by an Essay on the History of Hebrew Grammar. 12s. 6d. A KEY to the Exercises of the First Part. 58. A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON THE OLD TESTAMENT, WITH A NEW TRANSLATION: VOL. I.-GENESIS. Hebrew and English. 188. Abridged Edition. 12s. VOL. II.-EXODUS. Hebrew and English. 158. Abridged Edition. 12s. VOL. III.-LEVITICUS, PART I. Hebrew and English. 15s. VOL. IV.-LEVITICUS, PART II. Hebrew and English. 15s. HARVARD COLLE ARY Prof. Toy. LONDON: PRINTED BY WERTHEIMER, LEA AND CO., CIRCUS PLACE, FINSBURY. PREFACE. ELABORATE treatises have been written to prove that Hebrew is an easy language, and Manuals have been published professing to teach it in four-and-twenty, nay in twelve, lessons. We are unable to flatter the student with such pleasing hopes. The vast and almost incredible number and variety of Grammars, Guides, Dissertations, and Anthologies, which have been prepared from the ninth century up to our day, are in themselves sufficient to render the supposed facility of the idiom doubtful. Every one of those productions aimed, indeed, at directing the way and levelling the road; but the energy so constantly displayed, and in many cases supported by great learning and sound judgment, bears a remarkable disproportion to the results obtained. It is still a general complaint, that a simple and elementary aid is wanting, calculated to serve as a practical introduction to the study of Hebrew. Some of the existing works are considered too complicated and crowded to be useful to beginners, others too superficial and fragmentary to form a solid foundation; some too exclusively theoretical and abstract, others so predominantly empirical as to afford no insight into the structure of the language; some hazardous and fanciful in conjectures, others desultory and illogical in arrangement; while a large number is found to be inexact in statements, or compiled, not from an independent investigation of the sources, but from materials collected by predecessors. And yet there is scarcely a scholar who, after having mastered the language by dint of perseverance and strength of will, does not feel that a proper method might have considerably lightened his labour and stimulated his interest. |