A Converfation with

the Prima

Hebrew

hope, Madam, this effufion of my heart, and fuffer me to demonftrate by a thousand and a thousand actions, that I honour you in a manner unutterable, and from this time, can imagine no happiness but with you.

Sir, (this inimitable maid replied) you are Mils Noel, an intire ftranger to me, and to declare a in relation paffion on a few hours acquaintance, muft guage of be either to try my weakness, or because you Adam, and think a young woman is incapable of relishvity of the ing any thing but fuch ftuff, when alone in Tongue. converfation with a gentleman. I beg then I may hear no more of this, and as I am fure you can talk upon many more rational fubjects, request your favour, to give me your opinion on fome articles in this Hebrew Bible you fee lying open on the table in this room. My father, Sir, among other things he has taken great pains to inftruct me in, for feveral years that I have lived with him in a kind of folitary ftate, fince the death of my mother, whom I loft when I was very young, has taught me to read and underftand this infpired Hebrew book; and fays we muft afcribe primavity and facred prerogatives to this language. For my part, I have fome, doubts as to this matter, which I dare not mention to my father. Tell me, if you pleafe, what you think of the thing.

2

Mifs

Mifs Noel, (I anfwered) fince it is your command, that I fhould be filent as to that flame your glorious eyes and understanding have lighted up in my foul, like fome fuperior nature, before whom I am nothing, filent I will be, and tell you what I fancy on a fubject I am certain you understand much better than I do. My knowledge of the Hebrew is but fmall, though I have learned to read and understand the Old Testament in the Ante-Babel language.

My opinion on your question is, that the Biblical Hebrew was the language of Paradise, and continued to be fpoken by all men, down to, and at the time of Mofes writing the Pentateuch, and long after. Abraham, though bred in Chaldea, could converfe freely with the Egyptians, the Sodomites, and the King of Gerar; nor do we find, that any variety of fpeech interrupted the commerce of his fon Ifaac with the feveral nations around, or that it ever ftopt Jacob in his travels. Nay, the Ifraelites, in their journey through the defarts of Arabia, (after they had been fome hundred years in Egypt) tho' joined by a mixt multitude, and meeting with divers kinds of people, had not corrupted their language, and were eafily understood, because it was then the univerfal one. The fimplicity and diftinctnefs of the Hebrew tongue preferved its purity fo long D 3

and

and fo univerfally. It could not well be degenerate till the knowledge of nature was loft, as its words confift but of two or three letters, and are perfectly well fuited to convey fenfible and strong ideas. It was at the captivity (2), in the space of feventy years, that the Jews, by temporifing with the ignorant victors, so far neglected the ufage of their own tongue, that none but the fcribes or learned men could understand Mofes's

books.

This I confefs (Miss Noel faid) is a plaufible account of the primavity and pre-eminence of the facred Hebrew, but I think it is not neceffary the account fhould be allowed as fact. As to its being the language in Paradife, this is not very probable, as a compass of 1800 years must have changed the first language very greatly by an increase of words, and new inflections, applications, and conftructions of them. The few firft inhabitants of the earth were occupied in few things, and wanted not a

(2) The captivity began at Nebuzaradan's taking and burning the city and temple of Jerufalem, and fending Zedekiah, the last King, in chains, to Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered his children to be butchered before his face, his eyes to be put into a dungeon, where he died. our Lord 588 years; after the world 3416.

out, and then thrown This happened before flood, 1766; of the

variety

variety of words; but when their descendants invented arts and improved fciences, they were obliged to coin new words and technical terms, and by extending and transferring their words to new fubjects, and using them figuratively, were forced to multiply the fenfes of thofe already in ufe. The language to be fure was thus gradually cultivated, and every age improved it. All living languages are liable to fuch change. I therefore conclude, that the language which ferved the first pair would not do for fucceeding generations. It became vastly more copious and extenfire, when the numbers of mankind were great, and their language muft ferve converfation and the ends of life, and anfwer all the purposes of intelligence and correfpondence. New words and new terms of fpeech, from time to time were neceffary, to give true ideas of the things, actions, offices, places, and times peculiar to the Hebrews. Even Hutchinfon allows there was fome coinage, some new words framed. We find in the latter prophets words not to be met with in the Pentateuch: and from thence we may fuppofe, that Mofes ufed words unknown to Nimrod and Heber: and that the men at Shinaar (3) had words which the people before

(3) Shinaar comprehends the plains of Chaldea or Babylonia in Afia; and the men of Shinaar were the D 4

first

fore the flood were ftrangers to. Even in the seventeenth century, there must have been a great alteration in the language of Adam; and when the venerable Patriarch and his family came into a new world, that was in a different ftate from the earth before the deluge, and faw a vast variety of things without precedent in the old world, the alterations in nature and diet, muft introduce a multitude of new terms in things of common experience and usage; as, after that amazing revolution in the natural world, not only the clouds and meteors were different, and the fouls that were faved had a new and astonishing view of the ruin and repair of the fyftem, but Noah did then begin to be an husbandman; he planted a vineyard; he invented wine; and to him the firft grant was given of eating flesh. All these things required as it were a new language, and the terms to be fure with mankind encreased. The Noachical language must be quite another thing after the great events of the flood. Had Methuselah, who converfed many years with Adam, who re

first colony that Noah fent out from Ararat, the mountains. of Armenia, where the Ark refted after the flood, to fettle in the grand plains of Babylonia, 1200 miles from Ararat. This was in the days of Peleg, 240 years after the flood, when the eight had encreafed to fixty thousand; which made a remove of part of them neceffary.

ceived