Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

H

1

и

AN

EASY INTRODUCTION

TO THE

KNOWLEDGE

OF THE

HEBREW LANGUAGE

WITHOUT THE POINTS.

BY JAMES P. WILSON, D. D. Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the city of Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY FARRAND, HOPKINS, ZANTZINGER, AND CO

Fry and Kammerer, Printers.

[blocks in formation]

L. S.

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the thirteenth day of May, in the 35th year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1811, James P. Wilson, D. D. of the said district, hath deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit:

An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of the Hebrew Language without the points. By James P. Wilson, D., D. Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in the City of Philadelphia.

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, intitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned."-And also to the act, entitled, "An Act supplementary to an Act, intituled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the time therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

D. CALDWELL,

Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.

PREFACE.

THE object of this book is chiefly to encourage and facilitate the progress of those, who have not the advantage of instructors. Many have attempted to learn the Hebrew, who, foiled by the labour or the difficulty attending the investigation of the roots, in a language wherein the beginnings of the words are subjected to almost as many changes as their terminations, and where the uncertainty of a third radical might disappoint them for half a dozen trials, have thrown aside their lexicons in despair.

Such are solicited to make another effort. Here every word is explained, as they proceed; here they will experience no such trouble and uncertainty; and as often as the word again occurs, the reader is again referred numerically to the place of such explanation. So much also of the sacred text is thus passed through, with constant reference by number to the rules of the grammar placed in the end of the book, as that the attentive reader will be hereby made sufficiently acquainted with the grammar, without committing it to memory, and enabled without difficulty to parse and construe, with the ordinary helps, every other part of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The ministers of the Presbyterian church in the United States almost universally read and understand the Greek scriptures for themselves; they can judge of the speculations of various classes of men on the New Testament, and decide without danger; they prefer their Greek Concordances to all the commentaries of the learned; why then should they be at a loss for the very same helps to the understanding of the Old Testament, which would be so satisfactory, and to which they may so easily attain? But a thirst for this species of knowledge has been excited, has progressed rapidly among them, within a few years, and augurs prosperity to Zion.

The labour submitted to in compiling this tyronian performance, (which has been the more, because, having been taught originally with the points, I am self-taught in the Hebrew without the points,) has been sweetened by the fond imagination of its subserviency to the cause of our Redeemer.

JAMES P. WILSON.

« AnteriorContinuar »