enquiry. To these, therefore, a short section shall be devoted.

§ 1. Of certain attributive Nouns employed in the Old Testament to designate the Deity.

N [abir,] strong, powerful, is applied to the most excellent or best of its kind, whether men or brutes, as, "the CHIEFEST of the herdmen," 1 Sam. i. 15; "MIGHTY men," Lam. i. 15; "STRONG bulls," Ps. xxii. 12. It is also employed to designate the most excellent of all beings, "THE MIGHTY ONE of Israel," Isai. i. 24; "THE MIGHTY ONE of Jacob," Isai. xlix. 26; and so in other places :-nor have the Translators any where rendered this word " God," though in three places, Gen. xlix. 24, Psal. cxxxii. 2, and 5, they have, improperly, added the word God to the word mighty,-putting Mighty God" for " MIGHTY ONE."

[tzur], to bind up, enclose, encompass, for security-hence bulwarks, fortresses, places naturally strong, as a rock, for defence or protection, is applied, figuratively, to whatever performs this office, and so to him who is THE ROCK of Ages, Isai. xxvi. 4; "JEHOVAH is my defence, yea, my powerful one, the ROCK of my refuge," Ps. xciv. 22; “He only is my ROCK,” Ps. lxii. 2. 6;

"Lead me to the ROCK that is higher than I,” Ps. Ixi. 2. In many passages this terın is employed to designate the Creator; and in all of them, except two, the Translators have endeavoured to give the sense of the word. In Isai. xliv. 8. they have rendered it "God,"'-"Is there a God besides me? yea, there is no GOD." But this is not only inaccurate and tame, but obscures the sense. JEHOVAH had been encouraging his people against fear, and the words here spoken furnish the reason why they should confide in him. They ought to be rendered thus: "Is there one powerful above me? Yea, there is no Rock (or strong hold), none have I known." The other passage is in Hab. i. 12. where they translate the word by, "O mighty God."-But on the margin they have given the right word," Rock," in both of these passages.

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Another term, by [Elioun], The Supreme, is frequently employed to designate JEHOVAH; and wherever it occurs, the Translators have adopted some appropriate English word to express the sense; as in 2 Sam. xxii. 14, "THE MOST HIGH uttered his voice;" and in Psal. i. 14, " Pay thy vows to THE MOST HIGH." This term was common with the worshippers of the true God, even among the inhabitants of Canaan, in the days of Abraham, as we see in Gen. xiv. 20. "Blessed be my " [El Elioun], which should be

rendered "THE POWERFUL SUPREME," or "THE MOST HIGH POWER."

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We learn from Philo-Biblius that the same epithet prevailed among the Phoenicians. Speaking of their gods, he says, κατὰ τούτους γίνεται τὶς ̓ΕΛΙΟΥΝ καλούμενος, " among them there is a "certain one called ELIOUN."-It is exceedingly probable, that this epithet was carried along with all the patriarchal families so far back as the time of their first separation from the parent stock after the flood, when sent to colonise the different portions allotted to them. The Greeks, who, no doubt, obtained it from the Phœnicians, express it in their own language by

Tos, which

is a literal translation of my, and is sometimes employed in the New Testament to express the same Hebrew word; as in Luke i. 32, 35, 76. That this term was common among the Greeks is plain, from the exclamation of the damsel possessed of a spirit of divination at Philippi: "These men are the servants of the most high

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God," TOU BEOŨ To i↓íσrou, Acts xvi. 17: and, indeed, we find it was the most usual epithet upon their votive tablets; and, what is at least remarkable, most commonly in the singular number, as may be seen on those brought from Athens by Lord Elgin, now deposited in the British Museum.-Judging by Rammohun Roy's Translation of the Abridgment of the Vedant, “THE

N

SUPREME" is one of the most common epithets employed in the ancient "holy books" of the Brahmins. The end he had in translating the "Resolution of all the Veds" into the Hindostanee and Bengalee languages, he states to have been, to convince his own countrymen "that the unity "of God, and absurdity of idolatry, are evident"ly pointed out by their own scriptures." In this work God is designated in different places by the following epithets: "The Omnipresentthe All-powerful-the Almighty-the Creatorthe Eternal being;" but the most common is "the Supreme Being," which is employed perhaps ten times for once that any of the others occur.

The term "[Shaddai], The All-sufficient, compounded of v (i. e. wx) "who," and ", "sufficiency," or "sufficient," according as it is used in the abstract, or in the concrete sense, is often applied as a title to him whose bountiful goodness sustains the universe. It has been generally translated "The Almighty." Our Translators have never rendered it "God."

[Ram], "the High"-un [Venisha], “and lofty one," Isai. lvii. 15; ma by na [Goboah megnel Goboah], " Higher than the Highest," or rather, as on their margin, "High above the High," Eccl. v. 8; [Gadol], "Great;" [Nora], “Reverend," or "Terrible;" [Kap dosh], "the Holy One;" wp [Kadsho], "His

טובו

Holiness," [Gono], "His Excellency," or "His Highness," sometimes translated "His Majesty;" [Tubo]," His Goodness;" and other attributive nouns, frequently employed as titles of power and dignity, to designate HIM who is the greatest and the best of beings, have never been rendered "God" by our Translators. They have frequently, it is true, translated the three last as adjectives, in some passages in which they are employed as appellatives, and so far they have failed in giving the precise sense; but still they have made it manifest, that they did not, in translating these and other Hebrew epithets that might be mentioned, conceive themselves at liberty to substitute the sense of another radix for the one in the text before them; which makes it the more surprising that they should have done otherwise with the words which it is proposed now to examine.

§ 2. Of the Attributives or Epithets [EU], AN or [Eloah], and [Elohim], commonly rendered "God" in the English translations of the Hebrew Scriptures.

These attributive nouns, which are all the same in their radical sense, have, in the Septuagint version, been generally, though not invariably,