us. AND THE "SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE," AGAIN. 245 gedud in 2 Kings v. 2, by ravaging (prodam agentes), it is little else than a crotchet in him to make a great distinction between an incursion and actual pillage. That our critic blindly follows him is no surprise to It is not safe for every one, ultra lexica sapere, to stand on the lexicographer's shoulders, in order to see farther than he did. Moreover, the ideas of cutting down, forming bands, and pillaging, might readily suggest each other interchangeably; so that it is hard to discern which would most directly generate the others. Lastly, some ancient versions sanction the view we advocate. The LXX, render this clause by Teiρarýρiov teiparévoci, a band of pirates will ravage. Jerome has, a band of robbers will rob. (Quæst. in Gen.) Others, like the Persian, and the Arabs' Erpenii, have a troop will conquer. The Vulgate is, in this place, not based on the LXX., but on a text like that of Aquila. As for the second clause, the objection is to the word heel. But the word so rendered here, is undeniably the proper and common term for heel. Gesenius himself only adduces two instances in which its metaphorical signification might produce a natural sense-this, and Joshua viii. 13. But this passage would not be to us the Word of God, unless it involved some more universal truth than the temporary destiny of a petty clan. Besides, Swedenborg professes to give a strictly literal translation; so that the only pertinent objection would be, that heel cannot legitimately signify the lowest natural principle. Now, it seems perfectly reasonable to us-admitting the correspondence between the spiritual and natural spheres, and thence between the soul and the body that the lowest natural plane of life is aptly typified by the feet. The feet are farthest removed from the head, the highest seat of the soul. As the inner life, in all its degrees, is based on the body; as the volitions of the will terminate in outward acts; so the entire man rests on his feet. The feet place us in actual contact with the earth; therefore, the way or walk of life, the path of His commandments, are expressive of those acts which constitute the good or evil of our state, "of those acts which are charity and faith in effect and life." Hesychius gives as a gloss on Trépva-the Greek word for heel-course, life. (Schleusner's Lex. in LXX. s. v.) Consequently, to teach that if a man omits one essential element of what constitutes his soul's meat and drink, the omission will destroy the plane of his natural life, or ruin his heel, may possibly be a profound and precious truth, not unworthy of the Father of spirits to impart. The next objection is thus expressed : "In the same chapter, v. 26, being part of the blessing of Jacob addressed to Joseph, it is said-'The blessing of thy father exceeds the blessings of the ancient 244 SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, heel.' Not having the original Latin edition of Swedenborg's Arcana before us, we will waive the question about the verb 'to push or to press' being here translated by to depopulate,' but we would ask any intelligent and serious reader of the Bible whether he can make anything of the phrase 'to depopulate a heel?' There can be no third opinion but that this rendering of the original text, if it be really intended for a translation into English, is nothing but sheer nonsense. Or else what meaning is conveyed to the mind of an Englishman when he is told that so and so has depopulated the heel? Can this be called a translation in any sense, either natural or spiritual? In looking for any further information and enlightenment concerning the natural or rational sense of this passage-if there can be any sense conveyed by words so unintelligible in themselves—we are again left utterly in the lurch by the author. In the elucidation of the so-called internal sense he indeed informs us that 'Gad' signifies works from truth and not yet from good;' that a troop shall depopulate him' means 'works without judgment,' and that to 'depopulate the heel' signifies 'want of order thence in the natural principle.' This may be all right according to the principles of correspondences, as taught and applied by Swedenborg, but we cannot help repeating that we think that it would be more satisfactory if Swedenborg had deduced all these significations from a correct, intelligible, and satisfactory rendering of the original text as such, instead of from a rendering which is a transparent blunder." 66 First of all, we have to complain that our critic has, in part, based his objection on the English version of the Arcana, and not on Swedenborg's own words; for the English version is in one respect erroneous. The verb depopulari, which Swedenborg uses, really means to ravage, to lay waste; whereas Webster's Dictionary asserts that to depopulate means "to unpeople, to deprive of inhabitants, whether by death or expulsion. It is not synonymous with laying waste or destroying, being limited to the loss of inhabitants." Consequently, the two words are not translations of each other, however alike they appear; and some of the taunt about " depopulating the heel" misses its intended aim. Next we will discuss Swedenborg's right to render the first clause by a troop shall ravage." In this verse, the name of Gad is reëchoed three times, by playing on the same sounds-Gad gedûd yegudennu, vehû yagûd 'aqêb. It is admitted that the two verbs gadad and gûd, from which all four words are derived, are most intimately allied, as is quite common in weak verbs of the two kinds before us. Now the usage of these two verbs, and of many of their derivatives, in the Old Test., mainly requires the significations of to cut into, down, or off; to band together; and (as most authorities prior to Gesenius thought) to ravage. All agree in according to gedûd the sense of a band, a party on a foray. Then the verb following expresses what the raiders do to Gad. Gesenius assigns it the sense of to press upon, to invade. But surely, after the admitted identity of the two verbs, and after translating 66 245 gedud in 2 Kings v. 2, by ravaging (prædam agentes), it is little else than a crotchet in him to make a great distinction between an incursion and actual pillage. That our critic blindly follows him is no surprise to us. It is not safe for every one, ultra lexica sapere, to stand on the lexicographer's shoulders, in order to see farther than he did. Moreover, the ideas of cutting down, forming bands, and pillaging, might readily suggest each other interchangeably; so that it is hard to discern. which would most directly generate the others. Lastly, some ancient versions sanction the view we advocate. The LXX, render this clause by Teiрarηрiov Teiparévou, a band of pirates will ravage. Jerome has, a band of robbers will rob. (Quæst. in Gen.) Others, like the Persian, and the Arabs' Erpenii, have a troop will conquer. The Vulgate is, in this place, not based on the LXX., but on a text like that of Aquila. As for the second clause, the objection is to the word heel. But the word so rendered here, is undeniably the proper and common term for heel. Gesenius himself only adduces two instances in which its metaphorical signification might produce a natural sense-this, and Joshua viii. 13. But this passage would not be to us the Word of God, unless it involved some more universal truth than the temporary destiny of a petty clan. Besides, Swedenborg professes to give a strictly literal translation; so that the only pertinent objection would be, that heel cannot legitimately signify the lowest natural principle. Now, it seems perfectly reasonable to us-admitting the correspondence between the spiritual and natural spheres, and thence between the soul and the body that the lowest natural plane of life is aptly typified by the feet. The feet are farthest removed from the head, the highest seat of the soul. As the inner life, in all its degrees, is based on the body; as the volitions of the will terminate in outward acts; so the entire man rests on his feet. The feet place us in actual contact with the earth; therefore, the way or walk of life, the path of His commandments, are expressive of those acts which constitute the good or evil of our state, "of those acts which are charity and faith in effect and life." Hesychius gives as a gloss on Tтépva-the Greek word for heel-course, life. (Schleusner's Lex. in LXX. s. v.) Consequently, to teach that if a man omits one essential element of what constitutes his soul's meat and drink, the omission will destroy the plane of his natural life, or ruin his heel, may possibly be a profound and precious truth, not unworthy of the Father of spirits to impart. The next objection is thus expressed : "In the same chapter, v. 26, being part of the blessing of Jacob addressed to Joseph, it is said—'The blessing of thy father exceeds the blessings of the ancient 246 SWEDENBORG'S KNOWLEDGE OF HEBREW, mountains, the riches (literally the desire, delicias) of the everlasting hills," &c. This is substantially the translation of De Wette, as well as of Gesenius, and of modern commentators in general. Also the LXX. give the same rendering thus: ὑπερίσχυσεν ὑπὲρ εὐλογίας ὀρέων μονίμων καὶ ἐπ ̓ εὐλογίαις θινῶν ἀενάων. The Vulgate, apparently misled by some Masoretic conjecture, translates 'Parentes mei,' and in this strange rendering it is followed by the English bishops, as well as by Swedenborg. Not to mention that the translation of the LXX., which gives a good sense, and is in harmony with the usus loquendi of the Old Testament generally, ought to have had some weight with Swedenborg in constructing his own, he might and ought to have known, from the reading of the Old Testament in the original, if he assumed to be a competent Hebrew scholar, that the word translated 'progenitors' never has this meaning in the Bible, nor can it have it. Let any one competent for the task bring proof on the contrary, and we will gladly make ample reparation to the reputation of Swedenborg as a good, or even a tolerable Hebrew scholar so far as this point is concerned. * * * As in the natural sense we are likely to make a broad distinction between mountains' and 'progenitors,' we of course hesitate to look upon Abraham and Isaac as equivalents for these mountains, though we can imagine that some imaginative follower of Swedenborg may think or even prove that it amounts in the end to the same thing. These mistranslations are critical blunders, and remain blunders under all circumstances; and, if it could be proved that they do not affect the "internal sense," either in principle or in detail of application, it would be natural to infer, either that no blundering in translation is strong enough to affect the elasticity of the manipulation of correspondence, or else that Swedenborg had a license to violate and abolish the common principles and methods of human proceedings, in order to be enabled to establish his 'internal sense,' notwithstanding that he says his 'internal sense' is absolutely based upon and contained within the letter." * * We meet this tremendous castigation by adducing the following weighty evidence in defence of Swedenborg. First, the almost universal agreement of the ancient authorities (omitting the LXX. and the Samaritan text and versions) sanctions the very rendering which our critic so contemptuously repudiates. For the Massoretic punctuation and accentuation, the Peshito, the Targums of Onkelos, of Jonathan, and that called Jerushalmi, the Vulgate, the Arabic of Saadjah, the Samaritan Arabic of Abu Saîd, the Venetian Greek, the Persian of Jacob Tawûs, all favour it. Secondly, omitting all references to elder Jewish and Christian authorities, we will cite Rosenmüller, Schumann, and Delitzsch (in their Commentaries on Genesis), and Fuerst (in his Hebr. Woerterbuch, sec. ed. s. v.), as quite modern scholars who accept it as correct, and who, by accepting it, make horim to mean parents,-the meaning which our critic declares ex cathedra that it cannot have. Further, the greatest modern Hebraist, Ewald, in the seventh edition of his large Lehrgebauede, p. 436, speaking of this very word, has assigned it the sense of parents; although he has not admitted that sense in his translation of this passage, in his celebrated Geschichte d. V. Israel, 3rd ed., vol. i., p. 586. Lastly, Gesenius invents a form hor, which is nowhere found except as a proper name, for the express purpose of making this single passage mean mountains. Surely, Swedenborg's "transparent blunder" finds countenance from a goodly array of eminent authorities! As for the generosity of the second paragraph of the above extract, we are only sorry that our adversary has had the heart to commit such an outrage on his own character. Truth and charity must, like Astræa, have left the earth, before such insults can seriously affect the assured position of the Swedish philosopher. The following is the third and last objection: "The fallibility of Swedenborg as a natural translator-that is to say, as a translator of the original text-might be proved by numberless incidental lapses and oversights. Such mishaps would, of course, be serious blemishes in the case of a mere translator, as proving that, at least, so far as this goes, he was not to be trusted as a faithful interpreter of the document before him. But the aspect of the matter becomes infinitely more serious, if we find that he not only frequently mistakes the sense of the original, but even by the force of mere blundering and ignorance of the language translates things which are not at all to be found in the original, and then quietly explains the spiritual sense of this blundering translation. As an instar omnium we will refer to Genesis ix. 6, where we read:'If any one sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.' Swedenborg, according to the English translation, translates:Whoso sheddeth man's blood in the man, by man shall his blood be shed.' Now, the words here translated in the man' are a pure fiction of Swedenborg's. They are not, so far as we know, to be found in any codex or published edition of the Old Testament, neither are they found in any translation, ancient or modern. Where, then, did Swedenborg get this additional reading from? The solution of this apparent riddle would seem to be as follows: using English letters for the Hebrew characters, the words of the text would read thus: Shophekh dam haadam, baadam damo yishaphekh. Shedding (the) blood (of) man, by man his blood shall be shed. Now, it so happens that the word baadam, by man, may also be rendered in man. If Swedenborg, therefore, rendered this word by in man, and afterwards forgetting that he had already translated it, rendered it a second time by man, the whole mystery is at once explained. Will any charitable reader help us to a better method of accounting for this strange phenomenon?" The charge of repeating the words which badaam represents is again one from which Swedenborg's own translation and commentary are wholly exempt. It falls exclusively on the English translation, and can, at the worst, be no more than a mere oversight, in persons |