The Period of the Persian Monarchy, Chapter 21
CHAP. XXI.
THe Argument to prove the word foreign to signify Freemen, from the use of the Chaldee word foreign was not worth the printing. What? doth not that Chaldee come by etymology frō the Hebrew word, and doth the Chaldee usually signifie Freemen? and yet doe you say, the Argument thence is of no force? No. Of none at all. For to passe it over, that the Chaldee edition is but a Paraphrase, no punctuall Translation; neither is it, as it is, so exact; (so saith rDe Verb. Dei li. 2. cap. 3.Bellarmine) neither is it sAquila is thought to fl…rish unde… Adrian the Emperour after Christ.sOnkelos, but forty yeares before the birth of Christ.auncient enough to cary a conclusion for the use of a word (for in so many hundred of yeares as the Chaldee is later then Nehemiah, tis usuall for significations of words to change; Tis Vse rather then Grammar that brings in significations of words. (tHorat in arte poëticâ. Vse is Norma Loquendi.) To passe over all this, what if the Chaldee foreign be used to signifie Nobles, as well as the Hebrew foreign? Where is all this boasting then? Looke but in Dan…el 7.9. (and Daniel lived about the dayes of Nehemiah) and there only, that I know, we have the Chaldee wo…d. It is foreign it signifies and is translated White, just as the Hebrew word. And Nobles using to apparell themselves in white, thence they were both in the Chaldee and Hebrw words called foreign and foreign. Neither doe we speake at randome. For uin radice foreignSchindler, (as great a Linguist as Christendome hath knowne, dispraise to none) doth assure us, That the Chaldee foreign doth signifie men of place; & he doth expresse the meaning of the Chaldee by three Latine words, Principes, Magnates, Primates, all which signifie great men. And if the Chaldee Paraphrase may be heard for good; then looke Ier. 27.20. wherfore our Hebrew word foreign (which we translate Nobles of Iudah,) The Chaldee hath foreign, that is, The Princes. Both come to one.
Therefore the Chaldee himselfe being Iudge, the Hebrew foreign is not Freemen; but Princes. But doth not foreign in Chaldee properly signifie a Freeman? It doth. Is it not derived by Etymology from the Hebrew foreign? I thinke so; I grant it: and yet all this comes not home to the point. For words have the signification from the common use, and the Chaldee comming in long after, had some a…teration from the grammaticall signification. And that I doe not onelyonly say, but prove. For because the Chaldee doth not use to expresse the Hebrew foreign by the Chaldee foreign (though foreign be derived from foreign,) but to shew a difference, the Chaldee paraphrase is constant in using to render the Hebrew word foreign, which is indeed precisely a Freeman, by the Chaldee word foreign, which was in the Language when the paraphrase wrote Freemen. As Ez. 21.2. foreign in Hebrew; in the Chaldee foreign, i. e. the sonne of the Freeman. Sith then the Chaldee doth not expresse foreign by foreign, …ut by some other word s…gnifying Nobles xChaldaeus passim pro foreign habet foreign …ilius liberorum. So Pagni…. in Thes. in radice foreign, but foreign he doth ever use to translate by foreign; therefore I conclude, that in the Iudgement of the Chaldee paraphrast himselfe, our word foreign doth signifie Nobles, and not Freemen.
To argue from the signification, of a word, that it now hath to prove the signification it had 400, or 500 yeares agoe, is of no force; sith the use of words doe come and goe, almost as fast as the fashion of Clothes. As it follows not that because foreign doth signifie a Tyrant now, that therefore it doth never signifie a King. Times doe change, and words doe alter with Time, both in pronunciation and signification. And so I thinke that the Chaldee, which in the Paraphrast his dayes did signif…e Freemen long before, when it came first out of the Hebrew word foreign, did signifie Nobles. Howsoever men please to thinke of that Conjecture, I have my desire in that the Chaldee himselfe doth not translate foreign by foreign, signifying Freemen; though radically foreign doth derive it selfe from foreign. But foreign they doe construe by words signifying Nobles.
Say then that Nehemiah had not testified against the Servants, which the Text flatly sayth hee did, and say that foreign did signifie Masters, which we have proved to be very false: yet thus to dispute; He contested with the Masters, Ergo, the Masters were onelyonly in the sinne: And, The Servants did not sinne, because not contested with: This I say is such an Enthymeme, that a Freshman newly come from turning over Brierwoods Notes, can tell how at the first sight with reason to deny the Consequence. For Nehemiah did reprove the Nobles, because they were in greatest fault to suffer it. And in their hands it lay much to reforme it. And Nehemiah would not be sayed in it, but threatens them all, rich and poore, mighty and meane, bond and free, Master and Man, one with another. And he had his Will. God gave him good successe. For the Text saith, That they went away, and from that time forth, they came no more on the Sabbath day. And what a mercy were it, if the Lord would be pleased so to order the hearts, pennes, and tongues of the Learned, that from henceforth, they would give over and speake, and write no more against the Sabbath Day.
FINIS.
End of the text · William Pemble, The Period of the Persian Monarchy (1631)