ART. VII. A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, arranged in Chronological Order. By GEORGE R. NOYES. Vol. I. containing Joel, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah. Boston. Charles Bowen. 1833. 12mo. pp. xii. and 288. MR. NOYES called his excellent work upon Job an Amended Version. With better justice to himself and the subject, he has given to the public the results of his studies upon the Psalms and some of the Prophets, under the name of New Translations. We have his views upon the point suggested in this change, though without express reference to it, in the Preface to the present publication. "It seems to have been supposed by some, that I have retained a portion of the phraseology of the old version in deference to the popular prejudice in its favor. I therefore deem it proper to state, that I have proceeded upon no narrower principle than this, to adopt that meaning of the original, which appeared to my judgment the true one, and that mode of expressing it, which seemed to my taste the best. The associations connected with certain expressions form, it is true, an important part of their recommendation. But when I have used certain expressions on this account, it was because they had such associations in my own mind. In many instances a phraseology somewhat antiquated has been retained, because it was to my taste, or because I could think of no expressions, which, on the whole, I preferred to see in their place. I wish, therefore, to assume all the responsibility, though not the credit, connected with the phraseology of my version. I may have been unduly attached to certain forms of expression in the old version on account of feelings and prejudices existing in my own mind, but I wholly, disclaim, in this matter, any deference to the feelings, prejudices, or opinions of others, farther than they wholly coincide with my own. I cheerfully forego all the patronage which is founded on any supposed respect of mine for any prevailing public sentiment in relation to the subject. I think it hardly necessary to add, that I have found nothing in the character of the translators of the received version, or in the instructions which they received in relation to the execution of the work from the royal pedant, their master, which should make their authority binding on all succeeding ages. "Those portions of the common version, which remain unaltered in mine, have, in proportion to their difficulty, been the subject of as extensive and laborious investigation, as those which have been altered. This fact deserves the attention of those, who object to new translations. The increased confidence, which they may place in those parts of the common version, which pass through the furnace of modern investigation unchanged, should compensate them for any supposed evils, connected with the alteration of other parts of it. "In the translation of the Psalms, as in the following volume, fewer alterations occur than in the Book of Job. This happens, not from the slightest change of my views, nor, as I trust, from any relaxation in my labors, but simply because the Book of Job was worse translated than any other portion of the common version, and needed more alteration. In what I may be able to translate hereafter, I shall proceed upon the same principle, with which I commenced, viz. to spare no idea, which seems unauthorized by the original, and no expression, for which I can substitute a better."-pp. x, xi. Nothing, it appears to us, could be better said; no principles pertaining to the subject, more sound. It is a sad, and a shameful superstition, which permits the common version to stand in the way of better aids towards a comprehension of the sense of the sacred writers. It is not necessary to deny to that version all praise, in order to show that it by no means satisfies the reasonable demands of the church at the present day. The occasion for some of its defects, at the time of its production unavoidable, is now at least partially removed. It was made, as is allowed on all hands, from a faulty text of the original. In respect to the New Testament, we are altogether without excuse for not availing ourselves of those corrections of the text, which have since been amply gathered, and are no matter of dispute. And though we have nothing which can be called a critical edition of the Old Testament, and from the want on one side, and the multiplicity on the other, of the materials which should furnish it, can scarcely hope for one, at least in our day, yet the observations of Kennicott and his successors on the Masoretic authorities, the fuller examinations of some ancient versions, and the collation of others not known two centuries ago, have by no means failed to furnish readings by which a sober critic will know how to profit. But, however it may be with emendatory criticism, in the department of interpretation great strides have been made since the time of King James's translators. The Hebrew language had been then but partially recovered. The vocabulary, as arranged in dictionaries, was rendered solely from the tradition in the Jewish schools, and the testimony of ancient versions. The fruits of those large contributions to Hebrew lexicography, from the cognate dialects, which, begun by Schultens a century ago, continue still to be made, were of course then all inaccessible, to say nothing of the progress made in collateral knowledge of various kinds, as in ancient profane history, Oriental customs and opinions, natural history, geography, and the like, which, in the poetical books especially, is of material consideration. Though, as a practical matter concerning ourselves, blamable defects in the work are of no more account than such as could not be avoided, yet it is further true that the work was by no means so well done, as, at the time and place of its execution, it should have been. It is quite uncertain whether, on the whole, it is so good as the Bishop's Bible, which preceded it. It is quite certain that it is not so good in many parts. We do not particularly speak of cases where a translation is plainly adopted for reasons of dogmatics rather than of philology; nor of the careless admission of idioms foreign to the genius of our tongue; nor of the want of uniformity in rendering the same original in different parts, extending even to the disguising of the identity of proper names, and of the subject of a single paragraph; nor of the profuse overlaying of the meaning with unmeaning Italic interpolations; nor of the copying of the egregious Genevan blunder of breaking up the book, without measure or reason, into fragments called verses; a device which it is all but inconceivable that men of sense should adopt, except on set purpose to confuse their author's sense. To say nothing, beyond a passing word, of such particulars as these, it is impossible, we insist, in reading many passages, to avoid the conclusion, that the translators, notwithstanding their famous apparatus of classes and revisions, gave themselves no concern as to whether they were conveying a sense or not; and, in some, it is quite clear that they thought of nothing but to dispose, no matter how, let the reader see to that, of a verse which they did not understand, that so they might come at another, more manageable. If any reader is disposed to contradict us, let him look, for an example that strikes us at the moment, at Hosea iv. 18. We will not lumber our pages with it. Mr. Noyes, as usual, is at the trouble to find and give the sense. Obscurity, indeed, whether arising from ignorance or carelessness, is the pervading fault of the work. We complain of it much seldomer for giving wrong senses than for giving none. Altogether too much of it there is, from which no idea whatever is to be gathered. We do not speak of texts touching doctrine. The remark, if peculiarly, is by no means exclusively, applicable to them. The Book of Job, presenting an alternation of magnificent with utterly unintelligible passages, and the last chapter of Habakkuk, where a glorious strain of poetry, partly well transfused into English, is in part marvellously marred, are specimens of the prevailing character of the version. Old Had it been much better executed than it was, we apprehend that judicious men would think, that it was now time for another to be provided to take its place. The course of languages can no more be stopped than that of ages. words and phrases are superseded. They go out of use; their meaning is forgotten, and their sound becomes strange. If they do not lose their significance, they change it; and then, instead of an imperfect idea or none, they suggest one, which, in the place where they continue to stand, is erroneous. Or they attach to themselves associations of an undignified and repulsive character, altogether foreign to their primitive design and force. Of the last case, we will adduce no examples; they are unhappily too familiar. Of the first, are such as (6 went about to kill me,' ""fetched a compass, "took up our carriages," which occur within a short space in the Acts of the Apostles. Of the second is the word let (as 2 Thes. ii. 7.) for hinder, a word which the great majority of English readers have no suspicion, except as they gather it from their Bibles, to have been ever used except in the opposite sense; and the word meat, in meat-offerings, from which what we call meat was excluded. This essential character of language makes it indispensable for the most skilful translation, if it is not to be suffered to survive its estimation and best usefulness, to be superseded in due time by another, conformed to the changes in expression which have meanwhile taken place. And we will add, though we do not intend to urge the point, that, as the most simple and popular forms of speech become in a degree technical when they have been much cited and used in the arguments of theologians, and can hardly fail to have something of arbitrary meaning thus su -- perinduced upon them, a change of translated phraseology from time to time, if it be but in a substitution of synonymous words, may well do something towards restoring the freshness of the original sense. We conceive that Mr. Noyes has made the Christian public much his debtor by the portion now before us of a version of that difficult, and strongly interesting part of Scripture, the Hebrew prophecies. As it would be premature, while his work has advanced no further, to make it the text of a discussion of any of the important points relating to the character, and principles of interpretation, of those writings, we have little to do but repeat the testimony, which we have borne,* on the two previous occasions of his coming before the public, to the exceeding value of his labors. Three things are especially to be spoken of to his praise; his learning, his cautious and sound judgment, and his beautiful taste. In the two last qualities, particularly, he is very advantageously distinguished from Lowth and Newcome, with whose works the present volume is most likely to be compared. Lowth was the founder of a most adventurous school of Hebrew criticism in England. It is astonishing how confidently and how easily he helps himself out of all sorts of difficulties, by conjectural emendations of the text, countenanced or not countenanced by some obscure copy or version. We have no doubt, as we have already hinted, that there are texts in the Old Testament, long ago corrupted, which are incapable of being restored in any other way. Every one for example, who does not mean to affirm that the author of Chronicles supposed that a son might be older than his father, must allow that either 2 Chronicles xxi. 20. or xxii. 2. is one such. But, on the other hand, no considerate person can fail to see the extreme danger of giving license to conjectural emendation of writings in the Hebrew language, in which the close mutual resemblance of some of the letters constantly offers such a seductive invitation, and such color of reason, to capricious changes. Here was the great vice of Lowth, and of his followers, Blayney and Newcome. For curiosity's sake, we should like much to see how a Unitarian editor would fare at the hands of the critics, who should take such liberties with his text as did these dignitaries of the English |