Wilhelm Gesenius - Writings

Writings

Of his many works, the earliest, published in 1810, entitled Versuch über die maltesische Sprache, was a successful refutation of the current opinion that the modern Maltese language was of Punic origin. In the same year appeared the first volume of the Hebräisches u. Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch, completed in 1812. Revised editions of this appear periodically in Germany.

Of particular interest to English-speaking students of Hebrew are two related works, which arrived on modern library shelves through parallel paths. In 1833, Gesenius published a Latin work, the Lexicon Manuale Hebraicum et Chaldaicum in Veteris Testamenti Libros, and in 1834 a corresponding issue of the German work, Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament. The Lexicon Manuale was subsequently translated to English in America by Edward Robinson D.D. in 1836. The British scholar and theologian Tregelles published his own version in 1846, which was reissued in 1857 with special warnings in a section "To The Student" about scholarly attacks on Christianity and the dangers of Gesenius' rationalism.

The publication of a new Hebrew-English Lexicon was started in 1892 under the editorship of Professors Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver and Charles Augustus Briggs, now well known as the Brown Driver Briggs lexicon or BDB for short. It was published in 1906. With the Lexicon Manuale as a starting point, it drew heavily from the Hebräisches und Chaldäisches as well as Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (external link below) and Thesaurus (cited below). Since then, both the Tregelles Lexicon and the BDB and have been reissued with Strong's numbering system to aid in navigating their contents.

The Hebräische Grammatik, published in 1813 (28th edition by Emil Kautzsch; English translation by Arthur Ernest Cowley, 1910; 29th edition by Gotthelf Bergstrasser, 1918–29), was followed in 1815 by the Geschichte der hebräischen Sprache (now very rare), and in 1817 by the Ausführliches Lehrgebäude der hebräischen Sprache.

The first volume of his well-known commentary on Isaiah (Der Prophet Jesaia), with a translation, appeared in 1821; but the work was not completed until 1829. The Thesaurus philologico-criticus linguae Hebraicae et Chaldaicae Veteris Testamenti, begun in 1829, he did not live to complete; the latter part of the third volume is edited by Rödiger (1853). Other works include: De Pentateuchi Samaritana origine, indole, et auctoritate (1815), supplemented in 1822 and 1824 by the treatise De Samaritanorum theologia, and by an edition of Carmina Samaritana; Paläographische Studien über phönizische u. punische Schrift (1835), a pioneering work which he followed up in 1837 by his collection of Phoenician monuments (Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta quotquot supersunt); an Aramaic lexicon (1834–1839); and a treatise on the Old South Arabian language, then called Himyarite, written in conjunction with Rödiger in 1841.

Gesenius also contributed extensively to Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopädie, and enriched the German translation of Johann Ludwig Burckhardt's Travels in Syria and the Holy Land with valuable geographical notes. For many years he also edited the Halle Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung. A sketch of his life was published anonymously in 1843 (Gesenius: eine Erinnerung für seine Freunde), and another by Hermann Gesenius, Wilhelm Gesenius, ein Erinnerungsblatt an den hundertjährigen Geburtstag am 3. Februar 1886, in 1886.