Delitzsch Friedrich. The Hebrew language viewed in the light of Assyrian research

Williams and Norgate, 1883. — 102 p.The substance of the present treatise is a reprint, in a
revised and augmented form, of a series of articles which
appeared in Nos. 2897, 2898, 2900, 2902, 2908, 2909, 2913
of the Athenaeum. In reissuing these articles in the shape
of a separate publication I have in view the double object
of making them accessible to a larger circle of readers and
of eliciting the opinions of scholars competent to judge of
the soundness or otherwise of the principles here advocated.
My esteemed teacher, Professor Dillmann, in his discussion
on the site of Paradise, ironically refers to my own solution
of that difficult question as having been effected by “the
well known wand of cuneiform research”. I am prepared
to hear the same remark applied to the present work, which
endeavours to apply the results of Assyriology to the lexicographical
treatment of the Hebrew language. I reject from
the very outset the reproach that I am trying to explain
“everything” by Assyrian. It is true I have explained
Assyrian itself by its own help and it is no small satis-
faction to me that I have arrived at results which have
already met with the approval of scholars not biased in
favour of Assyriology.
When I commenced the study of Assyrian, Assyriology
was in a state of slavish dependency on Arabic lexicography.
I soon became convinced that Arabic was less important to
the study of Assyrian than the North Semitic languages,
the Hebrew and the Aramaic dialects, a conviction which
I regard as the fundamental principle of Assyrian research.
Thus the Assyrian dictionary, which embodies a world of ancient
Semitic thought and speech, disclosed an entirely new foundation
for the understanding of the sacred language of the Old
Testament and created a new line of interpretation directly
opposed to the old system of Assyrian as well as of Hebrew
lexicography.