before the present time, which alone can be the sense of this passage, and which is therefore rightly rendered by our translators, "They had seen before with him, in the city, Trophimus an Ephesian." To have said, 66 They had foreseen with him," would have totally marred the sense. But our translators have not always been equally attentive.

21. I SHALL add an example, not unlike the former, in the verb лроуivwσxw, though the difficulty, with regard to it, arises as much from the signification of the simple verb, as from that of the preposition. Paul says ", Ουκ απώσατο ὁ Θεος τον λαον aves on apoyo, which our translators render, God αυτό όν προεγνω, hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. The last clause in this version conveys to my mind no meaning whatever. To foreknow always signifies to know some event before it happen; but no event is here mentioned, so that we are at a loss to discover the object of the foreknowledge mentioned. Is it only the existence of the people? Even this is not explicitly said; but if this were the writer's intention, we should still be at a loss for the sense. There is nothing in this circumstance, which distinguishes God's people from any other people, for the existence of all were equally foreknown by him: whereas here something peculiar is plainly intended, which is suggested as a reason to prevent our thinking that God would ever totally cast them away. Though no

15 Rom. xi. 2

thing, to appearance, can answer more exactly than the English foreknew, does to the Greek poεyvw, it, in reality, labours under a double defect. The first is the same which was observed in the preceding paragraph, in rendering the preposition; for there is the same difference between knowing before and foreknowing, that there is between seeing before and foreseeing. Our translators have, on some occasions, shown themselves sensible of the difference. Accordingly they render προγινώσκοντες ue avadev ", which knew me from the beginning, not ανωθεν foreknew me. The example above quoted from the twenty-first chapter of the Acts, is a similar in

με

stance.

16

The prepositions in the two languages, though nearly, are not perfectly, correspondent, especially in composition. With us the inseparable preposition fore, prefixed to know, see, tell, and show, always relates to some event, which is known, seen, told, and shown before it happen whereas the Greek preposition pо does not necessarily relate to προ an event, and signifies no more than before this time. The difference in these idioms may be thus illustrated. A friend introducing a person with whom he supposes me unacquainted, says, This is such a man. I make answer, I knew him before. I should speak nonsense, if I said, I foreknew him. Yet in Greek I might say properly, лроεуvшv.

Another instance wherein our interpreters have shown an attention to this distinction, we have in the

16 Acts, xxvi. 5.

Second Epistle to the Corinthians", where they translate the word лроεрnжа very properly, I have said before. Every reader of discernment must perceive that it would have been absurd to render it in that place, I have foretold.

But to return to the passage under review in the Epistle to the Romans: it was observed, that the common version of the word ρоɛуvw, in that passage, labours under a double defect. It is not, in my judgment, barely in translating the preposition that the error lies, but also in the sense assigned to the verb compounded with it. That God knew Israel before, in the ordinary meaning of the word knowing, could never have been suggested as a reason to hinder us from thinking that he would ever cast them off: for, from the beginning, all nations and all things are alike known to God. But the verb ywvwoxw, in Hellenistic use, has all the latitude of signification which the verb y jadang has, being that whereby the Seventy commonly render the Hebrew word. Now the Hebrew word means not only to know, in the common acceptation, but to acknowledge and to approve. Nothing is more common in Scripture than this use. "The Lord know"eth, yivwoxɛ, the way of the righteous 18," that is, approveth. "Then I will profess unto them, I "never knew you," yvwv, acknowledged you for mine 19. "If any man love God, the same is known

17 vii, 3.

18 Psalm i. 6.

19 Matth. vii. 23.

"of him 20," yvwgα, acknowledged. If, therefore, in the passage under examination, we understand int this way the verb yvwoxo, adding the import of the preposition ро, before, formerly, heretofore, the meaning is both clear and pertinent: "God hath "not cast off his people whom heretofore he acknowledged."

I shall just add a sense of the verb лроуivσx as used by the Apostle Peter ", different from both the former. The verb yvwoxo in classical use often denotes to decree, to ordain, to give sentence as a judge, and therefore роуivшσxw, to foreordain, &c. It is in this sense only we can understand Пpoɛyvwoμevs προ καταβολης κοσμs, which our interpreters have rightly rendered "foreordained, before the founda"tion of the world." But they have not so well translated the verbal noun роyvwots in the second verse of the chapter, foreknowledge, which renders the expression, indefinite and obscure, not to say, improper. It ought, for the same reason, to have been predetermination. The same word, in the same signification, occurs in the acts 22, where it is also improperly rendered foreknowledge.

22. IT may be thought that, in the composition of substantives, or of an adjective and a substantive, in familiar use, there is hardly a possibility of error, the import of both the simple words being essential to the compound. But this is not

20 1 Cor. viii. 3. 21 1 Peter, i. 20.

22 Acts, ii. 23.

without exception, as βωμολοχος, συκοφαντης, χειροTovia, and many others, evince. It is indeed very probable, that the import of such terms originally was, what the etymology indicates. But, in their application, such variations are insensibly introduced by custom, as sometimes fix them, at last, in a meaning very different from the primary sense, or that to which the component parts would lead us.

I shall bring for an example a term about which translators have been very little divided. It is the word σκληροκαρδια, always rendered in the common version, hardness of heart. Nothing can be more literal, or to appearance, more just. Σκληροκαρδια is compounded of oxλnpos hard, and xapdia heart. Nor can it be denied that these English words, taken severally, are, in almost every case, expressive of the full sense of the Greek words, also taken severally. Yet there is reason to suspect that the Greek compound does not answer to the meaning constantly affixed by us to hardness of heart, or, in one word, hardheartedness. Let us recur to examples. In Matthew 23 we read thus ; "Moses, be

cause of the hardness of your hearts, προς την σκληροκαρδίαν ύμων, suffered you to put away your "wives." Now these terms hardness of heart with us always denote cruelty, inhumanity, barbarity. It does not appear that this is our Lord's meaning in this passage. And, though the passage might be so paraphrased, as would give a plausibility to this in