Conclusion

CONCLUSION

IN my general preface prefixed to the book of Genesis, I gave a succinct account of the plan I pursued in preparing this work for the press; but as this plan became necessarily extended, and led to much farther reading, examination, and discussion, I judge it necessary, now that the work is concluded, to give my readers a general summary of the whole, that they may be in possession of my mode of proceeding, and be enabled more fully to comprehend the reasons why the work has been so long in passing through the press. [This refers only to the first edition.] My education and habits from early youth led me to read and study the Bible, not as a text-book to confirm the articles of a preconceived creed, but as a revelation from God to man, (of his will and purposes in reference to the origin and designation of his human offspring,) which it was the duty of all the inhabitants of the earth deeply to study, and earnestly to endeavour to understand, as it concerned their peace and happiness, and the perfection of their being in reference to both worlds. Conscious that translators in general must have had a particular creed, in reference to which they would naturally consider every text, and this reference, however honestly intended, might lead them to glosses not always fairly deducible from the original words, I sat down with a heart as free from bias and sectarian feeling as possible, and carefully read over, cautiously weighed, and literally translated every word, Hebrew and Chaldee, in the Old Testament. And as I saw that it was possible, even while assisted by the best translations and best lexicographers, to mistake the import of a Hebrew term, and considering that the cognate Asiatic languages would be helps of great importance in such an inquiry I collated every verse where I was apprehensive of any difficulty with the Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian, and the AEthiopic in the Polyglot translation, as far as the sacred writings are extant in these languages; and I did this with a constant reference to the various readings collected by Houbigant, H. Michaelis, Kennicott, and Deuteronomy Rossi, and to the best editions of the Septuagint and Vulgate, which are the earliest translations of the Hebrew text that have reached our times.

Nor have I been satisfied with these collections of various readings; I have examined and collated several ancient Hebrew MSS., which preceding scholars had never seen, with many ancient MSS. of the Vulgate equally unknown to Biblical critics. This work required much time and great pains, and necessarily occasioned much delay; and no wonder, when I have often, on my plan, been obliged to employ as much time in visiting many sources and sailing down their streams, in order to ascertain a genuine reading, or fix the sense of a disputed verse, as would have been sufficient for some of my contemporaries to pass whole sheets of their work through the press. Had I not followed this method, which to me appeared absolutely necessary, I should have completed my work, such as it would have been, in less than one half of the time.

These previous readings, collations, and translations, produced an immense number of notes and observations on all parts of the Old Testament, which, by the advice and entreaty of several learned and judicious friends, I was induced to extend in the form of a perpetual comment on every book in the Bible. This being ultimately revised and completed as far as the book of Judges, which formed, in my purpose, the boundary of my proceedings on the Hebrew Scriptures, I was induced to commit it to press. Though my friends in general wished me to go forward with the Old Testament, yet, as several of them were apprehensive, from the infirm state of my health at that time, that I might not live long enough to finish the whole, they advised me strongly to omit for the present the Old Testament, and begin with the New. This was in conformity with my own feelings on the subject, having wished simply to add the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles to the five books of Moses and the books of Joshua and Judges; as these two parcels of Divine revelation, carefully illustrated, would give a full view of the origin and final settlement of the Church of the Old Covenant, and the commencement and completion of that of the New. And thus I proceeded:—

After having literally translated every word of the New Testament, that last best gift of God to man; comparing the whole with all the ancient versions, and the most important of the modern; collating all with the various readings collected by Stephens, Courcel, Fell, Gherard of Maestricht, Bengel, Mill, Wetstein, and Griesbach; actually examining many MSS., either cursorily or not at all examined by them; illustrating the whole by quotations from ancient authors, rabbinical, Grecian, Roman; and Asiatic; I exceeded my previous design, and brought down the work to the end of the Apocalypse; and passed the whole through the press.

I should mention here a previous work, (without which any man must be ill qualified to undertake the illustration of the New Testament,) viz., a careful examination of the Septuagint. In this the phraseology of the New Testament is contained, and from this the import of that phraseology is alone to be derived. This I read carefully over to the end of the book of Psalms, in the edition of Dr. Grabe, from the Codex Alexandrinus; collating it occasionally with editions taken from the Vatican MS., and particularly that printed by Field, at Cambridge, 1665, 18mo., with the Paraenetic preface of the learned Bishop Pearson. Without this previous work, who did ever yet properly comprehend the idiom and phraseology of the Greek Testament? Now, all these are parts of my labour which common readers cannot conceive; and which none can properly appreciate, as to the pains, difficulty, and time which must be expended, who have not themselves trodden this almost unfrequented path.

When the New Testament was thus prepared and finished at press, I was induced, though with great reluctance, to recommence the Old. I was already nearly worn down by my previous work, connected with other works and duties which I could not omit; and though I had gone through the most important parts of the sacred records, yet I could easily foresee that I had an ocean of difficulties to wade through in those parts that remained. The Historical Books alone, in their chronology, arrangement of facts, concise and often obscure phraseology, presented not a few; the books of Solomon, and those of the major and minor prophets, a multitude. Notwithstanding all these, I hope I may say that, having obtained help of God, I am come with some success to the conclusion; having aimed at nothing, throughout the whole but the glory of God and the good of men.

But still something remains to be said concerning the modus operandi, or particular plan of proceeding. In prosecuting this work I was led to attend, in the first instance, more to words than to things, in order to find their true ideal meaning; together with those different shades of acceptation to which they became subject, either in the circumstances of the speakers and those who were addressed, or in their application to matters which use, peculiarity of place and situation, and the lapse of time, had produced. It was my invariable plan to ascertain first, the literal meaning of every word and phrase; and where there was a spiritual meaning, or reference, to see how it was founded on the literal sense. He who assumes his spiritual meanings first, is never likely to interpret the words of God either to his own credit or to the profit of his readers; but in this track commentator has followed commentator, so that, in many cases, instead of a careful display of God’s words and the objects of his providence and mercy, we have tissues of strange doctrines, human creeds, and confessions of faith. As I have said in another place, I speak not against compilations of this kind; but let them be founded on the words of God, first properly understood.

As I proceeded in my work I met with other difficulties. I soon perceived an almost continual reference to the literature, arts, and sciences of the Ancient World, and of the Asiatic nations in particular; and was therefore obliged to make these my particular study, having found a thousand passages which I could neither illustrate nor explain, without some general knowledge at least of their jurisprudence, astronomy, architecture, chemistry, chirurgery, medicine, metallurgy, pneumatics, &c., with their military tactics, and the arts and trades (as well ornamental as necessary) which are carried on in common life.

In the course of all this labour I have also paid particular attention to those facts mentioned in the sacred writings which have been the subjects of animadversion or ridicule by free-thinkers and infidels of all classes and in all times: and I hope I may say that no such passage is either designedly passed by or superficially considered; that the strongest objections are fairly produced and met; that all such parts of these Divine writings are, in consequence, exhibited in their own lustre; and that the truth of the doctrine of our salvation has had as many triumphs as it has had attacks from the rudest and most formidable of its antagonists; and on all such disputed points I humbly hope that the reader will never consult these volumes in vain. And if those grand doctrines which constitute what by some is called orthodoxy; that prove that God is loving to every man; that from his innate, infinite and eternal goodness, he wills and has made provision for the salvation of every human soul; be found to be those which alone have stood the rigid test of all the above sifting and examination; it was not because these were sought for beyond all others, and the Scriptures bent in that way in order to favour them; but because these doctrines are essentially contained in, and established by, the ORACLES OF GOD.

I may add, that these doctrines and all those connected with them, (such as the defection and sinfulness of man; the incarnation and sacrificial death of Christ; his infinite, unoriginated, and eternal Deity; justification by faith in his blood; and the complete sanctification of the soul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,) have not only been shown to be the doctrines of the sacred records, but have also been subjected to the strongest test of logical examination; and, in the notes, are supported by arguments, many of them new, applied in such a way as has not been done before in any similar or theological work.

In this arduous labour I have had no assistants; not even a single week’s help from an amanuensis; no person to look for common-places, or refer to an ancient author; to find out the place and transcribe a passage of Greek, Latin, or any other language, which my memory had generally recalled, or to verify a quotation; the help excepted which I received in the chronological department from my nephew. I have laboured alone for nearly twenty-five years previously to the work being sent to press; and fifteen years have been employed in bringing it through the press to the public; and thus about forty years of my life have been consumed, and from this the reader will at once perceive that the work, well or ill executed, has not been done in a careless or precipitate manner; nor have any means within my reach been neglected to make it in every respect, as far as possible, what the title-page promises,-A HELP TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SACRED WRITINGS.

Thus, through the merciful help of God, my labour in this field terminates; a labour, which were it yet to commence, with the knowledge I now have of its difficulty, and my, in many respects, inadequate means, millions, even of the gold of Ophir, and all the honours that can come from man, could not induce me to undertake. Now that it is finished, I regret not the labour; I have had the testimony of many learned, pious, and judicious friends relative to the execution and usefulness of the work. It has been admitted into the very highest ranks of society, and has lodged in the cottages of the poor. It has been the means of doing good to the simple of heart; and the wise man and the scribe, the learned and the philosopher, according to their own generous acknowledgments, have not consulted its pages in vain.

For these, and all his other mercies to the writer and reader, may God, the Fountain of all good, be eternally praised!

ADAM CLARKE.

Eastcott, April 17, 1826.