only prior in date to the Hebrew character, but that it was the original language in which written characters were first made use of. Had he examined the book of Enoch farther, he would probably have altered his opinion. It seems, at least to me, so far as my limited knowledge of these languages allows me to decide, that there is very satisfactory evidence, that not only the most ancient, but also the more modern of these books was originally written in the Hebrew language.

I forbear to mention several minor proofs of this fact, which are contained in the book which I have endeavoured to restore, because I think that the word to which I will now direct the reader's attention, merits a more detailed examination than I could give to it, if I entered at any length into the discussion of the other derivations.

In a description of the day when "The Lord of "Spirits shall place upon the throne of his glory, "the elect one, who shall judge all the works of "the holy in heaven above," the following words

occur.

"The Cherubim, the Seraphim, and the Ophanin,

F

"all the angels of power, and all the angels of the

66

Lords, namely, of the elect one, and of the other

power, who was upon earth over the water on "that day, shall raise their united voice."

With the Hebrew etymology of Cherubim and Seraphim every reader will already be familiar; but as this is the first occasion on which I have met with the third word, "Ophanin," I regard it as being calculated to afford a test of the original language of this book; since, whatever might be its meaning, it is evidently intended by the author to express the name of the third of those angelic existences, of which the Cherubim and Seraphim occupy the two former places, as "the angels of power and the angels of the elect Lord," while the latter expresses the angel of the Lord last alluded "to, as the other power who was upon earth over the water on that day."

It appears to me that in the Hebrew, the same name is to be found, in the same juxta-position with the Cherubim, in 1 Kings vii. 30. in Ezekiel i. 15, 16, 19, 20, 21; and chap. x. 2, 6, 9, 10, &c. and that in the two latter of these chapters, much light is thrown upon a description which is otherwise in

explicable, by reference to the sense which the word Ophanin bears in the book of Enoch.

In the passage of the book of Kings indeed we may observe that the description is that of a sensible and material object, framed in conformity with Scriptural types, but still typically, and not simply representative; and therefore while we recognize the symbols of the oxen and lions, as appropriated to the Cherubim, we may conclude that the symbolic wheels not unaptly represent that power, which is described by Zechariah, as "the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole earth.”

But in the vision of Ezekiel we have a description of the objects before typified in Solomon's Temple; a description, allegorical perhaps, or emblematical, yet applied to those objects themselves. And here again, after the vision of the Cherubim, (verse 15.) "Behold one wheel upon the earth by "the living creatures with his four faces. The 66 appearance of the wheels and their work was "like unto the colour of a Beryl; and they four "had one likeness."

Now the Hebrew word for wheels which is given by Kennicott's Codices, and by every autho

rity which I have consulted in other passages where the word occurs without an allusion to the Cherubim, is simply, DN, unless where another word, baba, is used. For the chariot wheel of Pharoah, Exodus xiv. 25. the word is written without any vau. The potter's wheel, Jeremiah xviii. 3. is written in the same manner. I have only been able to find one instance where the vau is present, Nahum iii. and there the word is in the singular only, 158. The

other places which are translation have either,

rendered by wheels in our

2, or some more indefinite

expression, as feet, or

course, in the Hebrew.

τροχος

The LXX appear to have used rgoxos indifferently in the places which I have cited, but it happens that the hexapla is deficient in most of them.

The word here made use of throughout the whole of the first and tenth chapters, is, DN, Aopanin. And it is remarkable that, according to a usual mode of the formation of Hebrew nouns, the word might be thus made by the change of an initial Jod of the root, into vau, the formative Aleph being prefixed; and that if this were the case, the two roots from which the word could be thus formed, signify, either to breathe or live, or to shine splendidly; both of which attributes of

life and splendour, are ascribed to the mystical wheels, in the description given of them by Ezekiel, for the word translated dreadful in chap. i. 18. has the peculiar sense of dazzling by excess of light; and in a synonymous expression in verse 22, the same word is made use of, which, in Judges xiii. 6. is applied to the brightness of the countenance of the angel of God, who appeared to the wife of Manoah.

That the word

has been rightly rendered in the book of Kings, the context of that place sufficiently shews; but in this passage of Ezekiel I apprehend that it expresses, also, a'mysterious name, like that of Cherubim or Seraphim, like them, synonymous with a certain symbol, like them applied, as we see both are by Ezekiel, to living creatures, and like them expressive of one order of those angelic beings who stand before the throne And thus also we find that the writer of

of God.

this book applies it.

Both in the first and in the tenth chapters, Ezekiel describes the wheels as being living creatures, "the spirit of life was in the wheels"-and ascribes to them "eyes round about," in terms which he