_come before_, or _anticipate_. It is always used
in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's expression, in the
English of the nineteenth century, would be "Before the dawning of the
morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the Bible, words are used
in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and sometimes in a sense
totally _opposite_ to their present meaning. A few examples follow: "I
purposed to come to you, but was _let_ (hindered) hitherto." "And the
four _beasts_ (living ones) fell down and worshiped God,"--"Whosoever
shall _offend_ (cause to sin) one of these little ones,"--Go out into
the highways and _compel_ (urge) them to come in,"--Only let your
_conversation_ (habitual conduct) be as becometh the Gospel,"--"The Lord
Jesus Christ who shall judge the _quick_ (living) and the dead,"--They
that seek me _early_ (earnestly) shall find me," So when tribulation or
persecution ariseth _by-and-by_ (immediately) they are offended."
Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like bodies, are always
throwing off some particles and absorbing others. So long as they are
mere representatives, elected by the whims of universal suffrage, their
meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it up for the next
century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak within bounds) for
a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never was a shallower conceit
than that of establishing the sense attached to a word centuries ago, by
showing what it means _now_. Pity that fashionable mantuamakers were not
a little quicker at taking hints from some Doctors of Divinity. How
easily they might save their pious customers all qualms of conscience
about the weekly shiftings of fashion, by proving that the last
importation of Parisian indecency now "showing off" on promenade, was
the very style of dress in which the modest and pious Sarah kneaded
cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion flaunts along Broadway _now_,
it _must_ have trailed over Canaan four thousand years ago!

The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of
servants, means procuring them as _chattels_, seems based upon the
fallacy, that whatever _costs_ money _is_ money; that whatever or
whoever you pay money _for_, is an article of property, and the fact of
your paying for it, _proves_ it property. 1. The children of Israel were
required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the
priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex