and established. It is true that such would not
be the case if there indeed occurred in Arabic the expression [Arabic:
**] _fastidivit vir mulierem eamque expulit, s. repudiavit_; but it is
only by a strange _quid pro quo_ that interpreters, even _Schultens_
among them, following the example of _Kimchi_, have saddled this
expression upon the Arabic. The error lies in a hasty view of _Adul
Walid_, who, instead of it, has [Arabic: **] _any one is embarrassed in
his affair_. The signification _fastidire_, _rejicere_, is, in general,
quite foreign to the Arabic. The verb [Arabic: **] denotes only: _mente
turbatus_, _attonitus fuit_, _i.e._, _to be possessed_, _deprived of
the use of one's strength_, _to be embarrassed_, _not to know how to
help one's self_: compare the _Camus_ in _Schultens_ and _Freytag_. As
soon as the plain connection of this signification with the ordinary
one is perceived, it is seen at once, that it is here out of the
question. As regards the second derivation, we must bring this
objection against it, that the fundamental signification of _ruling_,
from which that of _ruling tyrannically_ is said to have arisen, is
entirely foreign to the Hebrew. More clearly than by modern
Lexicographers it was seen by _Cocceius_, that the fundamental, yea the
only signification of [Hebrew: bel], is that of _possessing_, [Pg 377]
_occupying_. It may, indeed, be used also of rulers, as, _e.g._ Isa.
xxvi. 13, and 1 Chron. iv. 22; but not in so far as they rule, but in
so far as they possess. On the former passage: "Jehovah our God,
[Hebrew: belvnv advniM zvltiM], Lords beside thee have dominion over
us," _Schultens_, it is true, remarks: "Every one here easily
recognizes a severe and tyrannical dominion;" but it is rather the
circumstance that the land of the Lord has at all foreign possessors,
which is the real sting of the grief of those lamenting, and which so
much occupies them, that they scarcely think of the way and manner of
the possessing.--Passages such as Is. liv. 1,[1] lxii. 4, compare Job
i. 8, where a relation is spoken of, founded on most cordial love, show
that the signification "_to marry_," does not by any means proceed from
that of ruling, and is not to be explained from the absolute, slavish
dependence of the wife in the East, but rather from the signification
"to possess." And this is farther proved by passages such as Deut. xxi.
10-13, xxvi. 1, where the _copula carnalis_ is pointed out as that by
w