GESENIUS, WILHELM. - Distinguished Semitist and Protestant exegete, b. at Nordhausen on 3 February 1786, d. at Halle on 23 October 1842. He taught at the University of Halle from 1820 onward. He renewed the study of Hebrew through grammar and lexicography compared with the other Semitic languages, especially Arabic.
Published at Leipzig in 2 vols. (1810-12), the Hebrew dictionary, which in the 2nd ed. (1823) received its current title, translated into various languages, was profoundly modified by subsequent editors, down to F. Buhl, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig 1921. In 1825 he also published a school Hebrew dictionary. In 1826 he began the publication of his most important work, brought to completion (from šābhar onward) by his disciple E. Roediger, Thesaurus philologico-criticus linguae Hebraicae et Chaldaicae Veteris Testamenti, 3 vols., Leipzig 1829-53. In it all biblical passages of any importance are explained; in the etymologies G. sometimes gives excessive importance to Arabic.
Equally classic are his works on Hebrew grammar. His Hebräische Grammatik (Leipzig 1883) supplanted all the others. The 17th ed. (1902) and the following ones were edited by E. Kautzsch, the 29th ed. (from 1919) by G. Bergsträsser. G. wrote a commentary on Isaiah (3 vols., ibid. 1820-21), whose value is only philological. He edited an edition of Genesis (1828) and one of Job (1829). His studies on Samaritan and Phoenician are numerous, besides various articles in the Allgemeine Encyklopädie of J. S. Ersch - J. G. Gruber.
Bibliography5 works
Francesco Spadafora