GESENIUS, WILHELM. – Distinguished Semitic scholar and Protestant exegete, born at Nordhausen on 3 February 1786, died at Halle on 23 October 1842. He taught at the University of Halle from 1820 onward. He renewed the study of Hebrew through comparative grammar and lexicography with the other Semitic languages, especially Arabic.
Published in Leipzig in 2 vols. (1810–12), the Hebrew dictionary, which in its 2nd ed. (1823) acquired its present title and was translated into various languages, was profoundly modified by its 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 publishing his most important work, completed (from šābhar onward) by his disciple E. Roediger, Thesaurus philologico-criticus linguae Hebraicae et Chaldaicae Veteris Testamenti, 3 vols., Leipzig 1829–53. All the biblical passages of some importance are explained in it; in etymologies G. sometimes attributes excessive importance to Arabic.
Equally classic are his works on Hebrew grammar. His Hebräische Grammatik (Leipzig 1883) superseded all the others. The 17th ed. (1902) and the following editions were prepared by E. Kautzsch, the 29th ed. (from 1919 onward) by G. Bergsträsser. G. wrote a commentary on Isaiia (3 vols., there 1820–21), whose value is purely philological. He edited an edition of Genesi (1828) and one of Giobbe (1829). His studies on Samaritan and Phoenician were numerous, in addition to various articles in the Allgemeine Encyklopädie of J. S. Ersch–J. G. Gruber.