LEUSDEN, JOHANNES. - Dutch Orientalist, b. 26 Apr. 1624, d. 30 Sept. 1699 at Utrecht, where he was professor of Hebrew. He was neither an original mind nor a scholar of the first rank, but his many philological works have been useful for the understanding of the Old and New Testaments.
Among other works, he wrote: Philologus Hebraeus (Utrecht 1656, 1672, 1695; Amsterdam 1686); Philologus Hebraeomixtus (Utrecht 1663; Leiden 1682, 1699); Onomasticum sacrum (Utrecht 1665); Philologus Hebraeo-Graecus (Utrecht 1670; Leiden 1685, 1695). The three Philologi were reprinted at Basel in 3 vols. in 1730. Other works: Compendium graecum Novi Testamenti (Utrecht 1674, 1677, 1682, 1702); Compendium biblicum Iatius Veteris Testamenti (Utrecht 1674, Halle 1736 and many other editions); Clavis graeca Novi Testamenti (Utrecht 1672). In the Biblia Hebraica cum praefatione (Amsterdam 1659-61), the Hebrew text was collated with Bomberg’s rabbinic Bibles and with manuscript codices; this edition contained for the first time the division of the text into verses, and this text was reproduced for school editions by E. van der Hoogt (Amsterdam 1705), J. Jahn (Vienna 1806), A. Hahn (Leipzig 1831), and on many other occasions.
L. also published: Samuelis Bochardi opera omnia (Leiden 1675, 1692), Martini Pooli synopsis criticorum (Utrecht 1686), and Johannis Lightfoot opera omnia (ibid. 1699).