Beschreibung
Hebrew with English transliteration in parallel columns. The Hebrew is vowelized (has the point / vowels / nikud). This variant was printed and is bound to be read from left to right, English language fashion. (8), 248, 22, (2) pages. The last two pages list the errata. 182 x 122 mm. (7 x 4.5 inches). Very slight loss in blank corner of last page, not affecting text. In attractive modern full leather green binding with four raised bands on spine. Gilt spine and front board, blind stamped on back board. Of special interest here is the author's six-page Epistle Dedicatory to his patron, John Sadler, constitutional lawyer, Member of Parliament, and Oliver Cromwell's private secretary and confidante. Sadler, who was John Harvard's brother-in-law, was one of the leading ideologues of the philo-Semitic Israelite-identifying party among the English Puritans. The author, William Robertson, was a grammarian and historian, who graduated the University of Edinburgh and moved south to become the leading Hebrew tutor in Cromwellian London, when learning Hebrew was all the rage. In spite of the grammatical error in the title (should be 've-sepher" not "u-sefer" (The letter vav in Hebrew in this case should have a sheva, not a shuruk), the book matches the Hebrew text of Psalms and Lamentations with an accurate Romanization, according to standard Sephardic pronunciation. First edition, one of four variants appearing in the same year, all uncommon. This is the first stand-alone printing of Psalms in Hebrew in England. It was published at around the same time as the London (i.e., "Walton") Polyglot. An octavo edition with points was also published in 1656; Robertson, in the dedication, notes that students should consult both versions, with preference given to the vowel-less rendition as both closer to the "primitive and original" text and likelier to enlighten the scholar. Robertson's career faded away after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, but finally, in 1680 he was appointed as a Hebrew instructor at Cambridge. ESTC R210526; Wing (rev.) B2742C; Cowley, Hebrew Printed Books in the Bodleian Library, 92. Not in Darlow & Moule, not in Rumball-Petre. On Robertson, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 005574
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