Hebrews

(he'brooz.) (Script.) A name of the Israel it ish nation, and probably a patronymic derived from HEBER, q. v. It is true there is no reason expre ly given for regarding Heber as the head of the race from which the chosen people were to spring. But, as in the days ofhis son Peleg, the earth was divided, colonies probably spreading themselves, and tribes beginning to a ume a more definite position, we may not unfairly consider Heber as taking some kind of prominence as the original progenitor of certain families. The term Hebrews,being eventually confined to the descendants of Jacob, was given them more especially by foreigners, or a umed by them in their intercourse with foreigners(Jonah i. 9). They were known among themselves (though not exclusively: see 1 Sam. xiii. 3; Jer. xxxiv. 9)as Israeli tes, or sons of Israel, a theocratic and therefore more honorable appellation, the distinction probably being that Hebrew indicated the general political relation, Israelite the religious and religious-patriarchal relation. Hence a naturalized person would be called rather Hebrew than Israelite. Some time before the Christian era the ancient name Hebrews revived (Acts) vi. 1; 2 Cor. xi. 22, Phil. iii. 5), specially as distinguishing the pure Jews from the Hellenists or Grecian Jews-From the name of the people naturally came the name of their language, the Hebrew, one of the oldest and most remarkable of known languages, which belongs to the so-called Can a an it ish branch, or chief division of the Semitic family of languages, the other branches being the Aramaic and the Arabian. The books of the Old Testament are the only remains of the ancient Hebrew, with an admixture, however, of Chaldaic, .- Epistle to the H. A canonical book of the New Testament, addre ed to the Christian i zed Jews of Palestine, generally attributed to St. Paul, and supposed to have been written in Greek at Rome, in abt.63. [s. 445]