On the Origins or the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language

Which David transferred from the cult of idols to things sacred to God. Which Jesus Christ made the most celebrated of all by far through His preachings, death, and resurrection. It is called Jerusalem in Joshua 18 and in the entire New Testament. The monuments of the Amorites have perished. The Girgashite, whom the Hebrews call Girgashi, imposed his name on the region of the Gergesenes and the Sea of Gennesaret, that is, Tiberias. We bring forth these words in various ways from the Chaldean interpreters: from Onkelos, "Ginesar" (Numbers 19), and from R. Jonathan (Joshua 13), preferring "Ginosser." The Greeks call them Gerasenes, with a certain affinity of the ancient name preserved everywhere. The memory of the Hivite died with the man. The Arkite left behind the city of Arka, which is read wrongly as "Area" by Ptolemy and by Orontius, the transcriber of his chart. The Sinite called the mountain Melanus in the Arctic part of the Arabian desert "Sinu." We call it Sinai. There was one of the mansions or stations of the children of Israel returning from Egypt. Ptolemy calls it Mount Sina, and Paul uses the same word when he treats the allegory of the Law and the Gospel or Grace, while he says, "Sina is a mountain in Arabia connected to that which is now Jerusalem, etc." The Arvadite or Aradite, with the vau v/w cut short, inhabited the island of Arados opposite Palestine, from which the peoples on the Syrian continent opposite it were called Aradians, and on the opposite shore the city was named Antarados. The Zemarite called the city Zemara after his own word, namely that which fell to the tribe of Benjamin, not that common Samaria. For they differ greatly in both orthography and geography. The former is written with tzade (צ), the latter with sin (ש); the former is named from wool, the latter from a guard. The former was given to one tribe, Samaria was another's. Hamathi was the author of the name for the Hamathites, whom Josephus testifies in his own age were called by their native name, peoples dwelling around Epiphania, which was formerly called Hamath. Some contend that Antioch once had that name, because they were equal in size and were the most frequent emporiums of the entire Orient. Thus far regarding Ham and his posterity. Now let us see