HESHBON, a celebrated city beyond Jordan, twenty miles eastward of that river, according to Eusebius. It was given to the tribe of Reuben, Josh. xiii, 17. It was probably made over to Gad, since we meet with it among the cities which were given to the Levites, Joshua xxi, 39.
HETERODOX, formed of the Greek ἑτερόδοξος, a compound of ἕτερος, alter, and δόξα, opinion, something that is contrary to the faith or doctrine established in the true church. Thus, we say, a heterodox opinion, a heterodox divine, &c. The word stands in opposition to orthodox.
HETEROUSH, HETEROUSIANS, composed of ἕτερος, and οὐσία, substance, a sect or branch of Arians, the followers of Aëtius, and from him denominated Aëtians. They were called Heterousii, because they held, not that the Son of God was of a substance like, or similar to, that of the Father, which was the doctrine of another branch of Arians, thence called Homoousians, Homoousii; but that he was of another substance different from that of the Father.
HETH, the father of the Hittites, was the eldest son of Canaan, Gen. x, 15, and dwelt southward of the promised land, probably about Hebron. Ephron, who was an inhabitant of that city, was of the race of Heth; and in the time of Abraham the whole city were of the family of Heth.
HEXAPLA, formed of ἕξ, six, and ἁπλόω, I open, or unfold, a Bible disposed in six columns, containing the text, and divers versions of it, compiled and published by Origen, with a view of securing the sacred text from future corruptions, and to correct those that had been already introduced. Eusebius relates that Origen after his return from Rome under Caracalla, applied himself to learn Hebrew, and began to collect the several versions that had been made of the sacred writings, and of these to compose his Tetrapla, and Hexapla: others, however, will not allow him to have begun till the time of Alexander, after he had retired into Palestine, about the year 231. To conceive what this Hexapla was, it must be observed that, beside the translation of the sacred writings called the Septuagint, made under Ptolemy Philadelphus, above 280 years B. C., the Scripture had been since translated into Greek by other interpreters. The first of those versions, or, reckoning the Septuagint, the second, was that of Aquila, a proselyte Jew, the first edition of which he published in the twelfth year of the Emperor Adrian, or about A. D. 128; the third was that of Symmachus, published as is commonly supposed, under Marcus Aurelius, but, as some say, under Septimius Severus, about the year 200; the fourth was that of Theodotion, prior to that of Symmachus, under Commodus, or about the year 175: these Greek versions, says Dr. Kennicott, were made by the Jews from their corrupted copies of the Hebrew, and were designed to stand in the place of the LXX, against which they were prejudiced, because it seemed to favour the Christians. The fifth was found at Jericho, in the reign of Caracalla, about the year 217; and the sixth was discovered at Nicopolis, in the reign of Alexander Severus, about the year 228: lastly, Origen himself recovered part of a seventh, containing only the Psalms. Now, Origen, who had held frequent disputations with the Jews in Egypt and Palestine, observing that they always objected against those passages of Scripture quoted against them, and appealed to the Hebrew text, the better to vindicate those passages and confound the Jews, by showing that the LXX had given the sense of the Hebrew, or rather, to show, by a number of different versions, what the real sense of the Hebrew was, undertook to reduce all these several versions into a body, along with the Hebrew text, so as they might be easily confronted, and afford a mutual light to each other. He made the Hebrew text his standard; and, allowing that corruptions might have happened, and that the old Hebrew copies might and did read differently, he contented himself with marking such words or sentences as were not in his Hebrew text, nor the later Greek versions, and to add such words or sentences as were omitted in the LXX, prefixing an asterisk to the additions, and an obelisk to the others. In order to this he made choice of eight columns: in the first he gave the Hebrew text in Hebrew characters; in the second, the same text in Greek characters: the rest were filled with the several versions above mentioned; all the columns answering verse for verse, and phrase for phrase; and in the Psalms there was a ninth column for the seventh version. This work Origen called Ἑξαπλα, Hexapla, that is, sextuple, or a work of six columns, as only regarding the first six Greek versions. Indeed, St. Epiphanius, taking in likewise the two columns of the text, calls the work Octapla, as consisting of eight columns. This celebrated work, which Montfaucon imagines consisted of fifty large volumes, perished long ago, probably with the library at Cæsarea, where it was preserved, in the year 653; though several of the ancient writers have preserved us portions of it, particularly St. Chrysostom on the Psalms, Philoponus in his Hexameron, &c. Some modern writers have earnestly endeavoured to collect fragments of the Hexapla, Flaminius Nobilius, Drusius, and especially Montfaucon, in two folio volumes, printed at Paris in 1713. In his edition, Montfaucon has prefixed prolegomena, explaining the form and detailing the history of the Hexapla.
The object of Origen being to correct the differences found in the then existing copies of the Old Testament, he carefully noted all the alterations which he discovered; and for the information of those who might consult his work, he made use of the following marks: 1. Where any passages appeared in the Septuagint, that were not found in the Hebrew, he designated them by an obelus ÷ with two bold points : annexed. This mark was also used to denote words not extant in the Hebrew, but added by the Septuagint translators, either for the sake of elegance, or for the purpose of illustrating the sense. 2. To passages wanting in the copies of the Septuagint, and supplied by himself from the other Greek versions, he prefixed an asterisk
with two bold points : also annexed, in order that his additions might be immediately perceived. These supplementary passages, we are informed by Jerom, were for the most part taken from Theodotion’s translation; not unfrequently from that of Aquila; sometimes, though rarely, from the version of Symmachus; and sometimes from two or three together. But, in every case, the initial letter of each translator’s name was placed immediately after the asterisk, to indicate the source whence such supplementary passage was taken. And in lieu of the very erroneous Septuagint version of Daniel, Theodotion’s translation of that book was inserted entire. 3. Farther: not only the passages wanting in the Septuagint were supplied by Origen with the asterisks, as above noticed, but also where that version does not appear accurately to express the Hebrew original, having noted the former reading with an obelus :, he added the correct rendering from one of the other translators, with an asterisk subjoined. Concerning the shape and uses of the lemniscus and hypolemniscus, two other marks used by Origen, there is so great a difference of opinion among learned men, that it is difficult to determine what they were. Dr. Owen, after Montfaucon, supposes them to have been marks of better and more accurate renderings. These several marks of distinction have been carefully observed, so far as they have been recovered from various quarters, in the very accurate edition of the Septuagint commenced by our learned countryman, Dr. Holmes, and continued by his able successor, the Rev. J. Parsons, B. D.
For nearly fifty years was Origen’s stupendous work buried in a corner of the city of Tyre, probably on account of the very great expense of transcribing forty or fifty volumes, which far exceeded the means of private individuals; and here, perhaps, it might have perished in oblivion, if Eusebius and Pamphilus had not discovered it, and deposited it in the library of Pamphilus the martyr at Cæsarea, where Jerome saw it about the middle of the fourth century. As we have no account whatever of Origen’s autograph after this time, it is most probable that it perished in the year 653, on the capture of that city by the Arabs; and a few imperfect fragments, collected from manuscripts of the Septuagint and the catenæ of the Greek fathers, are all that now remain of a work, which, in the present improved state of sacred literature, would most eminently have assisted in the interpretation and criticism of the Old Testament. The Syro-Estrangelo translation of Origen’s edition of the Greek Septuagint was executed in the former part of the seventh century; the author of it is not known. This version exactly corresponds with the text of the Septuagint, especially in those passages in which the latter differs from the Hebrew. A manuscript of this translation is in the Ambrosian library at Milan; it contains the obelus and other marks of Origen’s Hexapla; and a subscription at the end states it to have been literally translated from the Greek copy, corrected by Eusebius himself, with the assistance of Pamphilus, from the books of Origen, which were deposited in the library at Cæsarea. From this version Norberg edited the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel in 1787; and Bugati, the book of Daniel, 1788.
HEZEKIAH, king of Judah, was the son of Ahaz, and born in the year of the world 3251. At the age of five-and-twenty he succeeded his father in the government of the kingdom of Judah, and reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem, namely, from the year of the world 3277 to 3306, 2 Kings xviii, 1, 2; 2 Chron. xxix, 1. The reign of his father Ahaz had been most unpropitious for his subjects. A war had raged between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, in which Pekah, king of Israel, overthrew the army of Ahaz, destroying a hundred and twenty thousand of his men; after which he carried away two hundred thousand women and children as captives into his own country: they were, however, released and sent home again, at the remonstrance of the Prophet Oded. As idolatry had been established in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, by the command of Ahaz, and the service of the temple either intermitted, or converted into an idolatrous worship, the first object of his son Hezekiah, on his accession to the throne, was to restore the legal worship of God, both in Jerusalem and throughout Judea. He cleansed and repaired the temple, and held a solemn passover. He improved the city, repaired the fortifications, erected magazines of all sorts, and built a new aqueduct. In the fourth year of his reign, Salmanezer, king of Assyria, invaded the kingdom of Israel, took Samaria, and carried away the ten tribes into captivity, replacing them by different people sent from his own country. But Hezekiah was not deterred by this alarming example from refusing to pay that tribute to the Assyrians which had been imposed on Ahaz: this brought on the invasion of Sennacherib, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, of which we have a very particular account in the writings of the Prophet Isaiah, who was then living, Isaiah xxxvi.