Gesenius, Wilhelm

Wilhelm Gesenius, in full Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius, (born February 17, 1786, Nordhausen, Hanover—died October 23, 1842, Halle, Prussia), German biblical critic and an important figure in Hebrew and other Semitic language studies. He was a pioneer of critical Hebrew lexicography and grammar.

Educated at Helmstedt and at Göttingen, in 1811 Gesenius became professor of theology at Halle. Though accused of rationalism, he was never dismissed from his post. He published little that was controversial; his chief theological publication was a commentary on Isaiah (1821–29). Gesenius inaugurated in Semitic language studies a modern philological approach such as had been developed in Indo-European linguistics. His Hebrew grammar (1815; edited and enlarged by E. Kautzsch; 2nd English edition revised according to the 28th German edition by A.E. Cowley, 1910) and his Hebrew and Chaldee (i.e., Aramaic) dictionary (1810–13; Eng. trans., 1959) taught generations of scholars, and have been kept alive into the 21st century in various editions and translations. Gesenius also laid the basis for Semitic epigraphy, collecting and deciphering the Phoenician inscriptions known in his time.