Of (Hastings' Dictionary)

This is the most frequent preposition in the Eng. language. Probably (says Earle) it occurs as often as all the other prepositions put together. But frequent as it is, its occurrence now is moder- ate when compared with the usage of the 15th and 16th centuries. By the beginning of the 17th cent. it was getting displaced by other prepositions in some of its most common meanings, as by ‘by’ when expressing the agent.

But the language of AV, being so much older than the current speech of 1611, is full of the word in meanings which wez3 archaic even then, and are now quite obsolete. The reason of its frequent use is that ‘of’ repre- sented not only the original Anglo-Saxon of but also the French de. The Anglo-Sax. of had the meaning of ‘from’ or ‘away from’ (Goth. af, Lat. ab, Gr. ἀπό, Sansk. apa), as ‘Alys us of yfle’= ‘Deliver us from evil.

’ And this must be regarded as the starting-point in any history of the word. But it is impossible to work out the meanings (lerivatively from this primitive idea, because of the entrance of the French de and the demand for ‘of’ to render its various uses. This first got mixed up with and then drove out the earlier word, so that as now used ‘of’ is the translation of a French word ; its form alone is English. The following are its chief archaic or obsolete meanings in AV :— 1.

From or away from, especially in the phrase ‘forth of,’ as Jth 231 ‘They went forth of Nineve’ (ἀπῆλθον ἐκ, RV ‘departed out of’); 2 Mac 4% ‘yet persuaded he him to come forth of the sanctuary "(ἐκ τοῦ ἀσύλου προελθεῖν); Mk 118 ‘Others cut down branches of the trees’ (so 1611, mod. edd. ‘off’; Gr. ἐκ, RV ‘from’). Cf. Dt 457 Tind. ‘And because he loved thy fathers, therfore he chose their seed after them and broughte the out with his presence and with his mightye power of Egipte’; Ac 21% Rhem.

‘And apprehending Paul, fey drewe him forth of the temple.’ See FortH. This and similar meanings are now generally expressed by “off,” which is merely another (perhaps a stronger) spelling of ‘of’(as ‘after’ isitscomparative). ‘Off’ now represents the original Anglo-Sax. ‘of’ better than ‘of’ itself does.

Coverdale scarcely distin- guishes ‘of’ and ‘off, as Job 41%” ‘Out of his mouth go torches and fyre brandes, out of his nostrels there goeth a smoke, like as out off an hote seetinge pott’; Zec 132 ‘In that tyme shall the house off David, and the citesyns off Jerusalem have an open well, to wash of synne and unclen- aesse. And then (sayeth the Lorde of hoostes) I will destroye the names of Idols out off the londe.’ 2. The same meaning is found metaphorically after verbs of delivering.

Thus Jer 307 ‘I wiil heal thee of thy wounds.’ So Shaks. K. John 1. iv. 56, ‘I may be delivered of these woes.’ 3. Then ‘of’ expresses generally the source or origin, as Gn 2? ‘God formed man of the dust of the ground’ (ap7x7°]> πον, lit. ‘formed man dust from the ground’); Ex 36° ‘They received of Moses all the offering’ (aye ‘32>, lit. ‘from before Moses’); La 353 ‘(It is of) the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed’ (m7 197).

So in NT often, as Mk 1™ ‘sick of a fever’ (πυρέσσουσα) ; Jn 6“ ‘save he which is of God’ (rapa τοῦ θεοῦ, RV ‘from God’); Jn 15" ‘all things that I have heard of my Father’ (παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου, RV ‘from my Father’); 177 ‘All things, whatsoever thou hast given me, are of thee’ (παρὰ σοῦ, RV ‘from thee’) ; Ac 179 ‘When they had taken security of Jason’ (παρὰ τοῦ ᾿Ιάσονος, RV ‘from Jason’); Ph 118 ‘Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good-will’ (διὰ φθόνον καὶ ἔριν, τινὲς δὲ καὶ δι᾽ εὐδοκίαν); 1 P 5?

“οὗ a ready mind’ (ἑκουσίως) ; especially as tr. of ἀπό, as Mt 715 ‘Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?’ 16! ‘suffer many things of the elders’; 17226 Οὐ whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own children or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers’ (RV always ‘from’); 1018 ‘ He shall not speak of himself’ (ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, RV ‘from himself’); or as tr. of ἐκ or ἐξ, as Mt 21” The baptism of John whence was it, from heaven or of men?

’ (ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, ἢ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, RV ‘from heaven or from men’); 1Co 1” ‘ But of him are ye in Christ Jesus’; 2 Co δ᾽ ‘ We have a build- ing of God’; Ja 4! ‘come they not hence, even of your lusts?’ There are many clear examples in the older versions and early writers, as Jn 15% Wye. ‘A spirit of truthe, whiche cometh of the fadir’ ; 1 P 419 Wyc. ‘ the feithful maker of nought’ ; Gn 2% Tind. ‘This shall be called woman, because she was take of the man’; Gn 445 Tind.

‘Is that not the cuppe of which my lorde drynketh?’; He 1088 Rhem. ‘my just liveth of faith’ (ἐκ ricrews); * Erasmus, Cred, fol. 59, ‘All thynges are, ex ipso et per ipsum (id est) of hym, and by hym’; More, Utopia, i. 40 (Lumby’s ed.), ‘But if the thing be loste or made away, then the value of it is paide of the gooddes of such offenders.

’ 4, From the last would easily arise the sense of portion, something taken from among the whole, as Ly 416 ‘And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock’s blood’; Dn 2% “1 have found a man of the captives of Judah’; 2* ‘There shall be in it of the strength of the iron’; Mt 258 ‘Give us of your oil’; 267 ‘ Drink ye all of it’; To 11" ‘He strake of the gall on his father’s eyes.’ Cf. Mt 23" Tind.

‘I sende unto you prophetes, wyse men, and scribes; and of them ye shall kyll and crucifie; and of them ye shall scourge in youre synagoges.’ 5. From a felt of time, as Mk 9” ‘Of a child’ (παιδιόθεν). Then throughout a certain time, as Lk 238 ‘ He was desirous to see him of a long season’ (ἐξ ἱκανοῦ ; edd. ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων, RV ‘of a long time’) ; Ac 8" ‘of long time he had bewitched them? (ἱκανῷ χρόνῳ). Cf. Berners, Froissart, i.

10, ‘a tempest took them in the sea, that put them so far out of their course that they wist not of two days where they were’; Knox, Works, iii. 241, ‘They are not permitted of any continuance to blaspheme.’ 6. As the link between an act or state and its origin, ‘of’ was used with great freedom. Thus it is equivalent to: (1) At in 2S 1923 ‘ Have we eaten at all of the king’s cost?’ (ab=a-yp, lit. ‘from the king’; LXX ἐκ τοῦ βασιλέως, Vulg. a rege).

(2) Concerning, Dn 715 ‘Then I would Talon ie truth of the fourth beast’ (RV ‘concerning’); 1 Es 39 ‘Of whose side the king . .

shall judge that his sentence is the wisest, to him shall the victory be given’ (8» ἂν κρίνῃ); Jn 1916 ‘Then remembered ΟΕ ὉΠΟΥ͂ that these things were written of him’ (ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ); Ac 4° ‘If we this day be examined of the good deed’ (ἐπὶ εὐεργεσίᾳ, RV ‘concerning’); 5 ‘they doubted of them, whereunto this would grow’ (διηπόρουν περὶ αὐτῶν, RV ‘were much per- plexed concerning them’); 15° ‘came together for to consider of this matter’ (περὶ τοῦ λόγου τούτου) ; 1Co 1" ‘It hath been declared unto me of you’ (περὶ ὑμῶν, RV ‘concerning you’).

Cf. Gn 42° Tind. ‘ Joseph remembered his dreams which he dreamed of them’; Mt 2° Rhem. ‘ Goe, and inquire diligently of the childe’; 117 Rhem. ‘Jesus began to say to the multitudes of John’; Knox, Works, iii. 301, ‘That God was eyther impotente, . . or else, that he was mutable and unjust of his promyses.

’ (3) For, or on account of, as Job 13 %in8 «Job re- proveth his friends of partiality’; Sir 4% ‘Be abashed of the error of thine ignorance’ (περὶ τῆς ἀπαιδευσίας σου, RV ‘for thine ignorance’) ; 4372 ‘A present remedy of all is a mist coming speedily’ (ἴασις πάντων, RV ‘A mist coming speedily is οἷς healing of all things’); Mt 1818 ‘he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine’ (ἐπί, RV ‘ over’); Jn 2" ‘ The zeal of thine house’ (ὁ ζῆλος τοῦ οἴκου cov); 168 ‘ He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment’ (περὶ); Ac 21” ‘They are all zealous of the law’ (ζηλωταὶ τοῦ νόμου, RV ‘ for’); Ro 10?

‘ They havea zeal of God’ (ζῆλον θεοῦ, RV ‘for’); 2 Co 7* ‘Great is my glory- ing of you’ (πρὸς ὑμᾶς, RV ‘on your behalt’). Ch. Ex 3’ Tind. ‘I have surely sene the trouble of my people which are in Egipte, and have herde their erye which they have of their taskmasters’; Jn 359 Tind. ‘But the frende of the brydegrome which stondeth by and heareth him, rejoyseth greately of the brydgrome’s voyce.’ So Berners, Froissart, p.

8, ‘Then the queen of England took leave of the earl of Hainault and of the countess, and thanked them greatly of their honour, feast, and good cheer, that they had made her’; and Milton, Areopag. (Hales’ ed. p. 46), ‘What some lament of, we rather ahonld Tejoice at.

’ (4) On or upon, as Ps 998 “Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions’ ; Lk 185 ‘ Avenge me of mine adversary’ (ἀπό) ; Wis 1719 ‘ which could of no side be avoided’ (μηδαμόθεν, RV ‘on no side’); He 10% ‘ye had compassion of me in my bonds’ (τοῖς δεσμοῖς [edd. δεσμίοις] μου συνε- παθήσατε, RV ‘ye had compassion on them that were in bonds’). Cf. Is 14! Geneva, ‘ For the Lord wil have compassion of Iaakob.’ In the Pr. Bk.

of 1559 oceurs the phrase ‘if ye stand by as gazers and lookers of them that do communicate’; in 1552 it was ‘lookers on,’ to which the ed. of 1604 returned. Hall has the same use of the word in Works, iii. 440, ‘The wise and Almighty maker of these earthen mines, esteems the best metals but as thick clay; and why should we set any other rice of them than their Creator?’ (5) Over, 1 Co ‘*The wife hath not power of her own body’ (τοῦ ἰδίου σώματος οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει, RV ‘hath not power over’). Cf.

Job 42? Cov. ‘I knowe that thou hast power of all things.’ (6) With, as 2S 19% ‘He had pa the king of sustenance’ (RV ‘with’); Ca and 5° ‘T am sick of love.’* Wyclif (Select Works, iii. 84) says, ‘Thou schuldist love thi God of al thin herte, of al thi soule, and of al thi mynde.’ Cf. Tindale, Expos. p. 109, ‘Though they persecute thee from house to house a thou- sand times, yet shall God provide thee of another’; Rutherford, Letters, No. xlv.

‘I can be content of shame in that work, if my Lord and Master be honoured’; and Shaks. Macbeth, τ. ii. 13,, ‘The merciless Macdonwald . . from the western isles Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied.’ # road eae English, p. 212) urges with some reason that the Revisers should have adopted the modern idiom in Ca 2° and 54, tince to be sick of a thing means now to be heartily tired of it. 585 7.

But the most important of all the «bsolete uses of ‘of’ is its employment to introduce the agent, especially after a passive verb. This fune tion was performed both by the Anglo-Sax. ‘of’ and by the Fr. de ; it is therefore very common in the English of the 14th to 16th cent. By the beginning of the 17th cent.

it was dying ont, ‘of’ being replaced by ‘by,’ so that (as has been pointed out under By) we have to do, not only with an idiom that is archaic to us, but also with one that is inconsistently applied. It further increases the difficulty that ‘ by? was used for the instrument or intermediate agency. Thus Lever, Sermons (Arber’s ed. p.

77), says, ‘We had never feast en of hym by his apostles’; and in AV we find, Mt 1533 ‘which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet’ (τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου), RV ‘by the Lord through the prophet’). The agent is usually expressed in Greek by ὑπό with the gen., and so ὑπό with the gen. is in AV usually translated by ‘of.’ In the following places, however, we find ‘by’: Mt 2251, Mk 54, Lk 218. 28 319 1317 1622 2116 238, Ac 1022 134.45 153.40 74 9711, Ro 321 15%4, 1 Co 111, 2 Co 33 819.

20, Eph 211 613, Ph 123, Col 218, 2 ΤΊ 2%, He 23 34, 2P 121 32 Of hes the foll. are due to Tindale: Lk 1317 1622 238, Ac 102 153, Ro 1524, 1 Co 111, 2 Co 33 819.20, Eph 211, 2P 121; in the other cases AV has changed Tindale’s ‘of’ into ‘by.’ RV has always retained ‘ by’ where it is found in AV, and has changed AV ‘of’ into ‘by’ in Mt 12 215 148 1912 2712, Mic 831, Lic 221 97.8 1720, Ac 1614 2212 9310. 27 962 7, 1 Co 212 109. 10.

29 1424 bis, 2 Co 26 819, Ga] 111 317, Eph 512, Ph 312, He 11%, Ja 114 29 34.6, Jude 12.

17, The following passages deserve attention: 2 Es 1016 ‘Like as an arrow which is shot of a might archer’ (a sagittario valido); 16% ‘There are left some clusters of them that diligently seek through the vineyard’ (ab his, RV ‘by them’); Wis 157 ‘So of thy people was accepted both the salvation of the righteous and destruction of the enemies’ (ὑπὸ λαοῦ σου, RV ‘by thy people’); 1 Mac δ᾽" ‘their brethren that were in trouble, and assaulted of them’ (ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν); Mt 2 ‘He was mocked of the wise men’ (ὑπὸ τῶν μάγων) ; 11% * All things are delivered unto me of my Father’ (ὑπὸ τοῦ πατρός pov); Lk 97 ‘Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him (ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, edd.

and RV om.): and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some (ὑπό τινων, RV ‘ by some’) that John was risen from the dead’; Ac 154 ‘they were received of the church and of the apostles and elders’ (ὑπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας) ; 1 Co 14* ‘he is convinced of all, he is judged of all’ (ὑπὸ πάντων, RV ‘by all’); 2 Co 8.

5 “who was also chosen of the churches’ (χειροτονη- θεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, RV ‘appointed by the churches’); Ph 3 ‘I am apprehended of Christ Jesus’ (ὑπὸ [rod] Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ, RV ‘by Christ Jesus’). Examples in early writers are easily found: take Ex 22%! Tind. ‘therfore shall ye eate no flesh that is torne of beestes in the feld’ ; and Booke of Precedence (E.E.T.S.) i. 76, ‘Stody alwaies to be loved of good men, and seeke nat to be hated of the Evell.’?

The process of change may be illustrated from the history of the Pr. Bk. Thus in 1552 and 1559 we read (‘ Communion,’ Keeling, p. 191), ‘being so lovingly called and bidden of God himself’; but in 1604 and 1662 this is changed into ‘ by God himself.’ Cf. Lever, Sermons, p. 26, ‘For as there is no power of authorithy but of God, so is there none pnt in subjeccion under theym but by God. Those powers whiche be are ordeyned of God.’ 8.

Occasionally ‘of’ is redundant, as Dn 2® ‘Then Daniel requested of the king’; Sir 315 ‘The testimonies of his niggardness shall not be doubted of’; Ac 15°‘ The apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter’ (ἰδεῖν περί). Especially after gerunds, as 2S 2‘ Asahel would not turn aside from following of him’; 8" ‘He returned from smiting of the Syrians’; Sir 20” ‘There is that . .

by accepting of persons over | throweth himself’; Jn 11‘ They thought that he 586 OFFENCE OFFENCE had spoken of taking of rest in sleep’; Ac 915 ‘They left beating of Paul.’ It is also sometimes omitted where we should use it, as Rev 18” ‘all manner vessels of ivory.’ E 9. Notice finally the phrases: Of certainty, Dn 2* (RV ‘of a certainty’); of force, He 9" (BéSacos) ; of purpose, Ru 2": οἵ. Bacon, Essays, p.

33, ‘ Wise men will rather doe sacrifice to Envy ; in suffering themselves sometimes of purpose to be crost’; in comparison of, Jg8, Hag 2°; and ofa truth, Dn 2", Lk 455 22°, Ac 477 10, J. HASTINGS.