Peculiar (Hastings' Dictionary)

The Heb. word ségullah (n5:p) is used in Ex 19° of the people of Israel as God’s special possession and care, and it is translated in AV and RV ‘a peculiar treasure.’ It is applied to Israel in the same sense, but with ‘am (oy), ‘ people,’ prefixed in Dt 75 143 2618, Ex 195 is echoed in Ps 1854 ‘ For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure’; and in Mal 3", where the reference is transferred to the Israel of the future.

* The origin of the word is unknown, and no form of its root is elsewhere found in the Bible, but its meaning is made clear by 1 Ch 29% and Ee 28. In the former passage David says that in addition to the public money to be used in the building of the temple, he has a private store which he is ready to hand over for the same purpose. ‘We might say that it was the fiscus as distin- guished from the @rarium, the privy purse as cppnsed to the public treasury’ (Lightfoot, Fresh ev.? p. 264).

n Ec 28 the reference is also to the ‘ peculiar treasure of kings.’ The s¢guilah is therefore that which is one’s own, that to which no one else has a claim. The LXX translators seem to have caught the meaning, but found it difficult to express in Greek. In 1 Ch 295 they use the verb περιποιεῖσθαι (ὃ περι- πεποίημαι, ‘which I have saved up’); but that verb is unsuitable in the other places, and the appear to have coined an adj.

περιούσιος, which (a ong with λαός, ‘ people’) they use in Ex 195 23” (not in the Heb. or Eng.), Dt 76 14? 9618, and a subst. περιουσιασμός, Which they use in Ps 1354, Ec 28, In Mal 3" they use the subst. περιποίησι. The adj. περιούσιος occurs twice in NT, (1) Tit 2" λαὸς περι- ovcvos, a verbal quotation from Dt 145; (2) 1 P Pops * See Neubauer on ‘Expressions employed concerning Israel as a Chosen Nation,’ in Expos. Times, vol. iii. (1891-92), Ὁ. 10.

t So also it is probable that ἑπιούσιος, which is not found earlier than in the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 611, Lk 113), was coined by the Evangelists, as similar compounds (ἑτερούσιος, ὁμφύσιος, ὁμοιούσιος, συνούσιος) were formed by eccles. Gr. writers. PECULIAR in which, though a quotation from Ex 19° (where the LXX is also λαὸς περιούσιος), the expression ia λαὸς els περιποίησιν (the same as in LXX of Mal 3") Jerome (Op. vi. 725 f.)

was puzzled with the περι- οὐσιος which he found in the , and, discovering it nowhere else, he concluded, from an examination of the biblical passages and from the verb περιεῖναι. to excel, that it expressed separation in the sense of superiority. But finding that Symmachus, who usually gives ἐξαίρετος for περιούσιος, once used the Latin adj. peculiaris, he perceived that the true force of the Heb. and Gr.

words is ‘separation to one’s self,’ and chose the words peculium ani peculiaris as the usual translation, thus replacing the inadequate abundans of the Old Lat. by a singularly felicitous word. For peculiwm* (whence adj. peculiaris) is a word of special significance in Roman society, being a person’s private purse, and especially the private property possessed by a son or daughter independently of their father, or by a slave independently of his master. Jerome did not always use this word.

In Ex 195 he has in peculium, in Dt 78 142 2618 populus peculiaris, in 1 Ch 208 peculium meum, and in Mal 817 in peculium. But in Ps 1354 he uses the more general in possessionem, and in Ec 28 simply substantias. In Tit 2\4he has populus acceptabilis, and in 1 pss pare acquisitionis. These unsatisfactory renderings in the ulg.

NT are due, Lightfoot thinks, to the fact that the NT was translated first, and that only after its translation had Jerome recognized the value of the rendering suggested by Symmachus. We have no subst. in Eng. to correspond with the Lat. peculiwm, and even the adj. ‘peculiar’ seems not to have been available for Wyclif’s purpose, for he never uses it, though translating directly from the Vulgate.

In Ex 195 he has ‘my propre tresour’ (but in 1388 ‘a specialte’), while in Dt 7° 14° 2618 he has (and so urvey, 1388) ‘a special people.’+ It was Tindale, in his NT of 1526, who introduced ‘a peculiar people.’ He was followed, in Tit 2, by all the Eng. versions except the Rhem. (‘a people acceptable’), and in 1 P 2° by all except Cran. (‘a people whych are wonne’) and Rhem. (‘a people of purchase’). It is greatly to be regretted that the adj. ‘peculiar’ has lost its honourable meaning.

Its earlier use may be illus- trated from Udall’s Erasmus’ Paraphrase, i. fol. 32, ‘Every tree hath his peculyer and proper Sa te which by the taste doeth declare the stocke’; pies at Dort, p. 6, ‘The true cause of the free Election is the good pleasure of God . . consist- ing herein, that out of the common multitude of sinners he culled out to himselfe, for his owne eculiar, some certaine persons, or men’; and nox, Works, iii.

13, ‘Seeke God, who isa peculiar Father to the faithfull, delivering them from all tribulations, not for their worthynesse, but for his own mercie.’ The Revisers have been divided on the propriety of retaining the word. In Tit 214,1 P 99 ‘a peculiar people’ is changed into ‘a people for his (God’s) own possession.’ But in Dt 75 ‘a special people’ is turned into ‘a peculiar people,’ and that phrase or ‘a peculiar treasure’ is retained in the OT wherever it occurs in AV.

In 1 Ch 298 ‘mine own proper good’ becomes ‘a treasure of mine own’; and in Mal 3” the familiar ‘in that day when I make up my jewels’ of AV is changed into ‘in the day that I do make, even a peculiar treasure’ (see JEWEL, vol. ii. p. 655°, 8 δ). The adj. ‘ peculiar’ occurs also in Wis 195 ‘ Serv- * Peculium is from pecus, cattle, that being the chief part of DSOp anny in early Roman days.

t Wyclif’s and Purvey’s renderings in the other places are: 1 Ch 298 ‘Myne owne tresor’ (1388 ‘my proper catel’—which, when we think of the origin of peculium, and compare Env. ‘chattel,’ the same word, brings us very near the true meanin; YF Ps 1354 ‘into possessioun’; Ec 28 “substaunces’ (Purvey, “the castels’—a various spelling of ‘catels’ or aslip.

Purvey uses ‘castels’ for ‘tents’ in Ex 1420, but it seems to be found nowhere else in the sense of property); Mal 817 ‘intoa special tresoure’*; Tit 214 ‘a peple acceptable’; 1 P 29 " puple of purchasinge.

’ PEDAHEL PEEP 735 ing [=observing] the peculiar commandments that were given unto them’ (ὑπηρετοῦσα ταῖς ἰδίαις ἐπι- rayais, RV ‘ministering to thy several command- ments’); and RV introduces it into Wis 3% ‘ There shall be given him for his faithfulness a peculiar favour’ (τῆς πίστεως χάρις ἐκλεκτή, AV ‘the special gift of faith’).

This is the sense in which the word is used by Udall (quoted above) ; by Adams on 2 P 15 ‘Woe to them that engross faith, that enclose God’s commons, that make that several and peculiar, which the Lord hath laid open and made common’; and by Herbert in the familiar lines from The Temple (§ 158, ‘ Judgment’)— ‘Almightie Judge, how shall poor wretches brook Thy dreadful look, Able a heart of iron to appall, When Thou shalt call For ev'ry man’s peculiar book?’ J. HASTINGS.