The need of a new Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament has been so long felt that no elaborate explanation of the appearance of the present work seems called for. Wilhelm Gesenius, the father of modern Hebrew Lexicography, died in 1842. His Lexicon Manual Hebraicum et Chaldaicum in V. T. Libros, representing a much riper stage of his lexicographical work than his earlier Hebrew dictionaries, was published in 1833.