Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

tive Heher, the author would, m submission, call
a misnomer. The original is -1337 oinbr or aiiihr.
Now, oin or ain means, in Celtic, a river, and bar
or bhar, beyond. " The term Heber," therefore,
says the Rev. Mr Davies, page 67, " signifies
to cross over, or simply the opposite side; which
name he seems to have acquired from the circum-
stance of his crossing over with his family to the
east side of the Euphrates, from the tumultuous
assembly of Nimrod, who had seated themselves
on the western bank, where old Babylon is sup-
posed to have stood." The name, therefore, is
equivalent to our Inver ; whence Inverich, Iber-
ich, or Iberians, and Ebirich or Ebrideans — all
expressive of isolation, or beyond water. Herein
we are abundantly borne out by sacred writ
itself. The identical word -q27 oinbr, is the word
rendered in Deut. iv. 49, *' This side Jordan;"
in Joshua xiii. 27, " The other side Jordan;"
and in 2 Samuel xix. 18, "A ferry-boat." To
assert indeed — as not a few take upon them to do
— that the Hebrew, under that name, is the prim-
ordial language, argues a degree of thought-
lessness truly pitiable. Who does not see — the
Hebrew beino^ called after Heber, and this Heber