Hitzig, Ferdinand

German Christian theologian; born at Hauingen, Baden, June 23, 1807; died at Heidelberg Jan. 22, 1875. After studying under Gesenius at Halle and under Ewald at Göttingen, he taught at Heidelberg from 1830 to 1833, in which year he received a call from the newly founded University of Zurich. He returned to Heidelberg in 1861. Hitzig was one of the most eminent and independent theologians of the nineteenth century. He was an indefatigable worker, and edited all the prophetical books and nearly all the poeticalwritings of the Old Testament. His publications include:

"Isaiah," 1833; "The Psalms," two editions, 1835-36 and 1863-65; "The Twelve Minor Prophets," 1839; "Jeremiah," 1841; "Ezekiel," 1847; "Ecclesiastes," 1847; "Daniel," 1850; "Song of Solomon," 1855; "Proverbs," 1858; "History of the People of Israel," 1869; "Job," 1874; and various minor works. Hitzig united extensive scholarship and brilliant penetration with a talent for combination which often led him astray. He always aimed at positive results, and endeavored, for instance, to ascertain the author and date of every psalm. As early as 1836 he maintained that some psalms before the seventy-third, and all psalms after and including the seventy-third, were Maccabean.

Bibliography:

  * Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xii. 507-509;
  * J. J. Kneucker, Zur Erinnerung an Ferdinand Hitzig, in Dr. Ferdinand Hitzig's Vorlesungen über Biblische Theologie und Messianische Weissagungen des Alten Testaments, pp. 1-64, Carlsruhe, 1880.



J. K. H. C.