Heb. uses, to express the idea of home, the word מקומי; and of fatherland, the word ארצי or אדמתי. The Heb. שׁבוּת corresponds[1]. The primary meaning of elilenti is consequently: of another country, foreign. In glosses and translations it is rendered by the Lat. words peregrinus, exul, advena, also captivus. In these meanings it occurs very frequently. In the old High German translation of Ammonius, Diatessaron, sive Harmoniae in quatuor Evangelica, the word proselytism, occurring in Mat 23:15, is rendered by elilantan. To the adj. the old High German subst. corresponds. This has the meaning exilium, transmigratio, captivitas. The connection in elilenti or elilentes, used adverbially, is rendered by the Lat. peregre. In the middle High German, however, the proper signification of both words greatly predominates. But as, in the old High German, the idea of miser is often at the same time comprehended in the proper signification: he who is miserable through banishment, imprisonment, or through sojourning in a strange land; thus, in several places of the middle High German, this derived idea begins to separate itself from the fundamental conception, so that ellende comes in general to be called miser. In the new High German this derived conception is almost alone maintained. Yet here also, in certain connections, there are found traces of the original idea, e.g., in's Elend schicken, for to banish. Very early also the word came to be used, in a spiritual sense, to denote our present abode, in contrast to paradise or the heavenly kingdom.... Thus, e.g., in one of Luther's hymns, when we pray to the Holy Ghost:
Das er vns behüte, an vnserm ende,
Wenn wir heim farn aus diesem elende.” [That He guard us to our end
When we go home from this world.] - Rud. von Raumer) to the German Elend, but = Ellend, elilenti, of another land, strange.
- ↑ The translators transfer to this place a note from vol. ii. p. 191f. of the author's larger Comm. ü. den Psalter, to which Delitzsch refers the reader: - “The modern High German adj. elend, middle High German ellende, old High German alilandi, elilendi, or elilenti, is composed of ali and land. The adj. ali occurs only in old High German in composition. In the Gothic it is found as an independent adj., in the sense of alius and ἄλλυς (vid., Ulfilas, Gal 5:10
