King James Bible Dictionary

Language
Genesis 10:5; Genesis 10:20; Isaiah 66:18; Revelation 7:9

Confusion of
Genesis 11:1-9

Gift of
Acts 2:1-18; Acts 2:33; Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6; 1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 12:30; 1 Corinthians 13:14

Loquacious
Proverbs 10:8; Proverbs 10:19

Restrained by wisdom
Proverbs 17:27; Proverbs 21:23; Ecclesiastes 3:7; James 1:26; James 3:1-12

Hasty
Proverbs 29:20

An evil tongue
Speaking, Evil; Slander

TONGUE, TUNG, noun [Ant. Latin lingua; digitus and dug. Our common orthography is incorrect; the true spelling is tung ]

1. In man, the instrument of taste, and the chief instrument of speech; and in other animals, the instrument of taste. It is also an instrument of deglutition. In some animals, the tongue is used for drawing the food into the mouth, as in animals of the bovine genus, etc. Other animals lap their drink, as dogs.

The tongue is covered with membranes, and the outer one is full of papillae of a pyramidical figure, under which lies a thin, soft, reticular coat perforated with innumerable holes, and always lined with a thick and white or yellowish mucus.

2. Speech; discourse; sometimes, fluency of speech.

Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together.

3. The power of articulate utterance; speech.

Parrots imitating human tongue.

4. Speech, as well or ill used; mode of speaking.

Keep a good tongue in thy head.

The tongue of the wise is health. Proverbs 12:18.

5. A language; the whole sum of words used by a particular nation. The English tongue, within two hundred years, will probably be spoken by two or three hundred millions of people in North America.

6. Speech; words or declarations only; opposed to thoughts or actions.

Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18.

7. A nation, as distinguished by their language.

I will gather all nations and tongues. Isaiah 66:18.

8. A point; a projection; as the tongue of a buckle or of a balance.

9. A point or long narrow strip of land, projecting from the main into a sea or a lake.

10. The taper part of any thing; in the rigging of a ship, a short piece of rope spliced into the upper part of standing backstays, etc. to the size of the mast-head.

To hold the tongue, to be silent.

TONGUE

TUNG, verb transitive To chide; to scold.

How might she tongue me.

TONGUE

TUNG, verb intransitive To talk; to prate.

TONGUED

TONGUELESS

TON'IC, adjective [Latin tonus. See Tone.]

1. Literally, increasing tension; hence, increasing strength, as tonic power.

2. In medicine, increasing strength, or the tone of the animal system; obviating the effects of debility, and restoring healthy functions.

3. Relating to tones or sounds.

4. Extended. [Not in use.]

Tonic spasm, in medicine, a rigid contraction of the muscles without relaxation, as in tetanus, etc.

TON'IC, noun A medicine that increases the tone of the muscular fiber, and gives vigor and action to the system.

A medicine which increases the tone or strength of the body.

1. In music, the key-note or principal sound which generates all the rest.

2. In music, a certain degree of tension, or the sound produced by a vocal string in a given degree of tension.

TONGUE-PAD

TUNG'-PAD, noun A great talker. [Not in use.]

The miraculous gift of the early Christians.
1 Corinthians 12:10; 1 Corinthians 12:28; 1 Corinthians 12:30; 1 Corinthians 13:8; 1 Corinthians 14:2-19; 1 Corinthians 14:21-28; 1 Corinthians 14:39

At Babel, the cause of the early separation of mankind and their division into nations. The descendants of Noah built a tower to prevent their dispersion; but God "confounded their language" (Genesis 11:1-8), and they were scattered over the whole earth. Till this time "the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." (See SHINAR.)

The unity of the human race is most clearly implied, if not positively asserted, in the Mosaic writings. Unity of language is assumed by the sacred historian apparently as a corollary of the unity of race. (This statement is confirmed by philologists.) No explanation is given of the origin of speech, but its exercise is evidently regarded as coeval with the creation of man. The original unity of speech was restored in Noah. Disturbing causes were, however, early at work to dissolve this twofold union of community and speech. The human family endeavored b check the tendency to separation by the establishment of a great central edifice and a city which should serve as the metropolis of the whole world. The project was defeated by the interposition of Jehovah, who determined to "confound their language, so that they might not understand one another's speech." Contemporaneously with, and perhaps as the result of, this confusion of tongues, the people were scattered abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth, and the memory of the great event was preserved in the name Babel. [BABEL. TOWER OF] Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar .

In the Borsippa inscription of Nebuchadnezzar there is an allusion to the confusion of tongues. "We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the Seven Lights of the Earth, the most ancient monument of Borsippa, a former king built it [they reckon forty-two ages], but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words . Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed its sun-dried clay; the bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps." It is unnecessary to assume that the judgment inflicted on the builders of Babel amounted to a loss, or even a suspension of articulate speech. The desired object would be equally attained by a miraculous forestallment of those dialectical differences of language which are constantly in process of production. The elements of the one original language may have remained, but so disguised by variations of pronunciation and by the introduction of new combinations as to be practically obliterated. The confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations are spoken of in the Bible as contemporaneous events. The divergence of the various families into distinct tribes and nations ran parallel with the divergence of speech into dialects and languages, and thus the tenth chapter of Genesis is posterior in historical sequence to the events recorded in the eleventh chapter.

Granted on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4), in fulfilment of a promise Christ had made to his disciples (Mark 16:17). What this gift actually was has been a subject of much discussion. Some have argued that it was merely an outward sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit among the disciples, typifying his manifold gifts, and showing that salvation was to be extended to all nations. But the words of Luke (Acts 2:9) clearly show that the various peoples in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost did really hear themselves addressed in their own special language with which they were naturally acquainted (comp. Joel 2:28, 29).

Among the gifts of the Spirit the apostle enumerates in 1 Corinthians 12:10-14:30, "divers kinds of tongues" and the "interpretation of tongues." This "gift" was a different manifestation of the Spirit from that on Pentecost, although it resembled it in many particulars. Tongues were to be "a sign to them that believe not."

I. glotta , or glossa , the word employed throughout the New Testament for the gift now under consideration, is used

(1) for the bodily organ of speech; (2) for a foreign word imported and half-naturalized in Greek; (3) in Hellenistic Greek, for "speech" or "language." The received traditional view, which starts from the third meaning, and sees in the gift of tongues a distinctly linguistic power, is the more correct one. II. The chief passages from which we have to draw our conclusion as to the nature and purpose of the gift in question are

1. (Mark 16:17)
2. (Acts 2:1-13; 10:46; 19:6)
3. (2 Corinthians 12:1; 2 Corinthians 14:1) ... III. The promise of a new power coming from the divine Spirit, giving not only comfort and insight into truth, but fresh powers of utterance of some kind, appears once and again in our Lord's teaching. The disciples are to take no thought what they shall speak, for the spirit of their Father shall speak in them. (Matthew 10:19,20; Mark 13:11) The lips of Galilean peasants are to speak freely and boldly before kings. The promise of our Lord to his disciples, "They shall speak with new tongues," (Mark 16:17) was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, when cloven tongues like fire sat upon the disciples, and "every man heard them speak in his own language." (Acts 2:1-12) IV. The wonder of the day of Pentecost is, in its broad features, familiar enough to us. What views have men actually taken of a phenomenon so marvellous and exceptional? The prevalent belief of the Church has been that in the Pentecostal gift the disciples received a supernatural knowledge of all such languages as they needed for their work as evangelists. The knowledge was permanent. Widely diffused as this belief has been it must be remembered that it goes beyond the data with which the New Testament supplies us. Such instance of the gift recorded in the Acts connects it not with the work of teaching, but with that of praise and adoration; not with the normal order of men's lives but with exceptional epochs in them. The speech of St. Peter which follows, like meet other speeches addressed to a Jerusalem audience, was spoken apparently in Aramaic. When St. Paul, who "spake with tongues more than all," was at Lystra, there is no mention made of his using the language of Lycaonia. It is almost implied that he did not understand it. (Acts 14:11) Not one word in the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14 implies that the gift was of this nature, or given for this purpose. Nor, it may be added, within the limits assigned the providence of God to the working of the apostolic Church,was such a gift necessary. Aramaic, Greek, Latin, the three languages of the inscription on the cross were media, of intercourse throughout the empire. Some interpreters have seen their way to another solution of the difficulty by changing the character of the miracle. It lay not in any new character bestowed on the speakers, but in the impression produced on the hearers. Words which the Galilean disciples uttered in their own tongue were heard as in their native speech by those who listened. There are, it is believed, weighty reasons against both the earlier and later forms of this hypothesis.
4. It is at variance with the distinct statement of (Acts 2:4) "They began to speak with other tongues."
5. It at once multiplies the miracle and degrades its character. Not the 120 disciples, but the whole multitude of many thousands, are in this case the subjects of it.
6. It involves an element of falsehood. The miracle, on this view, was wrought to make men believe what was not actually the fact.
7. It is altogether inapplicable to the phenomena of (1 Corinthians 14:1) ... Critics of a negative school have, as might be expected, adopted the easier course of rejecting the narrative either altogether or in part. What then, are, the facts actually brought before us? What inferences may be legitimately drawn from them? (a) The utterance of words by the disciples, in other languages than their own Galilean Aramaic, is distinctly asserted. (b) The words spoken appear to have been determined, not by the will of the speakers, but by the Spirit which "gave them utterance." (c) The word used, apoftheggesthai , has in the LXX. a special association with the oracular speech of true or false prophets, and appears to imply a peculiar, perhaps physical, solemn intonation. Comp. (1 Chronicles 25:1; Ezekiel 13:9) (d) The "tongues" were used as an instrument not of teaching, but of praise. (e) Those who spoke them seemed to others to be under the influence of some strong excitement, "full of new wine." (f) Questions as to the mode of operation of a power above the common laws of bodily or mental life lead us to a region where our words should be "wary and few." It must be remembered then, that in all likelihood such words as they then uttered had been heard by the disciples before. The difference was that before the Galilean peasants had stood in that crowd neither heeding nor understanding nor remembering what they heard, still less able to reproduce it; now they had the power of speaking it clearly and freely. The divine work would in this case take the form of a supernatural exaltation of the memory, not of imparting a miraculous knowledge of words never heard before. (g) The gift of tongues, the ecstatic burst of praise, is definitely asserted to be a fulfillment of the prediction of (Joel 2:28) We are led, therefore, to look for that which answers to the gift of tongues in the other element of prophecy which is included in the Old Testament use of the word; and this is found in the ecstatic praise, the burst of sang. (1 Samuel 10:5-13; 19:20-24; 1 Chronicles 25:3) (h) The other instances in the Acts offer essentially the same phenomena. By implication in ch. (Acts 14:16-10) by express statement in ch. (Acts 10:47; 11:15,17; 19:6) it belongs to special critical epochs. V. The First Epistle to the Corinthians supplies fuller data. The spiritual gifts are classified and compared arranged, apparently, according to their worth. The facts which may be gathered are briefly these:
8. The phenomena of the gift of tongues were not confined to one church or section of a church.
9. The comparison of gifts, in both the lists given by St. Paul

   (1 Corinthians 12:8-10,28-30)

   places that of tongues and the interpretation of tongues lowest in the scale.

10. The main characteristic of the "tongue" is that it is unintelligible. The man "speaks mysteries," prays, blesses, gives thanks, in the tongue, (1 Corinthians 14:15,16) but no one understands him.
11. The peculiar nature of the gift leads the apostle into what at first appears a contradiction. "Tongues are for a sign," not to believers, but to those who do not believe; yet the effect on unbelievers is not that of attracting, but of repelling. They involve of necessity a disturbance of the equilibrium between the understanding and the feeling. Therefore it is that, for those who believe already, prophecy is the greater gift.
12. The "tongues," however, must be regarded as real languages. The "divers kinds of tongues." (1 Corinthians 12:28) the "tongues of men," (1 Corinthians 13:1) point to differences of some kind and it is easier to conceive of these as differences of language than as belonging to utterances all equally mild and inarticulate.
13. Connected with the "tongues" there was the corresponding power of interpretation. VI.
14. Traces of the gift are found in the Epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, the Ephesians. From the Pastoral Epistles, from those of St. Peter and St. John, they are altogether absent, and this is in itself significant.
15. It is probable, however, that the disappearance of the "tongues" was gradual. There must have been a time when "tongues" were still heard, though less frequently and with less striking results. For the most part, however, the pierce which they had filled in the worship of the Church was supplied by the "hymns and spiritual songs" of the succeeding age, after this, within the Church we lose nearly all traces of them. The gift of the day of Pentecost belonged to a critical epoch, not to the continuous life of the Church. It implied a disturbance of the equilibrium of man's normal state but it was not the instrument for building up the Church.

TONGUE-SHAPED

TUNG'-SHAPED, adjective In botany, a tongue-shaped leaf, is linear and fleshy, blunt at the end, convex underneath, and having usually a cartilaginous border.

TONGUE-TIE'-TIE, verb transitive [tongue and tie.] To deprive of speech or the power of speech, or of distinct articulation.

TONGUE-TIED

TUNG'-TIED, adjective Destitute of the power of distinct articulation; having an impediment in the speech.

1. Unable to speak freely, from whatever cause.

Love and tongue-tied simplicity.