Will some more learned readers than your present querist be so good as
to tell us how it came to pass that the word _grin_ became changed in
our modern Bibles for _gin_ (sometimes spelled _ginn_), with which it
would seem there can be no cognation? In the sense of a trap or snare
_grin_ occurs in Job xviii. 9., Ps. cxl. 5., and Ps. cxli. 9., in two
Bibles which I have, viz., one "printed at London by Robert Barker,
printer to the King's most excellent Majestie, 1640," and the other
"printed by John Hayes, printer to the University of Cambridge, 1677."
In Cruden's _Concordance_, 1737, 1761, and 1769, it is given as _grin_
in these instances; neither in the modern editions of that valuable book
have they noticed the word _gin_ as now used in the said three texts
which would indicate that it is only within some eighty years, at any
rate, that the change was adopted by the king's printer, and Oxford and
Cambridge. Singularly enough, in these old editions of 1640 and 1677,
while _grin_ is used in Job and Psalms, _gin_ is given in the side-note
of Job xl. 24., in the text of Isa. viii. 14., and Amos iii. 5.
Now to _grin_ (from the Saxon {grinian}) means, according to
philologists, to show the teeth set together; the act of closing the
teeth; so that we may suppose an allusion to the barbarous instrument
called a _man-trap_, unless the idea is negatived by the side-note Job
xl. 24., on the impossibility of boring Behemoth's nose with a _gin_,
which would hardly be the word adopted to convey the idea of boring; an
awl or gimlet better suiting the conditions of the case. Some
commentators read _ring_--this may be illustrated by the ring we see
even now frequently in the noses of our bulls. Be this as it may, the
reasonable conjecture is, that the same word, conveying the same
meaning, is appropriate in all the six places quoted.
It is therefore asked, 1. Why, in the sacred volume, a century ago it
should have been spelled _grin_ in the three first-mentioned passages,
and _gin_ in the three others? and 2. Why it should have been altered in
the three first-quoted verses from _grin_ to _gin_? In short, if they
are cognate words (which the separate use of them in various editions
formerly seems to render doubtful), what advantage resulted from
changing the word which more familiarly explains itself by the action of
the teeth for a much less forcible term?