Puer. Græc. παῖς Heb. ,נערNahar. Jer. i. 6.PUER. This Word literally signifies a Child. Commonly it expresses the lowest Age. A, a, a, Domine Deus, nescio loqui, quia puer ego sum. The Name of Puer, is given to young Men pretty well in Age: For Example; to Genesis xxxvii. 30.Joseph, when he was sold by his Brethren, being then about eighteen Years old; to Isaac, of Gen. xxi. 16.twenty-one Years old; to Benjamin, twenty-four Gen. xliv. 20.Years old. Sometimes it signifies meerly the Son of a Person, without any Regard to his Age; at other times it denotes a Servant. Thus Joshua is call’d Puer Mosi, the Servant of Exodus xxxiii. 2.Moses. Abraham is call’d the Servant of God; Gen. xxiv. 52.Quod cum audisset puer Abraham.
Puer, is sometimes used to shew Simplicity 1 Cor. xiv. 20.and Ignorance; Nolite pueri effici sensibus. Be ye not Children in Understanding, but become Eccles. x. 16.such in Malice. Woe to that Country whose Isai. iii. 41.King is a Child, (says the Wise Man). In Isaiah, the Lord threatens the Jews to give them Children for their Kings; Dabo pueros principes eorum. And the same Prophet, when Isai. lxv. 20.he describes the Time of the Messiah, says, There shall be no Child that shall live but a few Days, nor Old Man that shall not compleat the Time of his Life. He that shall die at an hundred Years of Age, shall die a Child, and the Sinner of an hundred Years old shall be accursed: Puer centum annorum morietur, & peccator centum annorum maledictus erit. Tho’ a Man should die at the Age of an hundred, yet he shall be said to die young; and it shall be at an hundred Years of Age, that God shall smite in his Anger those that fall into Wickedness.
2 Samuel ii. 14.Pueri, is often said of Soldiers; Surgant 2 Samuel iii. 22.pueri & ludant. And elsewhere: Pueri David & Joab; The Soldiers of David and of Joab. 1 Kings xx. 15,17. 1 Mac. i. 7, 9. Isai. ii. 6.Pueri principum provinciarum; The Soldiers of the Governors of the Provinces. Pueri Alexandri, are the Generals of Alexander the Great, the Princes that attended him, and were the Companions of his Victories. Isaiah reproaches the Jews with being addicted to strange Children: Pueris alienis adhæserunt. Some understand it, of the detestable Crime of the Sodomites; as likewise in Joel; Posuerunt puerum in prostibulo. Others think that Isaiah Joel iii. 3. Cyrillus Theodor.upbraids them with having married strange Wives, by whom they had Children. Others understand it more simply; They have abandon’d themselves to imitate strange Nations; they have followed their Idolatry, and have contracted Affinity with them.
Puella is also us’d in the same manner as Puer, for a young Girl, a Servant, a Waitingmaid, a Maid of Honour, a marriageable young Woman, a Virgin; and sometimes, a Woman: For Example; Filii puellarum compunxerunt Judith xvi. 14.eos. And in Amos; Filius & pater ejus ierunt ad puellam. Amos