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He was born at Tadlow, in Cambridgeshire. At the age of fifteen he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but afterwards moved to St John's, because of the valuable library there. His great work, the Lexicon Heptaglotton Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Aethiopicum, Arabicum, et Persicum (1669), took him eighteen years to complete, working (according to his own account) from sixteen to eighteen hours a day. He employed fourteen assistants on the project, and spent £12,000, ruining himself in the process as there was little demand for his finished lexicon.

By 1667, he found himself in prison because he was unable to discharge his brother's debts, for which he had made himself liable. However, a volume of poems dedicated to the king brought him preferment. He was made prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral and professor of Arabic at Cambridge. Before undertaking the Lexicon Heptaglotton, Castell had helped Dr Brian Walton in the preparation of his Polyglott Bible. He died at Higham Gobion, Bedfordshire, where he was rector, and bequeathed his manuscripts to the University of Cambridge.

The Syriac section of the Lexicon was issued separately at Göttingen in 1788Events January 1 First edition of The Times previously The Daily Universal Register was published. January 2 Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 4th U. January 9 Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes t by J D MichaelisJohann David Michaelis ( 1717- 1791), German biblical scholar and teacher, was a member of a family which had the chief part in maintaining that solid discipline in Hebrew and the cognate languages which distinguished the university of Halle in the period, who made a tribute to Castell's learning and industry. Trier published the HebrewThe Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. What makes it unique is that the original Bible, the Torah, by Orthodox Jews held to be recorded in the time of Moses 3,300 years ago, was written in Biblical Classical section in 1790-1792.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.