Ascend

Ascend - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

ASCEND', v.i. [L. ascendo, from scando, to mount or climb.]

1. To move upwards; to mount; to go up; to rise, whether in air or water, or upon a material object.

2. To rise, in a figurative sense; to proceed from an inferior to a superior degree, from mean to noble objects, from particulars to generals, _c.

3. To proceed from modern to ancient times; to recur to former ages; as, our inquiries ascend to the remotest antiquity.

4. In a corresponding sense, to proceed in a line towards ancestors; as, to ascend to our first progenitors.

5. To rise as a star; to proceed or come above the horizon.

6. In music, to rise in vocal utterance; to pass from any note to one more acute.

ASCEND', v.t. To go or move upwards upon, as to ascend a hill or ladder; or to climb, as to ascend a tree.

a-send': By derivation the English word implies motion from a lower place to (not merely toward) a higher one; and usage tends to restrict it to cases where the beholder is in the lower, not the higher, position. the King James Version uses it 39 times in all:

(1) of the going up of vapor (Ps 135:7), flame (Jud 20:40), or smoke (Re 8:4);

(2) of travel from one place to another (Ac 25:1) or of the course of a boundary (Jos 15:3);

(3) of coming up from the underworld (1Sa 28:13; Re 11:7; 17:8); and

(4) of the going up (of men, angels, our Lord) from earth to the skies or to heaven (Ge 28:12; Joh 3:13). the Revised Version (British and American) uses the appropriate form of "to go up" in all cases falling under (2) and (3); in those under (4) it retains "ascend" with an occasional change in tense; under (1) it retains "ascend" everywhere in Old Testament (Ex 19:18; Jos 8:20,21; Ps 135:7 parallel Jer 10:13 parallel Jer 51:16) except Jud 20:40, but substitutes "went up," "goeth up," in New Testament (Re 8:4; 14:11).

The like change in the Old Testament passages would make the usage of the Revised Version (British and American) uniform.

F. K. Farr