Scottish divine, born in Calcutta on the 19th of October 1856, where his father, George Smith, C.I.E., was then principal of the Doveton College. He was educated at Edinburgh in the Royal High School, the University and New College. After studying at Tübingen and Leipzig and travelling in Egypt and Syria, he entered the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland and was appointed professor of Old Testament subjects in the Free Church College at Glasgow 1892. In 1909 he was appointed principal of the University of Aberdeen.
Among his works are The Book of Isaiah (2 vols., 1888–1890); The Book of the Twelve Prophets (2 vols., 1876–1877); Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1894); Jerusalem (2 vols., 1907); The Preaching of the Old Testament to the Age (1893); The Life of Henry Drummond (1898).
He was knighted in 1916, and from 1916 to 1917 was moderator of the general assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland. His later works include The Early Poetry of Israel (1912); Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land (with J. G. Bartholomew, 1914) and Syria and the Holy Land (1918).
