At what time Chaldee became the dominant element in the national language it is impossible to determine. All political influences favored its ascendency, and with these concurred the influence of that large portion of the nation still resident in the East, and maintaining constant intercourse Avith a Chaldee-speaking popula- tion. To these influences we cannot wonder that the Hebrew, notwithstanding the sacred associations con- nected with it, by-and-by succumbed. On the coins of the Maccabees, indeed, the ancient language still ap- pears; but we cannot conclude from this circumstance that it maintained its position as a living language down to the Blaccal ;van ]ieriod (Kenan, Langues Semi- tiques, p. 137). The fragments of the popular language which we find in the New Testament are all Arama?an, and ever since the Hebrew has been preserved and cul- tivated as the language of the learned and of books, and not of common life. On the history of the post-Biblical
mencement of that decUne and corruption wliich mark the .second period in tiie history of the Hebrew lan- guage ; but tiie Assyrian deportation of the ten tribes, in The year B.C. 720, was probably the first means of bring- ing "the Aramaic idiom into injurious proximity with it. The Exile, however, forms the epoch at which the language shows evident signs of that encroachment of the Aramaic on its integrity, which afterwards ended in its complete extinction. The diction of the different books of this period discovers various grades of this Ar- amaic influence, and in some cases approaches so nearly to the type of the first period that it has been ascribed to mere imitation.
The writings which belong to the second age— that subseiiuent to the Babylonian Cap tiyity— accordingly differ very considerably from those which belong to the first ; the" influence of the Chaldee language, acquired by the Jewish exiles in the land of their captivity, having gradually corrupted the national tongue. The historical books belonging to this age are the books of Clironicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. In the proph- ets who prophesied during and after the Captivity, with the exception of Daniel, the Chaldee impress is by no means so strong as we might anticipate, they having evidently formed their style on that of the older proph- ets. It is important, ho^vever, to observe that the pres- ence of what appears to be a Chaldaism is not always the indication of a later age. Chaldee words and forms occasionally appear even in the most ancient Hebrew compositions, especially the poetical, the poet delight- ing in archaic and rare words, and substituting these for the more usual and commonplace. But between the Chaldaic arcliaisms and the Chaldeisms of the later Scriptures there is this marked distinction, that the for- mer are only occasional, and lie scattered on the surface ; the latter are frequent, and give a peculiar color and character to the whole language.
A still more corrupt form of the language appears in the !Mishna and other later Jewish writings, in which the foreign element is much more decided and promi- nent.
(2.) Place. — Under this head is embraced the ques- tion as to the existence of different dialects of the an- cient Hebrew. Was the Hebrew language, as .spoken by the several tribes of Israel, of uniform mould and character? or did it branch out into various dialects corresponding to the leading divisions of the nation? In attempting to answer this question, there is no direct historical testimony of which we can avail ourselves. From Neh. xiii, 23, 24, we learn nothing more than that the language of Ashdod dltTered from that of the Jews after their return from captivity, which is only what we might have anticipated. The notices in Judg. xii, C and xviii,3, which are more to the purpose, refer rather to a difference in pronunciation than in the form of the language. Notwithstanding it seems piima facie prob able ((/) that the language of the trans-.) ordanic tribes was in course of time modified to a greater or less ex- tent by the close contact of these tribes with the Syr- ians of the north and the Arab tribes of the great east- ern desert ; and (b) that a similar dialectic difference woulil gradually be develoi)ed in the language of Ephra- im and the other northern tril)es to tlie west of the Jordan, especially after the ))olitical separation of these tribes from the tribe of Judah and the family of David. Possilily in the ./eiri.ih langiiagr of 2 Kings xviii, 2H we may discover the trace of some such difference of dia- lect; fur we can scarcely suppose the name ,/eirifh to have been introduced in the very brief period which in- tervened between the taking of Samaria and the trans- action in the record of wliich it occurs; and, if in use before the taking of Samaria and tlie cajitivity of the ten tribes, it must have been restricted to the form of the Helirew language prevailing in .Iiida'a, which, being thus distinguished in name fniui the language of the I Hebrew we do not now enter.
northern tribes, was i)r(>l)ably distinguished in other re- j HI. Of the Written Ilcbrev The Shemitic nations
Bpects also. It is not inqirobable that some of the lin- I have been the teachers of the world in religion ; by tha