twcen the time of Abraham and Mo.ses by the Egyptian and Arabic, so in the period between Moses and Solomon it was influenced by the Pbcenician, and, down to the time of Kzra, continued to receive an accession of exotic terms which, though tending to enlarge its capabilities as a spoken and written tongue, materially affected the prim- itive simplicity and purity of a language compared with which none may be said to have been so poor, and yet none so rich. But with the period of the captivity there arose an entirely new literature, strikingly different from the earlier, and this is to be traced to the influence ex- erted by the Aramaic tongue iqion the Hebrew, which had previously been devulnping itself within restricted limits. This was tlie introduction to its gradual decay, which did not become fully manifest, however, until the commencement of the Chaldrean period. Not only did the intrusion of this powerful Aramaic element greatly tarnish the purity of the Hebrew words and their gram- matical formation, older ones having been attend and siqiplanted by newer ones, wliieh are Aramaic for the most part;* it also obscured the understanding of the old language,! an'l it enfeebled its instinctive operations, until at length it stifled them. The consequence was that the capacity of observing grammatical niceties in the old pure Hebrew was entirely lost ;J partly the dis- tinction of prose and poetical diction was forgotten ;§ and, finally, as the later writers went back upon the Pen- tateuch and other older compositions, many elements which had already died out of the language were repro- duced as archaisms. ||
(4.) Decay of the /febre.v Langvar/e. — But the great crisis of the language occurs at the time of the captiv- ity of Babylon. Then, as a sfxiken tongue, it became deeply tinged with Aramaic. The Biblical Hebrew, abiding in the imperishable writings of the prophets, continued to be the study of the learned ; it was heard on the lips of the priest in the services of religion, and was the vehicle of written instruction ; but as the me- dium of common conversation it was extensively affect- ed, and, in the case of multitiules, superseded, by the idiom of the nation among whom Providence had cast their lot. So an Aramaized Hebrew, or a Hebraized Aramsean, continneii to be spidien by such of them as resettled in Palestine luider Ezra and Nehemiah, while the yet greater number who jireferred the uninterrupt- ed establishment of their families in Babylonia fell en- tirely into the use of Aramaic.
This decline of the popular knowledge of pure He-
* This is especially seen in the coining of new words for abstract ideas by means of prefixed letters or syllables added, as biirsri for b^l'Sa (Psa. cxvi, 12) ; r^JTn for r^:T (Ezek. xvi, IS, 20) ; <i;r;r2 (Ezra i. 6 ; Esth. v, 3, 7, 8), etc.
tThis is shown by the increasing use of the scriptiu ple- na, as, ^"O^'^i'^ fin- -n^SCi; the interchange of the weak let- ters n and N— for instance, 7prt ( IChron. xiii, 12) for 'H'^X (2 Sam. vi,9) ; the resolution of the darjenh forte in sharp- ened syllables by inserting a vowel, as "'H'^X for ipiX (1 Chnm. xi, 31), or by inserting a liquid, pC^"!^ for pi'2n (xviii, 5, 6).
t Interchange of rX as the sign of the accnsative, and as meaning " wii h"— for instance, Jer. i, 16 ; xix, 10 ; xx, 11, etc. ; the use of 5 to mark the accusative instead of the dative (1 Chron. v, 2G; xvi,. 17; xxix, 20, 22, etc.): the use of h'S instead of bx ; the use of Aramaic forms of inflec- tion, as, inx for PlX (Jer. iv, 30) ; ip for n (ii, 33 ; iii, 4, 5; iv, 10), etc.
? Conip. (^5>3 (Piel), "foheafraid" (Ezra iv, 4, elsewhere only the substantive nrib3 in poetry); PIM, "to reject, with loathing" (1 Chron. xxviii, 0; 2 Chron. xi, 14; xxix, 10, earlier only in poets, and in Hos. viii, 3, 5 ; Zeth. x, C).
II E. g. "pO, "species" (Ezek. xlvii, 10, taken from the Pentateuch) ; iTl!lt373, "a measure" (1 Chi-on. xxiii, 29); Ezek. iv, 11, 10, etc., from Lev. xix, .^5) ; PD^i " t" "Ct cuu- ninixly" (Mai. i, 14; Psa. cv, 25, from Gen. xxxvii, IS or Numb. XXV, IS), etc.
SHEMITIC LANGUAGES
659
SHEMITIC LANGUAGES
brew gave occasion to the appointment of an order of interpreters {nieturffeniudiii} in the synagogue for the explication of the Scriptures in this more current dia- lect, as can be seen from Neh. viii, 8, where we read, " They [the priests and Levites] read in the book, in the law of God ffi^BlS, and appended thereto the sense, and caused them to understand the reading," where the word means, " with an explanation subjoined," i. e. with an interpretation added, with an explanation in Chaldee, the vulgar tongue, as appears from the context and by a comparison of Ezra iv, 18 and verse 7. Accordingly, the Talmudists have already correctly explained our passage 013~in nt U3~i3''3, and so also Clericus, Dathe, etc. See Targum.
But while these changes were taking place in the ver- nacular speech, the Hebrew language itself still main- tained its existence. It is a great mistake to call He- brew a dead language. It has never died, it will never die. In the days to which we are now referring, it was still loved and revered by the Jewish people as the " holy tongue" of their patriarchs and prophets. Not only the remaining canonical Scriptures, but the prayers and hymns of the Temple and synagogue, were, for the most part, written in it, and even the inscriptions of the coinage retained both the language and the more an- tique characters, in preference to those more recently introduced b}' Ezra.