The Pulpit Commentary — Daniel — Section 17

ancient tongue of Palestine would be spoken. When by the decree of Cyrus they were permitted to return t-0 their own land, the Jews found that mony settlers had pressed in upon the territory which they had previously occupied, .All these settlers could speak Aramaic, whatever tongue they might use besides, and this would have compelled the Jews also t-0 learn Aramaio. In all likelihood the .Aramaizing process had gone on already in the territ-Ories of the northern tribes. When the Ninevite monarchs sent in colonists to inhabit the land that had been so faid waste by their campaigns, the only common language these colonists could have would be Aramaio. Moreover, the remnants of the people that were left in the land would also have t-0 learn .Aramaic in order to carry on intercourse with these incomers. The tendency to abandon Hebrew would gradually become irresistible; hence we find that the common people required to have the Law interpreted to them. lu these circumstances it was but natural that the Hebrew that was still occasionally spoken should be very much Aramaized. But, on the other hand, it is almost necessary to hold that the Aramaic spoken by the Jews had a Hebrew colour given to it. Although Hebrew may have fallen into disuse among the Jews and the Samaritans, it was still spoken among the Phrenicians till the Greek period was well advanced. Not impossibly it may have been spoken in Moab and Ammon, if not so late as it we.a in Phcenici&, at least far down in the Persian period. This would tend to preserve in forco the tendency to modify Aramaic in a direction that would make it more like Hebrew. In some of the older inscriptions, as those in Sindachirli, .Aramaic has many points in which it is liker Hebrew than, at all events in its Ea.stern dialects, it afterwards was.1 In the East, .Aramaic was developing in another direction and under other influences. It would be nearly impossible to say with certainty what were the distinctive characteristics of Eastern .Aramaic in the days of the Babylonian supremacy, tho modifications that the language has undergone are so great. While the moduications which the spoken language UDderwent were great, to some erlent, this would be liable to affect works that were repeatedly copied. The books that, like the Law, the Prophets, and the P ..alms, were used in the regular synagogue service, would be protected from any great change by the familiarity of the audience with the words. Daniel was not so protected, hence it would be greatly exposed to modification and interpolation. When we compare the Massoretic text with the translation which has come down to us in the Codex Chisianus, we find extraordinary differences. Not unfrequently have these differences been referred to, and the Septuagint version of Daniel has on account of them been denounced as unfaithful. It seems a somewhat hasty conclnsion to come to, that this translation, which in regard to other books is fairly faithful, should in regard to this book and-with the exception of Ezra-this book alone, be so very unfaithful Like Daniel, Ezra was not regularly read in the synagogue : there was, therefore, the possibility of variation. Do the phenomena before us fit this latter supposition? Were the differences between the Septuagint and the Massoretic due to variations in the text from which the latter ultimately sprang? It so happens that we can prove this by having other versions that date before the fixation of the Massoretic text, and we find that there is precisely the gradual variation exhibited that we might expect. Theodotion's, which appears to have been a revision of a translation made probably in Asia Minor, i~, after the Septuagint, the earliest of these. The object Theodotion avowedly had was to make the Greek 2gree as nearly as possible with the Hebrew criginal as he had it. Hence his version ma.y oo held as accurately representing the Hebrew text current in his day. His date 1 In the Sindschirli Inscriptions, the l!ingular imperfect begine with•, not l or~. as in tLti Syriac and Me.ndrean dialecte rtispectively.  'HIE llOOK OF DANIEr,. X xi