their command-that, finally, the transacting of all public business in the Babylonish-Aramaic dialect must, in progress of time, have greatly circumscribed the use of the national Hebrew, is very manifest; for such Palestinian Jews as accepted public situations, or otherwise entered into more intimate connection with the new rulers, lay under the necessity of accustoming themselves to their dialect, which, in all probability, even before, had become the court-language in Jerusalem.k

§ 3. During the dominion of the Persians in Palestine, the Aramean tongue being at that time almost universally spoken in the country, must have taken still deeper root. The vast hordes of Palestinian Jews who, during an exile of seventy years, had, in the foreign country become perfectly Aramaized; and, with the permission of the Persian monarchs, returned again to their ancient abodes, must have completely and finally extirpated what little there remained of the Hebrew dialect, which in a few places had perhaps till then subsisted as a language of common conversation; and the manifold connections and intercourse after this period maintained by them with their numerous kindred, remaining * 2 Kings xviii. 26.

in Persia, and speaking the Aramaic, must have been to them a motive to preserve the common dialect, through the medium of which that reciprocal intercourse could best be carried on, and to cultivate it and enrich it with the same zeal as their relatives and countrymen who remained in Persia. Moreover, the Aramean dialect continued during the dominion of the Persians to be the language of public business' which they and their officers, of whom the greatest number were Arameans, in the western part of the kingdom, and, consequently, also in Palestine, employed in public edicts, proclamations, and records; and, in the earlier times, it underwent no farther change than this, that it now, as before, incorporated a few Persian terms of office and fashion, which were imported by the

סרבל גזבר דת barbarous Chaldeans, such as

&c. In later times it is possible that the wars between the Greeks and Persians, in which nations of the Shemitic family," and, 1 Esra iv. 7, 8.

m Flavius Josephus cont. Apion. i. 22. "But Chœrilus, a more ancient poet, mentions our nation as making the Greek campaign along with Xerxes; for, counting all the different nations, last in the series, he mentions ours saying: Τὰ δ ̓ ὄπισθεν διέβαινε γένος θαυμαστὸν ἰδέσθαι Γλῶσσαν μὲν Φοίνισσαν ἀπὸ στομάτων ἀφιέντες

ᾤκες δ ̓ ἐν Σολύμοις ὄρεσι πλατέῃ ἐνὶ λίμνῃ.

i. e.

probably, even Arameans, took a part, may have been the means of introducing several Greek words, which had become favourites with the returning warriors. At all events, the appearance of Hellenisms in the most ancient Aramaic fragments in Daniel," which, in succeeding ages is so frequent in Aramaic writings, seems to be attributable to very early periods.

This then appears to have been the manner and method in which the Babylonian-Aramaic dialect, enriched by a number (not very great indeed,) of Chaldaisms, Persisms, and, perhaps, also by some Hellenisms, was, during the period of the Chaldaic dominion, introduced into Palestine, and generally propagated as a national language. That this was not done all at once

After that followed a tribe wondrous of aspect,

Uttering, indeed, with their mouths a Phoenician language

But they resided in the mountains of Solymi in a wide marsh."

Even if Josephus had made a mistake [the translator thinks it manifest that he has] and from amiable patriotism sought in Palestine the hills of Taurus which the Solymni inhabited, (Strabo i. p. 57, ed. Siebenkees) this passage still makes it clear that a nation speaking the Phoenician tongue were engaged in Xerxes' campaign against the Greeks.

" See Eichhorn's Einleitung ins Alte Testament, vol. iii.

p. 347.

that in the earlier periods the people preserved the Hebrew dialect along with the Aramaic that, during several generations the Hebrew continued to be understood, being constantly read in the Synagogues, and, as long as the Aramaic national language was not too much disfigured by barbarisms, being rendered, perhaps, a little more intelligible by the Aramaizing pronunciation of the reader; and, finally, that the learned, whose business it was to interpret the sacred national writings, preserved the Hebrew as a learned tongue, and even for a considerable time made use of it in their written compositions-all these are propositions founded on the history of the latter books of the Old Testament, and which cannot even be doubted, when we consider the intimate relationship between the two dialects.

§ 4. The Babylonian-Aramaic dialect, which, in the manner here stated, had been introduced into Palestine during the dominion of the Chaldeans and Persians, must also of necessity, under Alexander the Great, who, after vanquishing Darius, made himself lord of Palestine, have maintained itself as the language of the country. The army with which he occupied Palestine, and appeared at the gates of Jerusalem, consisted, not of Greeks, but of

Phoenicians and Chaldeans," whose temporary sojourn in the country could not effect any revolution in the language. He granted the Jews of Palestine, as well as those of Babylon, the free maintenance of their ancestral laws and customs, and allowed them to maintain their former magistracy. And, although he received into his army a great number of Jews, who spontaneously resolved to follow him," even these, surely, had small opportunity to make themselves acquainted with the Greek language. For he allowed them faithfully to retain the usages and customs of their fathers, and, consequently, also their language, and probably in the time following, they ever subsisted as an isolated corps, and in every way distinct from the Greeks, and perhaps only associated with the Chaldeans, among whom also it is not unlikely there were many Jews. These, then, after their return to their own country, could not effect any great change in the nation's language, except, perhaps, by importing a few Greek words.

§ 5. Neither was the reign of the Greek-Egyptian rulers who, sometime after Alexander's death, maintained their dominion over Palestine,

Joseph. Ant. Jud. xi. 8, 5.

P Joseph. in the place next above quoted.