of Chaldæa; and hence Aramaic and Chaldee have been used as convertible terms. Luther, for instance, translates

in Daniel ii. 4 " auf Chaldäisch," but in Ezra iv. 7 "auf Syrisch." As distinct from this supposed Eastern dialect, that of Syria and Palestine was called Western Aramaic, or Syro-Chaldaic. The cuneiform inscriptions have however revealed the fact that the language of Chaldæa, though cognate, was vastly different from Aramaic; and thus it is totally misleading for our Bible lexicons to be called "Hebrew and Chaldee" and for the Targums to be designated "Chaldee Targums." The wide difference between Aramaic and the language of Chaldæa is demonstrated, we say, from the inscriptions; but it might have been inferred from Isaiah xxxiii. 19 and Jeremiah v. 15, where we are told that the language of the Babylonians was one which none of the Jews could understand, whereas the Jewish nobles understood Aramaic.

A convenient division of the Aramaic dialects is (1) Syriac, (2) Mandaitic, and (3) Palestinian-Aramaic. It is convenient geographically, and it is also based on an important grammatical distinction; namely, that the regular pre-formative to the third singular future is, in the three dialects,,, and respectively.1

II. What specimens of Palestinian-Aramaic have come down to us?

The specimens, as the name implies, are chiefly Jewish. The Aramaic portions of the Bible are Daniel ii. 4 to vii. 28; Ezra iv. 8-16, vii. 12-26; and Jeremiah x. 11. The Book of Tobit also exists in Aramaic, in a unique MS. in the British Museum, which has been edited by Dr. Neubauer; but our chief documents are the Targums. When the Jews ceased to understand Hebrew, and the

1 For further information, the student is referred to Kautzsch's Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramäischen, and Dr. Wright's Comparative Grammar of Simitic Languages.

vernacular was Aramaic, it became a practice in the synagogues, in reading the law, to allow an interpreter, verse by verse, to translate the Hebrew into the vernacular. At first the interpreter was not allowed to read, he must utter his translation orally; but in course of time a guild was formed, and the translations became more uniform, until in the first or second century A.D. some one master-mind produced, as a "deposit" of the work of his colleagues and predecessors, the so-called Targum of Onkelos. This Targum is in every sense the most valuable; and, with the exception of some subtle evasions of biblical anthropomorphisms and of phrases adjudged to be derogatory to the Divine dignity, it is a remarkably accurate translation. There is in existence also a paraphrase of the Pentateuch; that is, a very free translation, embellished with legendary lore. This is of much later date than the Targum of Onkelos, and contains many Greek words. It exists in two recensions, known as the Targum of Jonathan and the Jerusalem Targum. Equally paraphrastic are the Targums on most of the rest of the Bible; except Proverbs, which is a fairly literal translation.1 The Samaritan Targum2 on the Pentateuch is also in Aramaic, but with an admixture of foreign words from various sources. The specimens of the so-called Palestinian-Aramaic outside the Holy Land are (a) some papyrus fragments and stone inscriptions written by Aramæans and Jews who sojourned in Egypt, some of which belong to the fifth century B.C.; (b) the inscriptions found in Tadmor (Palmyra); (c) some interesting Temanite inscriptions in North Arabia; and (d) the Nabathean inscriptions on rocks and tombs in Petra, Sinai, and the Haurân. Some specimens of the last two are given 1 The Jews of Wilna have issued the Pentateuch in five small volumes, with Targum and Rabbinic commentary. This is a fact worth knowing, as the Bibles of Bomberg and Buxtorf are difficult to meet with.

2 Dr. Brüll has brought out in cheap form an edition of the Samaritan Targum in Hebrew square letters. (Frankfort.)

by Dr. Neubauer in a valuable paper included in Studia Biblica.

III. What are the peculiarities of Aramaic, as compared with Hebrew?

2

Hebrew and Aramaic belong evidently to two distinct groups of the great Semitic family. This fact has been very imperfectly recognised. Eichhorn, for instance, in advocating his theory of a Syro-Chaldaic Urevangelium, constantly used Hebrew by way of illustration;1 and even Dr. Roberts speaks of Aramaic as "a Hebrew patois." Hebrew and Aramaic are cognate, but too unlike to be placed in the same group. The group to which Hebrew belongs contains also Phoenician, Canaanite, and Moabite. But what is very remarkable is, that there is grave reason for doubting whether any of these peoples spoke this language originally. The Phoenicians are said in Genesis x. to be a Hamitic people; and their love of the sea, their skill in trade and manufacture, and their city-life distinctly declare them to be non-Semitic and yet all their literary remains are in a dialect closely akin to Hebrew; so that they must have been immigrants, adopting the language of the aboriginal inhabitants. The Phoenicians called themthemselves Kenaani, and thus were the same people as the Canaanites; and consequently both were immigrants.3 As for the Abrahamidæ, the evidence is not so strong; but if Abram's cousins in Haran were Aramæans (Gen. xxv. 20, xxviii. 5), and if Laban, as a good Aramæan should, called "a heap of witness" (Gen. xxxi. 47), had not

Abram spoken the same language 150 years before? If so, the Abrahamidæ and Moabites were Aramæans, and adopted the Hebrew language from the older inhabitants "who were then in the land."

1 Einleitung in das Neue Testament, vol. i.

2 THE EXPOSITOR. First Series. Vol. vi., p. 81.

3 This view is ably advocated by Dr. Schrader in Riehm's Handwörterbuch, art. "Phönicien."

But to return. When the Hebrew student takes up the Targums he finds himself in another field. This is not the place to dilate upon the grammatical differences; but the absence of the prefixed article, the rareness of the construct state, the disappearance of the "Vav conversive," and the totally new conjugations will at once attract attention. And what strikes him more is, that some of the verbs which are most frequent in Hebrew are no longer to be seen. Such verbs as np, to receive, 77 to speak, and y, to do, are conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is the thorough change in the simple verbs of "rest" and "motion." y, to "go up"; 7, to " go down"; Nia, to "go in "; N, to "go out ";

and Ty, to stand," are not to be found in Aramaic. So also the

נוס ",of * fleeing ; נָהֵל and נָחָה אֲשֶׁר ",verbs of " leading -have no equi ,סוג and ,זור סור ",of " departing ; חָלָה and

valent in Aramaic.

The science of Comparative Philology has made many interesting disclosures as to primitive culture and local origin by examining what words the members of a class of languages possess in common, and in what they differ. The former denote, of course, the words in common use before the dispersion; the latter, the words which each people required to invent or borrow after the dispersion. I am not aware that this method has hitherto been applied to Hebrew and Aramaic, but the results are worthy of note. Both have the same name for "God"; for sea"; for the ordinary relatives; for the domestic animals, sheep, camel, horse, and cattle; and even for "ploughing" and 'sowing": but when we come to words descriptive of locality, we find an important diversity. Both have the same words for plains" and level ground: pa, "a wide plain between two mountain ranges"; ", "downs"; , "lowlands"; and 27, "a steppe," are all common to both but to designate a "mountain," Hebrew uses

66

יובל and נָהָר

two words, and y, neither of which is found in any other Semitic tongue; and the Hebrew words for "valley," Pay, "ravine," ", "cliff," yo, are none of them found in Aramaic; yet they have the same words for "river," From these facts we infer that the common home of the two peoples was not a mountainous country. Then as to their social condition. They have both the same word for "dwelling," ; but the words for "wall," , in, and y, are not Aramaic words. The Hebrew word, "a wall," is connected with the Aramaic P, "a city"; but both come from a root meaning "to dig,' which shows that the cities before the dispersion had "walls" of earth. As for collections of water, they have the same word for "fountain," ; for "pool," DIN, and also for "well," 782 (Aram., 87'). This, taken along with the fact that they have common words for "ploughing" and "sowing," shows that when the Aramæan and Hebrew parted company, they were living in much the same condition as Abram and Lot. Their residence together does not seem to have been embittered by warfare, for each language has its own word for "fighting"; and of the Hebrew words meaning "to kill" or "slay," the

are זָבַח and רָצַח שָׁחַט כָּרַת טָבַח הָרַג,following six words

without equivalent in the more peaceful Aramaic. As to the four points of the compass, the Hebrew tongue fixes its own locality by using D, "sea," for "west"; and 2, "the desert," for "south." Aramaic of course does not use these words, but designates the east, south, and west by terms which denote respectively the rising, brilliance, and setting of the sun. Thus the Aramaic language does not fix its own locality-presumably there was nothing remarkable in its boundaries. As we have seen then, the evidence indicates that the common home of the Hebrew and Aramæan was a great plain, and that it was the Hebrew who emigrated. It is probable that this plain was that