Equipped For Every Good Work

Lesson 5

BIBLE LANGUAGES: ARAMAIC

Toward the close of the eleven-hundred-year stretch of time over which the Hebrew Scriptures were written a language other than Hebrew cropped up now and then in Bible manuscripts. That intruding tongue was Aramaic. Though Aramaic words that had been incorporated into Hebrew had appeared before Jeremiah's day, it was in his writings that a complete statement in Aramaic first appeared. (Jer. 10:11, Am. Stan. Ver., margin) Later on down in Babylon Daniel wrote more extensively in Aramaic, all the way from 2:4 to 7:28. (See marginal note on Daniel 2:4 in the American Standard Version.) Still Inter, long after the end of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon and near the close of the period of Hebrew-

Scripture writings, scribe Ezra wrote in Aramaic in the book that bears his name, from 4: 8 to 6:18, and again at chapter 7, verses 12 to 26. (Once more confirm by checking the marginal readings in the American Standard Version, this time in connection with Ezra 4: 8 and 7:12.) But with these brief portions the Bible scholar's interest in Aramaic does not end.

Aram was a plain extending west to east from the Lebanon mountains to beyond the Euphrates river, and north to south from the Taurus mountains to beyond Damascus. The country Aram seems to have corresponded generally to the Syria and Mesopotamia of the Greeks and Romans. This extensive plain was occupied by the descendants of Shem's son Aram, who were called Arameans, and whose language was called Aramaic. Hence their tongue was of the Semitic family of languages and closely related to Hebrew. Throughout the time that the Israelites spoke Hebrew they were constantly in touch with Aramaic-speaking people. Abraham, descended from Shem through Arphaxad, lived for a time in Haran, which was in Aramean Mesopotamia. Isaac's wife came from the same place. However, it is not until the close of Jacob's twenty-year sojourn in Aramean Mesopotamia that the Scriptures first reveal any difference in the Hebrew and Aramaic tongues. Then it was that Jacob and his Aramaic-speaking father-in-law Laban used different words to designate a heap of witness. (See Genesis 31: 47, and the two marginal references thereon in the American Standard Version.) When together in the household of Shem, Aram and Arphaxad, of course, spoke the original Semitic language. Now, some 600 years later, their descendants' speech was no longer the same. Aramaic had by this time begun branching off from the original Semitic language of Hebrew. Just how different the tongues were at that early date is not known.

After the nation of Israel entered the Promised Land Aramean tribes dwell among them, and close connections existed between the Israelites and the Arameans dur-

ing the period of Judges. (Josh. 13:13; 1 Chron. 2:23; Judg. 3:8,10; and Judg. 10:6, Am. Stan. Ver., margin) King David subjugated a great part of Aram; he married an Aramean princess from Geshur. Solomon carried on trade with kings of Aram. When the close association between the Israelites and the Arameans is considered and it is remembered that a large part of Solomon's domain was peopled by Arameans, it is not difficult to understand why Aramaic traits are found in Solomon's writings, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Prom the days of David and Solomon to about 400 B.C. the Arameans were the international traders on land, carrying their goods and their language far beyond the borders of their land.

During the reigns of the kings of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel repeated clashes occurred between the Israelites and Syrians, or Arameans. The northern part of the Israelite kingdom was conquered; towns changed hands several times. The Syrian king of Damascus even set up trading-quarters in Israel's capital, Samaria. Even Judah was invaded during the reign of King Ahaz and some Judeans were taken captive northward to Damascus. Then when Syria was subdued by Assyria and the ten-tribe kingdom later fell to the Assyrian Shalmaneser IV, in 740 B.C., he moved Israelites into Aramaic-speaking sections of his empire and transported into Samaria people from places of his empire where Aramaic was spoken wholly or in part. This put Aramaic-speaking people at the very doors of Judah. A few years later it is revealed that the officials of Judah could understand Aramaic, but the common people could not. (2 Ki. 18:26, Am. Stan. Ver., margin) All of this shows the nearness of the Hebrews and the Arameans and explains the more and more frequent appearances of Aramaisms in the Scripture writings as time marched on.

When Jerusalem fell in 607 B.C. most of the Jews were taken captive to Babylon. Long before, the Arameans had overrun the Tigris-Euphrates valley, and by the time the Jews arrived there the basic population of Babylonia was

Aramaic. The Chaldeans from the south had filtered northward into Babylonia, but it seems that their native dialect was crowded out by Babylonian and Aramaic. It was at one time inaccurately believed that Chaldee and Aramaic were the same. At any rate, when the Jews arrived in Babylon they rapidly added Aramaic expressions to their speech. It is very likely that at this time and shortly after the release from captivity the Jews could understand both Hebrew and Aramaic, but Hebrew was fading and Aramaic was coming in stronger and stronger. After Nehemiah's time the Jews, surrounded by and intermingled with Aramaic-speaking peoples, forgot Hebrew and spoke only Aramaic. Ever since the reign of Darius (521-485 B.C.) Aramaic had been recognized as the international language.

The trained Jewish priests and scribes alone kept the Bible Hebrew alive. When they read from the Scriptures they were obliged to accompany the reading with a paraphrase in Aramaic in order that the common Jewish people could understand. In time these Aramaic paraphrases were put into writing and called Targums. When Christ Jesus was on earth the language of the Jewish people was Aramaic, and for that reason the Greek Scriptures call it Hebrew. Matthew's Gospel, which seems to have been written with the Jews particularly in mind, was first recorded in Aramaic. It was later translated by Matthew himself into the koine Greek that was so widely understood at that time. No Aramaic copies of Matthew's Gospel have been preserved. This seems to indicate that there was not the widespread demand for it that there was for the Greek version in the international koine Greek of that time.

It is quite probable that by A.D. 100 Jehovah's witnesses at Antioch had translated at least the gospels into the Aramaic dialect spoken there, called Syriac (which was somewhat different from the Aramaic spoken in Palestine). Because some Palestinian Aramaic words appear in this translation it is believed that it was made by refugee Christians from Palestine. This version is known as the Old Syriac

Version. From time to time this version was revised and eventually came to be known as the Peshitta. This revision seems to have been complete by the beginning of the fifth century after Christ. By about the fifth or sixth century the Greek Scriptures were translated into the Palestinian Aramaic of that time. However, with the rise and spread of Islam, which began in the seventh century, Arabic took the place of Aramaic and Aramaic ceased to be a living language, except in a few out-of-the-way places in the mountain regions of northwestern Iran (formerly called Persia). Thus Aramaic joined Hebrew in the grave of dead languages.