Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Undisputed occurrences [of Aramaic in the OT]

Genesis 31:47 – translation of a Hebrew place name, Jegar-Sahadutha Strong's #H3026

Jeremiah 10:11 – a single sentence denouncing idolatry occurs in the middle of a Hebrew text.

Daniel 2:4b–7:28 – five stories about Daniel and his colleagues, and an apocalyptic vision.

Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 – quotations of documents from the 5th century BCE on the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Other suggested occurrences

Genesis 15:1 – the word במחזה (ba-maħaze, "in a vision"). According to the Zohar (I:88b), the word is Aramaic, as the usual Hebrew word would be במראה (ba-mar’e).

Numbers 23:10 – the word רבע (rôḇa‘, usually translated as "stock" or "fourth part"). Joseph H. Hertz, in his commentary on this verse, cites Friedrich Delitzsch's claim (cited in William F. Albright' JBL 63 (1944), p. 213, n.28) that it is an Aramaic word meaning "dust".

Job 36:2a – Rashi, in his commentary on the verse, states that the phrase is in Aramaic.

Psalm 2:12 – the word בר (bar) is interpreted by some Christian sources (including the King James Version) to be the Aramaic word for "son" and renders the phrase נשקו-בר (nashəqū-bar) as "kiss the Son," a reference to Jesus. Jewish sources and some Christian sources (including Jerome's Vulgate) follow the Hebrew reading of בר ("purity") and translate the phrase as "embrace purity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Aramaic

Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10, ” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324–25, 334–35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the LORD and idols in vv. 2–16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

This passage is carefully structured and placed to contrast the LORD who is living and eternal (v. 10) and made the heavens and earth (v. 12) with the idols who did not and will disappear. It also has a very careful concentric structure in the original text where “the gods” is balanced by “these,” “heavens” is balance by “from under the heavens,” “the earth” is balanced by “from the earth,” and “did not make” is balanced and contrasted in the very center by “will disappear.” The structure is further reinforced by the sound play/wordplay between “did not make” (Aram לָא עֲבַדוּ [la’ ’avadu]) and “will disappear” (Aram יֵאבַדוּ [ye’vadu]). This is the rhetorical climax of Jeremiah’s sarcastic attack on the folly of idolatry ...

While the switch to Aramaic here is unexpected and unusual, the chiasm structuring the sentence suggests it may be a popular saying that uses wordplay that would not have been possible in Hebrew. Aramaic was in use at the time as an international diplomatic language (see Isa 36:11) and was known by the educated elite of Judah.

From the various sources cited, it may have been a Aramaism that best made sense in Aramaic, similar to the use of Latin statements (e.g. quid pro quo) in modern English. Then again, it could have been a scribal gloss.

The other possible explanation is that Aramaic was the language of diplomacy and Jeremiah made a statement that the Israelites should say to their Babylonian captors when they ended up in future exile. This doesn't seem likely, however, and has little scholarly support.

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q ... in-aramaic

Secret Alias wrote:

If you want an honest discussion then refrain from such personal accusations.

Neil

For the life of me, I don't understand why it matters if someone is friendly or 'mean' or black or white or a Muslim or a Jew or fat or thin or tall or short or bearded or shaven or wearing a red shirt or

The idea that God grants a new beginning after the justified punishment is expressed by the metaphor that God “remembered his covenant.” It is the covenant with the patriarchs (Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, in this sequence in 26:42) and the (same) covenant with the ancients freed from the land of Egypt (26:45). This concept of redemption that results from the experiences of the Exile and the new beginning in the Persian period is integrated into the revelation at Mount Sinai in order to anchor the paradigm of failure, punishment, forgiveness, and new beginning at the roots of Israel’s religion. While the concept of admonition by promises and commination is borrowed from the treaties in the ancient Near Eastern literature,10 the concept of redemption is unique in Israel’s environment (Milgrom 2001: 2329).

The basic structure of Lev 26:40–45 consists of a conditional sentence, that is, a protasis (26:40–41) and an apodosis (26:42–45). The condition or protasis starts in v. 40 with the confession of iniquity and treachery: “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors,11 in that they committed treachery against me and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me”—this confession triggers an explanatory parenthesis (v. 41ab) again stressing that God’s hostile reaction was a necessary consequence of the people’s sins (Milgrom 2001: 2332; Gerstenberger 1993: 393): “So that I, in turn, continued hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies.” After that explanation, the conditional protasis is resumed by the people’s self-humiliation and contrition: “If then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity” (v. 41cd). The confession of sins is a new aspect in the long history of Israel’s iniquity and disobedience, and it corresponds to the ritual of the “Day of Atonement” in Lev 16:21: Contrition and the confession of sins are the way of the Diaspora, far from the ritual at the temple of Jerusalem, to achieve atonement (see 1 Kgs 8:46–51 par. 2 Chr 6:36–39; Baumgart 1999: 17–19).

Boda convincingly demonstrates that the idea of confession of sins created a new, postexilic genre: penitential prayers such as Ezra 9; Nehemiah 1, 9; Daniel 9; Psalm 106 (2001: 195–97; see also Boda 1999: 48, 51). Boda points out that Jer 14:19–21 is drawing on Leviticus 26 (2001: 196). This might be possible, but it does not necessarily imply that Leviticus 26 must have originated in the late Preexilic Period. Leviticus 26 probably was composed together with the chapters usually called the “Holiness Code” (H). According to Nihan, H is a late composition (post P) by a pentateuchal redactor dating to the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. (2004: 122). Hence, either Lev 26:42 got the idea about the remembrance of the covenant from Jer 14:21 or the communal lament in the book of Jeremiah is a later addition modeled on the concept of confession of sin in Leviticus 26. However, the date of H is a highly disputed matter, and the scholarly discussion cannot even be summarized here. The recent tendency seems to go toward a postexilic date, and in his various publications Nihan presents convincing arguments for his supposed scenario of the origin of the book of Leviticus. The optimism of the last century regarding the ability to reconstruct the process of the origin of H in every detail and down to every single half verse (as an example see Cholewiński 1976: 131–41) is nowadays rejected for methodological reasons.

26 “‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.

2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.

9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.

Punishment for Disobedience
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.

18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.

21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.

27 “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.

36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.

40 “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.