Aramaic Passages in the Hebrew Bible

The Jewish Bible goes by many names. In Judaism it is referred to as the Tanakh, (an acronym for its three sections; Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim,) in Christianity it is referred to the as the Old Testament (in contrast with the later New Testament), and academia in recent decades has opted for a more neutral term: the Hebrew Bible. This name was selected on the basis that these books were written and transmitted in Hebrew, as opposed to the New Testament in which the original is Koine Greek.¹

However, what is not so well known is that this name is a slight misnomer. Although the vast majority of the Hebrew Bible is indeed in Hebrew, there are several sections which appear not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. Aramaic is a western-Semitic language which originated in the Iron Age people of Aram (roughly in modern-day Syria), and in the 7^th century BCE was adopted as the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire (which ruled over large swaths of the Near East). This language was inherited by the Babylonian Empire and was later standardized by the Persian Empire for administrative purposes. This language continued to be dominant throughout the Near East until the Arab conquest and was the language of Jesus and of both Talmuds. It still survives today with various minority populations.

The sections of the Hebrew Bible which were written in Aramaic include large sections of the books of Ezra, Nehemia, and Daniel, a solitary verse in Jeremiah 10:11, and an isolated phrase in Genesis 31:47. Why are these sections written specifically in this language?

The answer lies in a unique feature of these writings. The books of Ezra, Nehemia and Daniel are all post-exilic books, written after the Judean exiles returned to rebuild the second temple beginning in 538 BCE. With them they brought the language spoken in Babylon and the Persian Empire, which led to them writing in Aramaic.

However, these are not the only books written in the post-exilic era. Other books from this period include Chronicles, Haggai, Zachariah, Malachi, Esther, and according to modern scholarship other books such as Joel, Jonah, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, many Psalms, likely parts of Proverbs, and possibly even parts of the Pentateuch. These books are all written completely in Hebrew. Furthermore, even within Ezra, Nehemia, and Daniel large sections of the works are in Hebrew and not in Aramaic.

A reading of the books of Ezra and Nehemia produces the following observation. The sections dealing with the administrative elements and the interactions with the Persian kings are largely written in Aramaic, while the sections dealing with the internal affairs of the returnees or the religious practice in Judea are in Hebrew. Indeed, the first use of Aramaic in Ezra (2:8) is when it quotes a letter sent to Artaxerxes king of Persia. Therefore, it seems likely that Hebrew was maintained as the scribal and liturgical language amongst the Judeans, while Aramaic was only used for administrative purposed. This can be further explained based on the fact that the key figures of Zerubbabel (the leader of the first returnees) Ezra and Nehemia themselves were appointees of the Persian kings either as satraps or as government-sanctioned religious leaders. Therefore, these sections can be understood to have been actual administrative documents which were written for the Persian usage before being incorporated in the biblical books. (This is also why it only appears in Persian era works and not Babylonian, as only in the Persian Empire was there an active standardization of administrative texts to be written in Aramaic, although the language was prevalent already in the Babylonian empire.)

Although it follows that Hebrew was the exclusive religious language in Judea, this by no way means that Hebrew was spoken, or even understood by the common folk. In Nehemia 8 we read about the Torah being read to the people, and the passage explicitly states that they made use of interpreters (מבינים), seemingly because the people did not understand the original Hebrew. Nevertheless, the priestly and scribal classes maintained Hebrew as a literary and religious language.

The book of Daniel, however, does not deal in administrative matters. The Aramaic sections appear in the first half of the book, which is a collection of legends surrounding the escapades of the Judean hero in the Babylonian court (and that of Darius the Mede). Not only is it not related to administrative matters, it doesn’t even address the Persian period at all.

The solution can be found in the dating of the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel was completed between the years 167 and 164 BCE. This is evidenced by his account until the reign of the Antiochus IV Epiphanes in chapter 11.² Although the unity of the book of Daniel has been strongly questioned and the first half likely dates to an earlier period, most estimates place its composition in the 3^rd century BCE. This makes Daniel the latest book in the Bible, well into the Hellenistic period. By this period Aramaic seems to have taken a far more prominent role in Judea and was used for religious or literary purposes as well. This assertion is supported by the many Aramaic works found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, many of them dating as early as the late 3^rd century BCE. Therefore, although otherwise the literary works in the Hebrew Bible are exclusively in Hebrew, Daniel’s late composition allowed it to be written in Aramaic.

As mentioned above, there are two other usages of Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible. The usage is Genesis 31:47 is self-explanatory. The passage addresses the mound built by Jacob and Laban to mark their peace, and states that Jacob called it (גלעד) while Laban called it Y’gar Sahaduta (יגר שהדותא). Both translate to “mound – witness”, the former in Hebrew and the latter in Aramaic. Since Laban is depicted as an Aramean, it is only natural that the passage should use the name of his native Aramaic.³

However, the usage of Aramaic in Jeremiah 10:11 is rather perplexing. The verse reads as followa (NIV): “Tell them this: 'These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.' ”⁴ It appears in middle of a chapter written completely in Hebrew, and there is no apparent reason why this verse is in Aramaic.

When examining this verse there are other difficulties as well. Firstly, the context is an extended song of praise to YHWH proclaiming his exclusivity and sovereignty. This includes both the preceding and the following verses, and this warning is seemingly out of place. Furthermore, when removed from the chapter the other verses flow naturally. Secondly, the beginning of the verse which states to “Tell them this” offers no clue as to who shall be thus told. The traditional commentaries struggle with these issues but provide no sufficiently satisfying explanation. It has therefore been suggested that this verse is a later interpolation, where a scribe may have included this verse which was not originally part of this chapter. Various mechanisms may be suggested, and one possibility is that this was separate text which was written on the margin which was mistakenly included by the copyist. If this is the case, the usage of Aramaic may likely be due to it originating from a later period than the book of Jeremiah when Aramaic already entered religious use.

1. There may be several elements of the NT which were originally written in Aramaic, but they have only survived and became canonized in Greek.

2. It should be noted that the traditional dating is to the time of Daniel himself in the 6^th century BCE and his reporting of future events is attributed to prophecy (or divine inspiration).

3. Although the Aramean people and their language is not attested to until the Iron Age, far later than the supposed time for the Patriarchs (and Laban’s hometown of Harran was explicitly not Aramean at the time), this may be a later literary depiction, or alternatively this term is in an older but related west-semitic language which shares these Aramaic roots.

4. Original Aramaic - כדנה תאמרון להום אלהיא די שמיא וארקא לא עבדו יאבדו מארעא ומן תחות שמיא אלה