Notes oil the Aramaic Part of Daniel. 261 



Babylon." The text may be right as it stands, though the zeugma is 

 an awkward one. Perhaps, however, some such word as PTtttS^ has 

 accidentally fallen out after 7^3JD 21. The old Greek aireostSsv aurov 

 mav be allowed a littie weight, since the translator was not obliged to 

 insert another verb here i'cf Theodotion'. 



3 : 2. The word XTlS^n- as an official tide, has now been found in 

 the Egyptian papyri. 



3:2, 3. The threefold repetition of the phrase, '' which Nebuchad- 

 nezzar the king had set up," within the compass of two verses, is intol- 

 erable ; and it may be doubted whether even this writer, with all his 

 fondness for repeating himself, should bear the whole blame. It is not 

 likely that he himself wrote the phrase both times in vs. 3 ; and when 

 it is obseiTed how in its first occurrence there it immediately follows 

 the words XobiC TD^nS, exacriy as in vs. 2, the conjecture becomes 

 very probable that in this case its presence is due to an ordinary scribal 

 error. The ancient versions give no help, for they all render a text 

 identical with MT in these verses.' 



3 ■• 4 KTlID- It has often been asserted, most recently by Marti, 



T T 



Comm., that " the root HD " is found in an Aramaic inscription of 

 the pre-Grecian time. The inscription in question is CIS. ii, 86. It is 

 a seal, the provenience of which is unknown, dating from the fiftli or 

 sixth century, or even earlier. It reads : ^nS*?, i- e., " (the seali of 

 KRZI." This is the proper name of the owner, presumably a non- 

 Semitic name ; there is no likelihood at all that the idea of " heralding " 

 was ever contained in it. 



•> : 5 D'hnp- This vowel-pointing, qathros for Greek xiOap-.j, is 

 precisely as valuable as that of DriS^J, appethos, for i7rt9£3i?, in Ezr. 

 4:13. See the Am. Journ. of Sem. Languages, xxiv (1908), p. 247 ; 

 Ezra Studies, p. 175. 



o : 13 l^rr^rt- So also 6 : 18, n''ri\"t- " Emending " such forms as 

 these (as most of our commentators and editors do) is like meldng down 

 unique and priceless ancient coins in order to make modern jeweliy. 



3 : 14 i<'^2irT- The H is the interrogative particle, and it is prefixed 

 to a noun in the adverbial accusative, namely the infinitive of the verb 

 12£v The phrase means " /s it true":'' and Theodotion's d d(>.Y)i)uij is 

 an exact rendering. 



* Marti, Gramm.., asserts that Theodotion omits the phrase at the end of 

 vs. 2 ; and in the apparatus of Kittel's Biblia JHebraica we are told that he 

 omitted it at the end of vs. 4. But both statements are mistaken. Whoever 

 leans on Codex B leans on a broken reed. 



