Ao/rs on the Araiiiaic Part of Daniel. 265 



1884, pp. 1021 f., obser\'ing that in the book of Daniel " he answered 

 and said " is pointed everywhere II^XI TV!iV, while " they answered and 

 said " is except in this one passage, 3 : 24) r*lttK1 1317? drew the 

 conclusion that in all cases, whether the subject be singular or plural, 

 the correct form of the phrase is the perfect tense followed by the 

 participle. This was reiterated by Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, 

 vi, p. 192 ; and accordingly Marti, Gratnm., and Conini. on 2 : 5, Strack, 

 Graiiini. § 13 g, and others, change rji? to I^X? here, and n^r to ,1317 

 wherever the phrase occurs. As Wellhausen (/. c.) states the case : "Aus 

 a no viluinii im Daniel folgt, dass auch im Singular ana, vatnar zu 

 sprechen ist." But the tiuestion is hardly to be settled so easily ; these 

 are things which are determined by the custom of living speech, not 

 b} any rule of uniformity. The use of the participle of the verb "HI^K 

 in narrative is customary, in Syriac as well as in Biblical Aramaic' 

 It was most natural, then, that in that extremely common phrase, " he 

 answered and said," the use of the participle of ^31' should also have 

 become customaiy^, at some time and place, by virtue of a very common 

 kind of phonetic attraction. That this actually did take place in Biblical 

 Aramaic is attested not merely b}' the uniform tradition of the vowel- 

 pointing (eighteen passages), but also by the consonant text in this verse. 

 The reason why the plural participle 7^3|? is used here and not elsewhere 

 is plainly this : over against " he answered and said " is placed almost 

 immediately, with only a few words intervening, " they answered and 

 said ; " and the form of the phrase was naturally kept unchanged in its 

 second occurrence. We know, that is, that the double participle was 

 used here in both cases. Ordinarily, as we can see, the participle of 

 nor was not used in the plural, in narrating ; it was introduced this 

 time merely for a rhetorical reason.^ 



It should be added, in this connection, that the participle is used 



' It is by no means universal, however. Thus, in Dan. 5 : 10, " The queen 

 answered and said " is ]n*ni;3J5T KflsSl^ T\'^V- -^^"^ ^'^ ^^^ Assuan papyri 

 various forms of the perfect tense are used. 



- The ease with which this purely rhetorical attraction could be brought 

 to pass is illustrated in just the other direction, if I am not mistaken, 

 in Syriac. Noldeke, Syrische Grammatik-, § 274, after remarking that the 

 participle of -Jio] is the form commonly used in narrative, adds : " Danach 



wird auch das im NT. haufige liojc \lL eigentlich jicjo \lL. gewesen sein." 



On the contrary, this is a similar example of attraction of the grammatical 

 form ; occurring this time also only in the third person singular masculine, because 

 of the great frequency of that combination. In the NT. also, as in the OT., 

 the traditional pronunciation of the phrase is true to the actual usage. 



