Notes on the Aramaic Part of Daniel. 273 



have prevailed everywhere else, and especially in Jewish Aramaic. In 

 view of such examples as n^'lDflK) Dan. 7 : 15, the later Jewish Aramaic 

 iT'^D^' nS'^JD' ^t^-' ^"^ ^^^ Mandaean form mentioned above, we 

 cannot hesitate to adopt the vocalization ri^lDSi-' The occurrence of 

 both forms, active and stative, in close proximity, is one of those things 

 which show that we are dealing with a living speech, not with a mere 

 learned idiom. In all living languages, just such variations abound. 



4 : 22 " They shall wet thee with the dew of heaven." This is the 

 best possible example of this use of the indefinite third person plural 

 as a substitute for the passive voice, " thou shalt be wet." 



4 : 23. The use of the word K'^XStT? " Heaven," in this verse, as a 

 substitute for " God," gains fresh interest from the earlier date (the third 

 century B.C.) here assigned to the book. In the second centurv' it is 

 very well known, and was probably very wide-spread. Notice, for in- 

 stance, how the old Greek translator renders X^iatr ]f2, iri vs. 20 of this 

 same chapter, by Ttapa too xupiou. 



4 : 27 flpn (construct state). Kautzsch, Gramm., § 57 a a, Marti, 

 Granim., p. 89*, and the dictionaries, all describe this as a noun of the 

 qatdl type, and expressly distinguish it from the KSpn of 2 : 37. But 

 this is a mistake ; we have in both cases the very same qntl noun. 

 There is nothing remarkable, or irregular, in this manner of writing the 

 short vowel (0 as a variation of ■iA).'- 



4 : 31 Siri^- Marti, in his explanation of this imperfect (Gramm. 

 p. 103, and Comm.), fails to appreciate the vividness of the Semitic 

 imagination, and also overlooks one or two other cases of this same 

 usage. He renders : •' und nach itnd nach kam ich wieder zu Ver- 

 stand." But would he translate 6 : 20, " then the king arose gradually 

 Dlp^ in the early morning " ? The two cases are precisely similar. This 

 imaginative imperfect is completely interchangeable with the perfect tense, 

 in such compositions as this. X!!i2K i" 7 : 16 is another example. 



^ It is out of the question to propose the pointing j^^lS)^, for, aside from 

 all the testimony in favor of the intrans. peal^ there is no evidence that the 

 pael of this verb was ever used in any Western Aramaic dialect. 



- It is a matter of indifference grammatically, for instance, whether we 

 write J<£p]n or J^SSp]^. The hofal form j"injn stands side by side with the 

 similar form ^JiJ^- ■^'^^ there is certainly no reason why any one should 

 expect a long vowel in the last syllable of this noun in the construct state. 

 The slight variation in pronunciation is a matter of small concern. It seems 

 to be a similar case of misunderstanding when Marti writes in his Gramm., 

 p. 91, '' jtobtr f^t^rschaft (vielleicht ist aram. ?^^^ zu lesenj.'' This is 

 rather mystifying, inasmuch as the two forms are identical, and the manner 

 Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XV. 18 



