254 Charles C. Torrey, 



gender required is masculine (not feminine, as in Dan. : K*11K ^3X2 Xflbtt '), 

 the word is written without the feminine ending.J 



Whatever the prevaihng use of the word may have been in the origmal 

 Persian, we have now conclusive evidence that in the Jewish Aramaic 

 of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries B.C. it was used as an adjective 

 with the meaning '' sure " ; and that it was inflected like any native 

 word, the absol. masc. sing, being "ITX (pronounced ^y^, or ^y^ ?) and 

 the absol. fem, sing. K'lIX- How extensively, or for how long a time, 

 the word was used, we have not the means of knowing. It was quite 

 obsolete, certainly, at the time when that massoretic tradition arose 

 which pointed it as a participle, X^TK> in the Daniel passages. In all 

 probability, the verb *7TJ< (= '^^IS) which occurs a few times in late Jewish 

 Aramaic (see Lev}', s. v) and at least once in Syriac (Payne Smith, col. 

 105) had its sole origin in this newly created participle in Daniel. 



2 : 5 p*TDmn TDln- Compare jxeXt] TroiT^aavTs?, ii Mace. 1 : 16. 

 I have no longer any doubt that the two letters prefixed to ii Mace, 

 are genuine letters sent from Jews in Jerusalem to their brethren in 

 Egypt (see my defence of their authenticity in the Zeitschrift fur die 

 alftestamentliche Wissenschaft, xx (1900), 240 ff.); and it seems to me 

 now probable that the original language of both letters was Aramaic 

 rather than Hebrew, in view of such words and idioms as ri5|?31) '*-'^^ 

 vuv, 1:6; ^53-lS Q^s':?, sis cpepv^ Xo>v, 1 : 14 ; 1^217 ptt^H, V-^M 

 TCoty^travxe?, 1 : 16. So also the copyist's error in the original of 1 : 10, 

 Klin^ for K^IIH"'? whence xat 'louoa? instead of xuiv 'louoaitov, would 

 have been easier in Aramaic than in Hebrew.^ The character of the 

 legends contained in these two letters, ii Mace. 1 : 1—9 and 1 : 10-2 : 18, 

 which were composed in Aramaic and sent (officially) Jrom " the 

 Jeivs of Jerusalem and Judea " to the Jewish church in Egypt suggests 

 that the stories of Daniel were probably taken more seriously among 

 those who first heard and read them, than we might be inclined to 

 suppose. 



2 • 6 jn^. This word has remained a puzzle. Scholars have generally 

 agreed that it must be distinguished from the compound of ^ and 

 |;i, corresponding to the Hebrew '^^ DJ< and having the same series 



^ Observe that in vs. 8, where the phrase is repeated, the adjective is 

 put first for the sake of added emphasis. 



* My identification {ibid. pp. 231 f.) of the " Antiochus " of 1 : 13-16 

 with Antiochus VII Sidetes receives strong additional support, as I believe, 

 from Megillaih Taanith, xi, end (see Dalman's comment, Arawdische Diakkt- 

 proten, p. 34). The day when Antiochus Sidetes withdrew from Jerusalem 

 ■(134 B.C.) was celebrated as a feast day for at least two centuries. 



