212 REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D., ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL ! 



1. ParUmlm, Dan. i, 3, 6 (c/. Esther i, 3 ; vi, 9) is the Hebrew 

 plural of the Avestic Persian word Fratema, " foremost," and 

 hence " Chief, Leader." In Achsemenian Persian the word is 

 Fratama, " first," so we have in that dialect "fratamd marti^/d/' 

 leading men : " Dahvyunam fratema-dhato " in Yasht x, 18 = 

 *' prae-positus (prae-fectus) provinciarum." In the word we are 

 considering we have the superlative of the root Fra, of which the 

 comparative occurs in the Strassburg Papyrus (Ungnad 2a, line 

 4), in the word Fratara-k(a), with the termination -ka. The word 

 denotes an officer of a certain rank. 



2. Pathbdg (Dan. i, 5, 8, etc.) : rightly explained in the B.D.B. 

 Hebrew Lexicon as Avestic pati-baga, " special portion," i.e., food 

 assigned to the king ; in Ass. it appears as pati-pa-baga* (Hil- 

 precht. Series A, Vol. IX) : Sans, prati-bhdga, share, division, 

 present of fruit, flowers, to a king. 



3. Azdd : from the Gathic azda, Vedic Sanskrit addha, from a, 

 this : = thus, certainly, = certain. In the Strassburg Pap., 

 line 3, azda occurs, = enquiry, information : Armenian azd 

 = notice, information ; azd linel, to be informed ; azdem, I 

 inform. In papyrus 13480, lines 5 and 7, the Persian azdakara 

 occurs, meaning " an intelligence officer," perhaps. 



4. Hadddm : the Avestic han-ddma, limb ; in Syr. and later 

 Aramaic the word occurs only as verb in Pa'el, " to dismember." 



5. Ddth : law. Avestic DdtJiem, n., law, justice, from root dd, 

 Sans. dhd. The word seems undoubtedly Persian [though its 

 Babylonian origin might be asserted, for in Ass. -Bab. inscriptions 

 (Knudtzon, Assyr. Gebete an den Sonnengott," Nos. 293, and 

 1, 23, 116, b, 21, etc.) w^e find Ditu, dUi, dati, meaning decision, 

 rule, law," perhaps from the Semitic root dun, din, to judge. 

 For example : " Dati sha imni wa shumeli ishten-ta-an halqa," 

 " The laws of the right hand and of the left hand have perished every 

 one " (Muss- Arnold, p. 270)]. If Dati, etc., are really from the 

 Persian, their occurrence in Assyrian inscriptions of this class 

 shows that a certain number of Persian words had been introduced 

 into the writteyi classical Assyrian even before the Persian conquest. 

 A few such words, as we shall see later, had thus been borrowed 

 from the Persian before Cambyses' time. In both the Assouan- 

 Elephantine papyri and in Assy rio -Babylonian tablets, princi- 

 pally of the time of Artaxerxes I (466-425 B.C.), the compound 



* Vide p. 228, No. 27, below. The extra -pa is probably a mistake of 

 the scribe. 



