218 REV. W. ST. CLAIR TTSDALL, D.D., ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL : 



(ruler), adhirdjd, adhifurusha ; so, too, with the preposition 

 ajpi (— Greek eVt), only in this case the first vowel is often 

 lost, as in pi-dhd, pi-nah, pi-dribh. Adhi too often loses its first 

 vowel, as in dhi-shthita. 



20. Another undoubted Persian word is Nebrashta (Dan. v, 5). 

 The first element here is ni-. Then the Avestic root brdz-, to 

 shine = the Sanskrit bhrdj with the same meaning. In Avestic 

 the z becomes sh regularly before t ; the participle would be 

 brdshta, or, with the prefixed ni-, nibrdshta. In the Aramaic 

 nebrdshtd the final vowel is, of course, the definite suffix. The 

 Persian word would mean " illuminated," and hence the Biblical 

 term would no doubt denote a lamp, a chandelier. 



21. The word Zeman is also most probably taken from the 

 Persian. In the Avesta we find Zrvdn, time. The word has 

 been adopted into all the main Semitic languages, the v being 

 changed to m in Heb., Aram., Arab., Aeth., and into 6 in Syr., 

 Sam., etc. (In modern Persian the word zamdn has been borrowed 

 once more from the Arabic.) It occurs quite frequently in the 

 Eg. -Aram, papyri. 



Dr. Driver says that there are at least fifteen Persian words in 

 Daniel. We have found about twenty-one, and our investigation 

 has shewn that they are undoubtedly Persian, though some of 

 them have not previously been considered as certainly borrowed 

 from that language, nor has their etymology been in every case 

 previously established. 



It might seem that our examination has thus strengthened 

 the argument against the antiquity of the book. But this is not 

 so, as will be perceived when all the linguistic evidence is before us. 



Eduard Meyer* has shewn that the Aramaic documents 

 contained in Ezra are to be held genuine. They would hardly 

 be worth including in his work by the historian were it otherwise. 

 The part of Ezra which is in Aramaic is : Chapters iv, 8, to vi, 

 18, and vii, 12 to 26, both inclusive. Even Dr. Oesterley speaks 

 of Ezra iv, 8, to vi, 18, as an " Extract from an Aramaic docu- 

 ment " (Peake's Cmimeniary on the Bible, p. 327). Now anyone 

 who examines these portions of Ezra will perceive that the 

 style and language employed are the same as in the rest of the 

 Aramaic part of the book. Dr. Oesterley states that " Insofar 

 as these sources " (those from w^hich the earlier parts of Ezra- 



* A hostile critic : in his Entstehung des Judenthums, HalJe, 1896. 

 Hommel, Die altisraelitische Uherlieferung, pp. 22 sqq. 



