SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. 



235 



Belshazzar, i.e. Bel-shar-usur) means " May the Life-giver pre- 

 serve the king." Mu-ballit (participle act. of the Piel of balatu, 

 to live), is a frequently used title of Merodach (Maruduku), who 

 was" the god specially honoured by Nebuchadnezzar. This is 

 clear from the names he gave his sons, Marduk-nadin-akhi, 

 Marduk-shum-usur, and Awel -Marduk (Evil-Merodach) {vide 

 Dr. Pinches' paper, " Babylon in the Days of Nebuchadnezzar," 

 Journal of Vict. Inst., vol. lii, pp. 199-208). He speaks of 

 Merodach with deep devotion, as, e.g., in the following passage : 

 " Merodach, all-knowing lord of the gods, glorious prince, thou 

 hast created me and conferred upon me the sovereignty of 

 multitudes of men." Merodach was the great patron-god of 

 Babylon, the seat of his worship. The magnificent temple of 

 E-Sag-ila was dedicated to him. Even Cyrus represents 

 Merodach as seating him on the throne of Babylon. The omis- 

 sion of the first syllable of the long name, Mu-ballit-shar-usur, 

 is in accordance with the custom of contracting such names, 

 as already explained, and as illustrated in the contraction of 

 shar-usur into shazzar in Belshazzar. So Nebuchadnezzar was 

 right in speaking of Daniel's Babylonian name as being in 

 accordance with " the name of his god." 



Shadrach* (Shudur-aku) means the " Command of Aku,'' 

 the Moon-god ; Meshach is Me-sha-aku, = Who is what Aku is ? 

 (cf. examples of me, who ?, used in place of the usual mannUy 

 in Muss-Arnolt, p. 503) ; and Abed-nego is either a purposely 

 made Jewish corruption of the actually occurring Abdu-Nabu 

 (cf. Ish-Bosheth for Ish-Baal in the Old Testament), or, less 

 probably, a textual corruption of Abed-Nanna, Nanna being a 

 well-known Babylonian goddess. In these names the Divine 

 name of the Hebrew appellations of the captives is replaced 

 by that of a Babylonian deity. 



The names given to these men in Babylon are so distinctly 

 not Aramaic that it is quite evident that the writer did not fancy 

 or seek to imply that the latter tongue was then the ordinary 

 language of the country. His use of Babylonian, on the contrary, 

 proves that he knew and was convinced that Aramaic was 

 recognised by his readers as 7iot being the language of Babylon. 

 Why, therefore, is this part of the book composed in Aramaic ? 



* Dr. Pinches says : " Shadrach and Meshach remain for me puzzles, 

 as their names do not occur in the inscriptions, and theorising about them 

 is unsafe." 



