252 REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D., ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL : 



to use the older name, not Syriac. My own idea is that it resulted 

 from the copyists. As the ancient scribes wrote to dictation the 

 reader of the MS. would be prone to assimilate the language he 

 read to that he was accustomed to use. A parallel instance is the 

 Anghcization a Scottish song undergoes when it is printed in 

 London. While Dr. Tisdall notes the fact that I'p {zi) of the monuments 

 is replaced by "1*7 {di) he does not notice the use of ^^^1^1;? instead of 

 the older found on the monuments and in Jeremiah x, 11. 



I would suggest that the pronunication of the cognate Arabic letters 

 in Palestine affords a parallel. The letter qoj)h, so difficult for an 

 Occidental to pronounce, is softened, into ain or even further to 

 hunza or little ain. The change in regard to zi is the converse ; 

 many Palestinians pronounce dotted clal as if it were zeel. A scribe 

 who knew Western Aramaic would be prone to assimilate the 

 Eastern Aramaic to the dialect to which he was accustomed. The 

 question of the Greek names of musical instruments assumes a 

 a slightly different aspect when the result of scribal variation is 

 taken into account. In regard to symphonia : its position in the text 

 is by no means certain, as it seems to me, though certainly as a piece 

 of controversial tactics it was perhaps well to give the opponents al^ 

 the advantage they can claim. We have to do with five texts : 

 the Massoretic Kthib and Qrl — the LXX — Theodotion and the 

 Peshitta — and there are four successive times in which the list of 

 instruments occur in each of these. In the Massoretic in the second 

 list, III 7, sumjphonia does not occur at all ; in the third the Kthib 

 gives siphonia, although according to the Qri it is to be read sum- 

 phonia ; in the LXX it occurs in the first and last lists ; in Theo- 

 dotion only in the last ; while in the Peshitta the place of sumphonia 

 is occupied by tyiphonia, which appears to be the same word as 

 sipJionia according to the Kthib in the third list. These phenomena 

 would be explicable if sumphonia was added as an explanation. It 

 must be observed that sumphonia does not in passages in Polybius 

 necessarily mean a musical instrument ; it may mean a chorus of 

 singers. It is assumed the pesanterin must be psalterion ; but another 

 possible derivation is from the Egyptian pe sautore, " the chorus." 

 I do not say it is a true etymology, but it might be one which would 

 suggest itself to a Greek-speaking Egyptian and he would add as 

 explanatory of sumphonia on the margin. The frequent intercourse 



