156 



REV. J. E. H. THOMSOX, M.A., D.D., OX 



In the Assyrio-Persian period wKich preceded, Aramaic was the 

 language of government, and it has all the gutturals. The 

 Assyrian is sometimes represented as not using the gutturals, 

 but this is not the case, as the name Sennacherib shows, which, 

 as transliterated into Greek and Hebrew, shows the guttural. 

 The Samaritans must have got this fashion earlier than the 

 ride of Assyria or Babylon, and from some other quarter. 



To the north-west of Palestine dwelt the Phoenicians, a 

 people whose influence on world-culture is not to be measured 

 by the scanty strip of territory they inhabited. They spoke 

 Hebrew in a dialect which, judging by the inscriptions which 

 have come down to us, was more nearly identical -^-ith that of 

 Israel than is that represented on the Moabite stone. They 

 appear to have had this Samaritan peculiarity. The e^ddence 

 for this may be found in the Greek alphabet. Classic tradition 

 ascribes the introduction of the alphabet to the Phoenician, 

 Cadmus. The names of the letters and their order suit the 

 tradition. In the Cadmaean alphabet there are no gutturals ; 

 yet the Greek language had gutturals, and the Greeks were 

 necessitated to add the Palamedean letters and the breathings. 

 The signs in the Cadmaean alphabet which had no sounds^ the 

 Greeks utilized to indicate vowels. The origin of this way of 

 pronouncing Hebrew thus appears to have been an imitation of 

 a fashion of the Phoenicians. The influence of Tyre on Israel 

 was predominant under the rule of the dynasty of Omri, and 

 especially during the reign of Ahab. If, then, the Ephraimites 

 had at that time the sacred Law, they would read it much as 

 the modern Samaritans do. It must be remembered that, 

 notwithstanding the prevalence of Baal-worship, JHTVN^H was 

 regarded as the national God. All the sons of Ahab whose 

 names we know have Jeho^dstic elements. The prophets who 

 prophesied before Ahab at the gate of Samaria did so in the 

 name of JH^'H. There is, therefore, nothing incongruous in 

 the Law being read in the days of Ahab. 



There swept over Palestine the terrible flood of the armies of 

 Assyria ; Samaria was captured, and aU the leading and educated 

 classes were carried away into exile. Colonists were sent to 

 occupy the land, and keep in check the remnant of the Israelites. 

 The language of these colonists would certainly be Aramaic. 

 The result of their residence among the Israelites was the rise 

 of a dialect of Aramaic which contained a large Hebrew element. 

 As there was, according to the Critical hypothesis, no sacred 



