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THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES. LL.D., M.E.A.S.. OX 



SO as to fit them to stand in the King's palace." The language 

 is put second, as though it were harder than the other learning to 

 acquire ; and, whereas the writing of the Babylonians was most 

 complex, the scribes had to know both the Semitic Babylonian 

 language and the more ancient Sumerian tongue* of Turanian class. 



Again, when alarmed by his first great dream, though he had 

 forgotten its features, Nebuchadrezzar, as we read in Daniel ii, 

 summoned the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the 

 Chaldeans ; and in answer to his first request we read simply that 

 " the Chaldeans spake to the King,'* then that the King answered 

 and said to the Chaldeans,*' and then that the Chaldeans answered 

 before the King, . . . Xo King, lord, nor ruler hath asked 

 such a thing of any magician, or enchanter, or Chaldean." 



It is clear from all this that the Chaldeans formed a learned caste, 

 taking the chief place among the professional religious adyisers of 

 the King. How could they take it unless they were a caste of 

 conquerors ? 



Xow, down to the time of the Babylonian conquest of Palestine 

 (except in prophecies that refer to the downfall of Babylon thereafter) 

 neither the inhabitants of Babylon nor its controllers are eyer called 

 Cha'deans in the Bible, or, so far as I know, on the monuments. 

 On the other hand, Jeremiah and the sacred historian in 2 Kings 

 xxy call the soldiers who captured and wrecked Jerusalem '' the 

 army of the Chaldeans '' ; and the historian in 2 Chronicles xxxyi 

 calls Nebuchadrezzar '"'the King of the Chaldeans.'' I conclude, 

 therefore, with Urquhart, our first prizeman (Inspiration of the 

 Scriptures, Daniel) that after many ages a fresh waye of the old 

 Turanian race swept oyer Babylonia and made the old classic 

 language liye again. [In keeping with this is Jeremiah's early 

 prophecy that, in punishment for their sins, God would bring upon 

 the Jews " a nation whose language they knew not '' — a description 

 that could hardly apply to the Semitic Babylonians, who spoke 

 Aramaic, seeing that Hezekiah's officers of State had long before 

 requested an Assyrian enyoy for priyacy to address them not in 

 Hebrew but in Aramaic, which they understood (2 Kings xyiii, 

 26 et sqq.).] 



Formerly called by English writers Accadian. 



