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THE REV. CHANCELLOR J. J. LIAS, M.A., ON 



before I come to the end of these. I have already hmted that 

 the prophecies of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, are, as a rule, 

 written in the ancient Hebrew. But when they touch on 

 historical names and offices, they use post-exilic names for them. 

 " P " never, by any chance, does this. If they could not avoid 

 it, how did he manage to do so ? 



Chapter i.^ — In Ezra i, 1, occurs a word, which, in the sense 

 used here, is only found in " P " and the post-exilic books. 

 This is nearly all the evidence the critics have found in their 

 favour. Per contra, there is in this verse a word, meaning a 

 royal decree (lit. " a thing written ") which does not occur in 

 " P," or in any pre-exilic book (admitted to be such) in this 

 sense. In the Pentateuch it means " a writing." The rest of 

 the chapter contains as many as ten expressions which are not 

 found in " P." Some of them are altogether post-exilic ; some 

 occur only in the exilic or post-exilic writers ; some are found 

 as early as Judges. Instances of peculiar turns of expression 

 are more important than single words. They point to altera- 

 tions in the style of a language, which indicate a difference in 

 date, — alterations such as Americanisms and " journalese " are 

 now making in the once grand old English language, and may 

 be found by the score in every copy of our daily papers. The 

 changes in the use of prepositions, one of which occurs in this 

 verse, into which " P," had he been a post exilic-writer, would 

 have been sure to slip, are among the most significant signs of 

 transition in a language.* One of the words used is Aramaic, 

 and occurs also in the portion of Ezra which is written in the 

 Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of the country outside 

 Judea, and was kindred to Hebrew and to the Babylonian 

 language. Another word is " probably " of the same origin. 



Chapter ii consists chiefly of names. But the words for 

 " province," two words for " register" (lit " writing," — not quite 

 the same word as in i, 1) ; iliQwoi^ TirshathaioY'' governor,"! the 

 words for " singing men " and " singing women," are peculiar to 

 the post-exilic books. The word for " mules " appears first in 

 II SamueL "P" never slips by accident into any of them, — 

 not even in his Egyptian history, which bears marks of close 

 acquaintance with Egypt and its customs. Surely these facts 

 demand some notice from the critics, though so far it has not 

 been accorded to them. The Netliinim are mentioned in this 



The Greek of the New Testament displays traces of the tendency to 

 similar changes which have become fixed in modern Greek, 

 t See Nehemiah frequently. 



