IS THE SO-CAT.LED ^^PHIESTLY CODE " OF POST-EXILIC DATE? T*"*) 



•evidently given much trouble to the lievisers of the Authorised 

 Version.* Some of them can only l^e the result of the attempt 

 to write a language with which the writer was imperfectly 

 acquainted. In his notes on Ezra iii, 3, 4, Prof. Driver 

 remarks that expressions there noted appear in the Aramaic 

 portions of Ezra. Ezra, therefore, w^as acquainted with 

 Aramaic,f and was unable to refrain from introducing 

 expressions from it in his attempt to write pure Hebrew. 

 Strange and unintelligible expressions appear continually 

 throughout the book. But in chapter ix they are very 

 numerous, and unusually interesting to a student of Hebrew. 

 But I am afraid, did I enter into further detail, it would weary 

 those unacquainted with Hebrew. 



III. I have not attempted to analyse Nehemiah, Esther nor 

 the post-exilic prophets, noi' the other books which are supposed 

 to have been written subsequent to the exile, for reasons already 

 given. These latter are largely poetic, and poets, as we know, 

 are apt to use archaic terms. But Prof. Driver has given in 

 his Introduction, a list of words and idioms peculiar to the books 

 of Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles, and I propose to conclude 

 with some remarks upon that list. 



It consists of about 50 words and turns of expression. Out 

 of the 108 words and turns of expression in Ezra already 

 passed in review,^ only two are peculiar to it and to " P." Of 

 Dr. Driver's list, consistino; of about 50 words and turns of 

 expression " distinctly post-exilic," as he admits some of them 

 to be, and " common Aramaic words," as he admits others to be, 

 only one is peculiar to the post-exilic waiters and " P." It is 

 true that Dr. Driver contends that there are two, but he forgets 

 that the passage (Numbers xiii, 27) in which the second word 

 occurs is assigned by himself to " JE," while Joshua xxii, 16, 31, 

 which he also cites, is assigned by him to an " uncertain " source. 

 Therefore, in this case the word is common to the Pentateuch 

 (" JE " and " P " an uncertain source," and the jiost-exilic 

 authors. So that the general conclusion to be drawn from the 

 enquiry is that, of the admittedly post-exilic w^ords and phrases, 

 no more than one in about 50 is common only to the post-exilic 



^ As may be seen in their marghial notes. 



t Unless we are " scientific " critics of tlie school of the later critics of 

 Isaiah, and divide the writer of the book of Ezra into ten or twelve 

 different persons. 



X Many of them are found -in Prof. Driver's list, which, however, I did 

 not consult before writing my remarks on them. 



