16. Hebraisms in Aramaic, Not Aramaisms in Hebrew

Hebraisms in Aramaic, Not Aramaisms in Hebrew As to the first of these, the so-called Aramaisms, the number has been grossly exaggerated. Many of the words and roots formerly called Aramaisms have been found in Babylonian records as early as Abraham. As to the remainder, many of them occur in the Old Testament but once. In view of the fact that there are about 1500 words used but once in the Old Testament, it is impossible to select some of these and call them Aramaisms, simply because they are used in Aramaic also. Hundreds of words in both Aramaic and Hebrew, and also in Babylonian and Arabic, have the same meaning irrespective of the number of times or the documents in which they occur. According to the laws of consonantal change existing among the Semitic languages, not more than five or six Aramaic roots can be shown to have been adopted by the Hebrew from the Aramaic. These roots are found in what the critics class as early documents as well as in the later. Besides, a large proportion of the words designated as Aramaisms do not occur in any Aramaic dialect except those that were spoken by Jews. In all such cases the probability is that instead of the word’s being an Aramaism in Hebrew, it is a Hebraism in Aramaic. For the Hebrew documents in all such cases antedate the Aramaic by hundreds of years; and it is evident that the earlier cannot have been derived from the later.

Again, the critics find words which they call Aramaisms not merely in the books which they assert to be late, but in those that, according to their own dating, are the earliest. In this case, without any evidence except their own theory of how it ought to be, they charge that the original text has been changed and the Aramaic word inserted. Such procedure is contrary to all the laws of evidence, fairness, and common sense. For there is no reason why the early documents of the Hebrews should not have contained linguistic marks of Aramaic influence. According to Genesis 31, Laban spoke Aramaic. David conquered Damascus and other cities where Aramaic was spoken and the Israelites have certainly been in continuous contact with Aramaean tribes from that time to the present. Sporadic cases of the use of Aramaic words would, therefore, prove nothing as to the date of a Hebrew document.