Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 1/15/2002 3:27:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, lizfried AT umich.edu writes:


> They were definitely using Aramaic in the time
> of Hezekiah. I suggest they used it earlier, from
> the time of the fall of the northern kingdom.


4 And the Rabshakeh said to them, “Say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this confidence of yours? 5 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? . . . The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”
 11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Pray, speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 12 But the Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

Some did speak Aramaic.  It appears, however, that it was not generally known.

My solution?  Prov. 31 was written later and cannot be attributed to Solomon.

gfsomsel