Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yitzhak:

In looking at Ezra 4:7, only the presence of a prefix H- on N$TWN indicates 
that the verse was written in Hebrew, all the other indicators are either 
neutral (shared by both languages) or pointing to Aramaic. This brings up the 
question whether this is a copyist error, the substitution of a Hebrew prefix 
for an Aramaic suffix?

Secondly, I have noticed two types of loan words into a language: 1) where an 
object or concept has no equivelant term to denote it in the receiving 
language, e.g. Kindergarten in English, and 2) where the loan word replaces 
an equivelant term in the receiving language. I have heard many examples of 
the latter, both while living overseas and visiting ex-patriots, and while 
living among immigrants here in the U.S. Most commonly I hear that from the 
children of immigrants while they struggle to speak with the older generation 
in their parents' language which they don't know as well as the language they 
use in their daily lives.

The loan words that I noticed in both Esther and Ezra 4:7 (assuming that the 
latter is in Hebrew) are of the latter type, indicating that Hebrew was not 
the primary language of the writers.

As for when Ezra first went to Jerusalem, Ezra 7 indicates that he did not 
come with the first group under Cyrus, rather he came during the reign of 
Atarxerxes.

Karl W. Randolph.
 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>

> 
> Karl Randolph wrote:
> > Yitzhak:
> > 
> > Ezra 4:7 looks like it was originally written by someone who did 
> > not know Hebrew very well, therefore used Aramaic loan words as 
> > well as Aramaic spelling for the name. Ezra, the educated one, 
> > did not arrive on the scene until chapter 7.
> 
> Karl,
> 
> I don't know how you decide this is the "Aramaic" spelling.  Further,
> I don't know how you decide that Ezra 4:7 was written by someone
> who did not know hebrew very well.  Every language has loan words
> and it is to be expected that during the Persian period, there will
> be a lot of loan words, from Old Persian and Official Aramaic.  The
> fact that Ezra is described only in chapter 7 has nothing to do with
> the dating of the earlier chapters.
> 
> Yitzhak Sapir

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