Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Robert Dee" <rdee AT coastalnow.net>]

Dear Herman and Peter

First, thank you very much for your response. The points you both made didn't 
really occur to me.
And I have to say to that this is one of those questions where I'm not really 
sure if there is
anything there to notice or not. I guess I need to try to refine my question 
a little bit.

Let's see if this helps some.

Various translations of this read: 

    "Tents of his palace"  (YLT)
    "Royal tents" (NCV)
    "Royal pavilion"  (NAB, Goodspeed)
    "Royal headquarters"  (JB)

A commentary edited by F F Bruce says: "Heb[rew] uses a Persian word 
describing the great
audience halls of the Achaemenid kings known at Persepolis and Susa."

I also know that, unlike modern times, kings in the past often accompanied 
their forces on
campaigns. So the tents for their personal entourage would normally be in the 
midst of the
rest of the military force encampment as a matter of course.

So why not say that he would pitch "his tents." What does 'appeden add to 
this? (if anything)

I was wondering if their might be some history to the word that would add 
some significance. 
Still, like you said, it might just be Daniel's way of describing it. 
(Although, in actuality, these are
the words of the angel speaking to Daniel. So it wouldn't necessarily be a 
case where that
was the way he was used to saying it - the angel, that is. [Compare 1Co 13:1] 
He was
telling Daniel to record it that way.)

And even if their isn't anything more than that, I don't consider it a waste 
to ask. If you were searching
a field for treasure, all the rocks that you looked under that didn't have 
anything there - you would
at least be benefitting from the process of elimination.

Thank you again for your appreciated expertise
Robert J Dee
Walthourville, Ga, USA


On 03/02/2006, Herman Meester  and Peter Kirk wrote:

> Dear Robert,
>
> I'm not sure if I understand your question. The text of Daniel, both
> in the Hebrew and Aramaic parts, has plenty of loan words. A Persian
> loan word, in my view, has nothing to do -as far as prophecy is
> concerned- with the Persian empire.
> If there is only one available etymology for *'appeden (a word that is
> only attested in constructs), then that's that. The problem is that
> we'd never know if the fact that it's a loanword meant anything to the
> writer of the text at all, if the writer knew/realised that in the
> first place.
> I guess the writer thought this word expressed the idea (s)he had in
> the best manner possible.
>
>   
> Indeed. When we use words like "paradise" and "orange" in English, both 
> Persian loan words, we don't have in mind the Persian Empire or the 
> Islamic Republic of Iran. They are just English words.