Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

Dear Robert,

You made some interesting remarks there.
I didn't think your question was a waste to ask, I'm sorry if I might
have given that impression.
The Daniel text under discussion isn't a simple one to interpret, and
especially a question like whether the presence of a loanword is
significant or not, is very difficult to answer.

I don't know much about Persian. One thing I could say is that the
Hebrew language is Canaanite, and that Canaan may have had its
powerful dynasties, but still the great powers were considered to be
in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Persia.
Naturally, words that refer to things that in the Israelite kingdoms
were absent but were there in the great empires will be loanwords in
Hebrew. Therefore if in a Hebrew text Persian loan-words show up, this
may be significant to the extent that something very specific is
meant. However, the older the loanword is to the text at hand, the
smaller the chance gets that the fact that it is a loanword is
significant. Because people forget easily about etymology. Then, a
word that is a loanword in one period will someday cease to be a
loanword. Otherwise, we could end up having languages that almost
consist of loanwords only, such as English.

It might interest you that also the word "Paradise" is of Persian, at
least, Avestan origin (pairidaeza, "walled enclosure"). English
derives it of Greek παραδεισος, which derived it of Persian, but also
Hebrew has the word 'Pardes' פרדס (Song of Songs 4,13; Ecclesiastes
2,5; Nehemia 2,8), also from the Persian/Avestan.

What's important, at least that's what I feel, is that we don't
analyse the word *appeden אפדן by itself, but the entire verse or line
that it's in. Your suggestion of the king or emperor that goes along
with the military and watches the battle in some kind of extra royal
tent or pavilion - which is the flavour added by the אפדן, does sound
good. Herodotus mentions that picture if I'm right - and exactly for
Persian kings (against the Greeks).

The phrase אהלי אפדנו ohole appadno, is a construct, but the second
part of a construct can express quite a lot more than just a
possession relation. The literal translation "the tents of his
'appeden' " would be incorrect, it would rather express "his
'appeden'-like tents", "his tents that have a certain
'appeden'-quality to it" (please disregard the bad English in that
phrase ;) ).

Best regards,
Herman



2006/2/4, 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.
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