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How often do English language poets use French words (that are otherwise in reasonably common use in English as loan words) to alternate with the original English words for artistic variation? That’s the situation here, not an actual switch of language.
I have heard it suggested that the Aramaic word is used here because this is a quotation of words addressed to Aramaic speaking vassals. But this seems less likely to me than artistic variation.
Peter Kirk
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How often do poets switch languages? There's no theological reason for translators not to translate "son" or kissing the feet of the son, since the Judaean king is already labeled YHWH's son a few lines above. Mitchell Dahood, a Catholic priest, translates it "Serve YHWH with reverence and live in trembling, O mortal men!" He reads O mortal men with no consonental changes: ne$e qaber, men of the grave, or men appointed for the grave. He compares i$ mawet (I kings 2:26) bene mawet (1 Sam 26:16). To have "bar" you'd have to consider the poem to be late, Persian period probably is when the Aramaisms crept into the language. Levine dates P Persian primarily by the Aramaisms in P, such as degel. Dahood believes the poem is 10th century. Liz
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