8
Hebrew’s Close Cousin—Aramaic
Ahead of the 2011 season, the National Football League (NFL) moved the kickoff yard line from the thirty-yard line to the thirty-five-yard line, positioning the kicker closer to the opposing end zone. For NFL kickers using a tee, the sixty-five yards needed to get the ball to the opposing end zone (resulting in a touchback) isn’t much of a feat. In fact, we often see NFL kickoffs sailing out of the back of the end zone, a kick pushing seventy-five to eighty yards in the air.
While the kick itself is awe-inspiring, there’s one other feature of NFL kickoffs that I think illustrates a helpful mindset as we approach the Aramaic of the Old Testament. Because nearly half of NFL kickoffs result in a touchback, full-blown kick returns are rare. When the kickoff flies out of the back of the end zone, the referees blow the whistle, and the ball is placed on the twenty-five-yard line. Because a touchback is so common, some may wonder why the kicking team runs all the way down the field when they know their kicker has the ability to kick the ball out of the end zone. What’s intriguing is that the kicking team will often run not only down the field but all the way to the opposing end zone, even as the return team begins to walk off the field and prepare for the ball on the twenty-five-yard line.
When I played football in college, our coaches taught the players to run all the way to the end zone on kickoffs, no matter where the ball landed. This wasn’t just another opportunity for cardiovascular conditioning; rather, it instilled in our kickoff team the habit of going above and beyond the minimal call of duty so that we were prepared on every kickoff to fulfill our responsibilities exhaustively.
This is the principle that relates to Aramaic. Aramaic is the often-neglected original language of the Old Testament. However, if we are going to pursue our callings to love God and his word exhaustively, then it would only benefit us to learn Aramaic in addition to Hebrew and Greek.
Going Above and Beyond?
By way of statistics, Aramaic takes a far back seat to Hebrew and Greek as one of the original languages in the Bible. There are 269 verses in the Old Testament that are written in Aramaic or that contain Aramaic. When compared to the rest of the Old Testament text, Aramaic is just over 1 percent of the whole. That seems meager, and as a result, many students and pastors assume that pursuing Aramaic is an unnecessary project. Miles Van Pelt puts these statistics into perspective when he points out that Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Psalm 1 together make up about the same percentage of text as the Aramaic portions of the Hebrew Bible. In the New Testament, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon are roughly equivalent to the same amount of text as the Aramaic in the Old Testament.1 Surely none of us would consider disregarding these portions of God’s inspired word. And yet we often neglect the Aramaic of the Old Testament and as a result call into question our own commitment to the fullness of God’s word.
We have two humongous oak trees in our yard. These trees yield buckets of acorns. Buckets of acorns attract armies of squirrels. During the late fall, we see the squirrels scurrying around our yard digging holes and burying the acorns for later use in the winter. The squirrels around our house are Eastern gray squirrels, which are scatter hoarders. They bury the acorns far and wide, and they never have just one stash. When the air temperature begins to cool, we see squirrels all over the yard burying acorns in all sorts of places.
There is way more research available than perhaps you or I want to know about how and why squirrels bury acorns in this way, but the point is that the squirrels are preparing their meals for the winter months. The squirrels busily bury acorns randomly and sometimes even pretend to bury acorns in certain locations to fool other squirrels who may try to steal the coveted nuts. Researchers at the University of Richmond point out that squirrels may actually forfeit up to 74 percent of the acorns they bury through forgetfulness, thievery, or just indifference.2 The fascinating piece of this picture is that squirrels go above and beyond what’s necessary for them to survive in the winter in order to accomplish their foundational food goals. Because of genetic and natural factors, squirrels sometimes only reap around 25 percent reward from their efforts in preparation. But they still complete the preparation.
Venturing back into the world of Hebrew and out of the Discovery Channel, we need more students and ministers who are willing to put in the necessary preparation and effort even if we are only reading the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament 1 percent of the time. In fact, I might even argue that this kind of preparation is not going above and beyond. If diving into Aramaic is fulfilling our responsibilities to know and love God through his word, then can we really “overprepare”? Is learning the original language of the last 1 percent of the Old Testament going above and beyond? Or is this how we “fulfill” our ministry, as Paul’s instruction to Timothy implies (2 Tim. 4:5)? From this perspective, pursuing Aramaic may be a necessary part of our work to accomplish our goal faithfully.
To be sure, it is enough labor for many of us just to learn Hebrew, and if we are going to start with one language of the Old Testament and master it, let’s master the one that occurs the most. On the other hand, if we remember our primary goal of increasing our affections for God through the entirety of his word in the original languages, then Aramaic is part of that journey.
In this chapter, we will look at some ways in which the transition from Hebrew to Aramaic is actually quite simple. The goal is to give you a sense of hope that you can tackle some Aramaic in addition to your Hebrew. We will also review some resources to help with your Aramaic studies similar to the ones presented in chapter 7 for Hebrew. If you’ve never considered learning Aramaic, you may wonder where to start. This chapter will provide some resources to point you in the right direction.
The Ease of Transition
When I played football in college, I held a coveted position; I was a long snapper. That meant that I threw a football backward between my legs to either the punter or the holder (for field goals and extra points). The punter would stand fifteen yards away from the line of scrimmage, but the holder would stand only seven yards behind me. People would ask me all the time if it was difficult to transition between the two. The fact that I was asked this question so often suggests that people assumed the transition was difficult. I would usually answer with a shrug, a headshake, and a comment like “No, not really.” In fact, I never gave much thought to the transition between the two snaps, but there was indeed a transition. The transition, though, was so small that in spite of the differences, I could still easily make it.
The transition from Hebrew to Aramaic is not quite that easy—or at least it wasn’t for me—but the principle is the same. There are certainly differences between Hebrew and Aramaic, but the differences aren’t so significant that the task of learning Aramaic is completely foreign. In fact, the two languages overlap significantly in many places. We can’t provide a full Aramaic grammar here, but hopefully these tidbits will convince you that you can accomplish the transition from Hebrew to Aramaic.
Areas of Significant Overlap
Some of the areas of significant overlap between Hebrew and Aramaic may seem obvious.3 First, the alphabet is the same. In the text of the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew and Aramaic use the block script that you are accustomed to seeing in the BHS or whatever Hebrew Bible you use. In fact, a student once asked me if the BHS has the Aramaic sections of Scripture in it. I’m certain he had passed over those sections when flipping through Ezra or Daniel and didn’t notice a difference because of the identical alphabet. In relation to the alphabetic similarities, we may add that final forms, BeGaD KePhaT (בגד כפת) letters, and guttural letters are all the same between the two sets of texts in the Hebrew Bible.
Second, the Aramaic vowel pointing system in the Hebrew Bible is largely the same as the system in the Hebrew sections. I say “largely the same” because Aramaic, being a distinct language, has different pronunciations, and you may see unexpected vowel patterns when compared to Hebrew. However, even though you may not recognize a vowel pattern in the Aramaic of the Old Testament, a hireq is a hireq in both Hebrew and Aramaic. A qamets is a qamets in both Hebrew and Aramaic. You get the picture.
Third, some Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary overlap. In Basics of Biblical Aramaic, Miles Van Pelt lists fifty nouns or adjectives in chapter 1 that are identical—or nearly identical—to Hebrew words that students should already know.4 In chapter 12 of his grammar, Van Pelt lists twenty-five verbal roots that are identical.5 So, of the 268 words in the Aramaic portions of Scripture that occur four or more times, seventy-five of them are identical to Hebrew words. You may already know 28 percent of the most common Aramaic words in Scripture!
A fourth area of significant overlap between the two languages is the rules of dageshes and shewas. These phonological principles, while having some differences in Aramaic, are largely the same as you’ve learned in Hebrew. Dagesh lenes occur in בגד כפת letters preceded by a silent shewa. Dagesh fortes still represent a doubled consonant and close the preceding syllable. Silent shewas close syllables and represent the absence of a vowel, and vocal shewas indicate an indistinct vowel sound, the evidence of a full vowel having “reduced.” All of these phonological elements resonate between the two sets of texts in the Hebrew Bible.
Finally, the Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Old Testament are identical regarding how to categorize syntax and grammar. Looking only at Hebrew, we must admit that scholars radically diverge at some points regarding how to categorize and tag syntactical constructions or grammatical ideas. However, no matter how you label Hebrew syntax or describe the functional grammar, your system of labeling and tagging will also work in Aramaic. If you see an infinitive absolute in Aramaic juxtaposed with its cognate verb, that is an absolute object or a cognate accusative, whichever tag you prefer. In either case, the infinitive absolute functions similarly in both languages.
Minor Differences
The next group of differences is a little more complex but still not problematic. First, there is a slight difference between the historical long vowel holem-vav and the Aramaic qamets. Hebrew often conveys the “Canaanite shift,” a phenomenon where we find more “o” vowels in Hebrew than in cognate languages. The “shift” was from “a” vowels to “o” vowels. In Aramaic, this shift is not readily apparent, if it’s there at all. Hence, you will not find as many historic long holem-vavs in Aramaic; rather, the long qamets is a historic long vowel and will not reduce in syllables that expect a vowel to become a vocal shewa. This may seem like a major difference between the languages, but it’s not so bad when you see something like טוֹב in Hebrew become טָב in Aramaic. Yes, these words are noticeably distinct, but if you know that “o” in Hebrew is often “a” in Aramaic, you can begin to figure out vocabulary words that at first glance look new.
Second, Aramaic contractions vary slightly from their Hebrew counterparts. In Hebrew, an example of a contraction is in the 3ms pronominal suffix on a plural noun (◌ָיו). We also see contractions with III-ה verbs and especially with I-ו verbs. One of the most common contractions is what I’ve learned as the “aw → o” contraction where ◌ַוְ becomes ◌וֹ in I-י verbs. These contractions also occur in Aramaic and will look familiar to you. The contractions in Aramaic that are different actually are expansions of a familiar Hebrew contraction, “ay → e” (◌ֵי ← ◌ַיְ). In Aramaic, the determined gentilics—definite forms designating an ethnicity—present a complex contraction that will only matter to you in a morphology-heavy system of learning Aramaic. Other than the odd determined gentilic contraction, this morphological phenomenon of contractions is also similar between the two languages in the Hebrew Bible.
Third, Aramaic is the “ultimate vowel-killing language.”6 While that sounds disastrous, all it means is that you find more vocal shewas flying around in the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament because the vowels in both pretonic and propretonic syllables have reduced. This leads to more “shewa fights” than in Hebrew, but again, these are not new phenomena.7 Once you know they exist in Aramaic, the transition becomes quite simple.
Fourth, Aramaic exhibits consonant interchanges in some words. Some consonants in Hebrew words will be different consonants in the Aramaic words with the same meaning. For example, זָהָב (gold) in Hebrew is דָּהָב in Aramaic, and the ז to ד interchange occurs quite consistently. Similarly, שׁ and ת often interchange in Aramaic, so the Hebrew root ישׁב (to sit/dwell) is in Old Testament Aramaic יתב. Like many of these areas of minor differences, this may seem daunting at first. However, once you know the differences exist, you can begin to make the adjustments in your linguistic neurons easily.
Significant Differences
Even the significant differences are not that bad. We’ve already seen how many similarities there are between the two languages, and so these “significant differences” constitute a minority in the transition from Hebrew texts to Aramaic texts in the Old Testament.
The first significant difference is in the masculine/feminine plural and the determined state (corresponding to the Hebrew definite article). In Hebrew the masculine plural absolute is ◌ִים, but in Aramaic it is ◌ִין. For the feminine plural, the Hebrew is ◌וֹת, whereas the Aramaic is ◌ָן. Hopefully, you’re thinking, “That’s not too bad.” And you’d be right. In the determined state, Aramaic can get complicated morphologically. The major change here is that in Hebrew the definite article occurs on the front of the word, whereas in Aramaic the definite article is suffixed to the end (◌ָא). Since it is suffixed to the end along with the masculine and feminine plural distinctives (◌ִין/◌ָן), the determined state can begin to look a little odd. You don’t need to know the details of morphology now, but below is a chart of the Aramaic determined state:
| Masculine Singular | Masculine Plural | Feminine Singular | Feminine Plural |
| ◌ָא(ה) | ◌ַיָּ֫א | ◌ְתָ֫א | ◌ָתָ֫א |
The other significant difference is the verbal system. Rather than the familiar qal, niphal, piel, pual, hiphil, hophal, and hithpael, Biblical Aramaic has peal, pael, peil, haphel, hithpeel, hithpaal, and other variations of these (aphel, saphel, shaphel, hithaphal, histaphal). Now, this can look overwhelming. However, once you learn how these stems relate to the Hebrew stems you already know, you will discover that the syntax and usage are very similar. Peal is the base stem like the qal, and it functions like the Hebrew qal. Pael is the Aramaic intensive/extensive stem like the piel, and so it functions syntactically like the piel. The ת stems (ithpeel, ithpaal, ithaphal, hithpeel, hithpaal, hithaphal, histaphal) are variations of the passive/reflexive similar to the hithpael in Hebrew. Haphel is the Aramaic causative like hiphil in Hebrew. There are so many similarities of usage that this “significant difference” could be considered an area of significant overlap. At the end of the day, don’t be alarmed by what appears to be a complex verbal system. You already know a good deal about how the verbal system works, so you’ll just need to take some time to identify the distinctives of these stems for parsing purposes and learn how they relate to their close cousins in Hebrew.
I hope that you’ve seen in this section that you already know a good deal of Biblical Aramaic. Of course, with these few areas of convergence, you won’t be able to pick up the Targums or Aramaic Qumran documents and breeze through them. But with your knowledge of Hebrew, an awareness of these differences, and a few good resources, you will be able to maneuver your way around the transition to Biblical Aramaic.
How to Get Started: Aramaic Resources
Perhaps at this point you’re motivated to begin your pilgrimage into Aramaic, but where do you start? What resources are available, and which are the best ones? In this section, we will list a sampling of the resources available and comment on each. At the end of the day, the best resources are the ones that work for your learning style. Some of these resources are highly academic, while others help bridge the gap between your knowledge of Hebrew and your Aramaic aspirations. To find the best resource for you, read the reviews and summaries online, check out the book at a nearby college or seminary library, and flip through it before deciding. The best resources are the ones you’ll actually use, so take the evaluations here at face value and decide for yourself which ones you prefer.
Grammars
Arguably, the most recognized and accessible Aramaic beginning grammar is Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Aramaic (Zondervan, 2011). This introductory Aramaic grammar builds on the same system as the popular Hebrew grammar that Van Pelt wrote with Gary Pratico. In addition to the concepts of Aramaic language, the grammar also includes a robust vocabulary (268 words; 91 percent of the Aramaic vocabulary in the BHS), practice exercises, and annotated readings from the Hebrew Bible. The annotated readings include all of the Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible from Genesis, Jeremiah, Ezra, and Daniel. Van Pelt often refers the reader to Basics of Biblical Hebrew, 3rd ed. (Zondervan, 2019), so that students can see the many connections between what they already know in Hebrew and what they’re learning in Aramaic. Van Pelt’s Aramaic grammar is one of the best places to start, especially if you have used Basics of Biblical Hebrew previously.
A second introductory grammar that provides a systematic and pedagogically beneficial approach is Frederick E. Greenspahn, An Introduction to Aramaic, 2nd ed. (Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Greenspahn acknowledges in the preface to the first edition that those approaching Aramaic should have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew, and so he approaches “Aramaic as if it were a dialect of Hebrew, without trying to cover all of the language’s depth and richness.” His justification of this approach is “pedagogical utility,” and so the grammar “has been kept as non-technical as possible.”8 As with any language, some technicalities are imperative, but the overall goal of the grammar to accommodate students with a rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew makes for a successful introductory Aramaic grammar. Each chapter includes exercises for both the material in that chapter and translations from Aramaic to English. This is an excellent way to expose students to Aramaic texts very early in their Aramaic ventures.
Two grammars that may prove to be helpful to have on the shelf are Alger F. Johns, A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Andrews University Press, 1972), and Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 7th ed. (Harrassowitz, 2006). These two grammars are significantly shorter than the others already listed. Johns, like the others, presupposes a knowledge of Hebrew, but Rosenthal does not. Johns offers very few exercises but at least gives some Aramaic translations at the end of each section to allow the student to review key concepts in actual Aramaic sentences. Rosenthal does not provide any exercises. Even though the size of these volumes is minimal and the additional exercises within are scarce, these two grammars provide concise discussions of morphological and syntactical aspects of Aramaic. Perhaps you want an Aramaic grammar you can carry around in your book bag easily. One of these two would be a good choice for reference.
The last grammar to mention is Andreas Schuele, Introduction to Biblical Aramaic (Westminster John Knox, 2012). Schuele has produced an extremely concise grammar based on years of teaching Aramaic in the classroom using Rosenthal’s grammar. Since Rosenthal’s grammar does not contain exercises, Schuele has included some of those in his grammar, though they are not as extensive as Van Pelt’s or Greenspahn’s. Schuele presumes that you have a knowledge of Hebrew and shows clearly the areas of similarity in helpful charts and diagrams throughout his grammar. One exciting feature of Schuele’s grammar is the appendixes where he provides some Aramaic texts outside the biblical corpus (Zakkur Inscription, three texts from Qumran, and two short selections from the Wisdom of Ahiqar). These appendixes help the student see how wide the world of primary texts opens after only an introductory study of Aramaic.
Lexica
In keeping with the thrust of this chapter devoted to Aramaic, I want to begin with a lexicon that is devoted completely to Biblical Aramaic: Ernst Vogt, Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic: Clarified by Ancient Documents (Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2011). This work is an English translation by Joseph A. Fitzmyer of Vogt’s Aramaic lexicon, which was originally written in Latin. It is a tidy lexicon: Biblical Aramaic words are listed in alphabetical order with extensive definitions based on evidence from the Aramaic Qumran documents that were available when Vogt finished the original work. Fitzmyer, in addition to translating the work, also updated some entries. This lexicon provides definitions only for the words that occur in the Hebrew Bible, but it also gives definitions of those words from other texts. This provides a fuller meaning—contextual meaning—to the words we find in the Hebrew Bible. Because this lexicon is limited to Biblical Aramaic vocabulary, every form in the Hebrew Bible is listed in the lexicon, even conjugated forms. In those cases, the lexicon points the reader to the cognate roots for definitions. All in all, this is a simple and highly usable lexicon that you can easily carry with you.
The next two lexica to mention are probably familiar to you already: Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) and The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (BDB). Both of these lexica are used primarily for the study of Hebrew, but as the title of HALOT reflects, it also includes Aramaic words. Likewise, some editions of BDB include the subtitle With an Appendix Containing Biblical Aramaic. Both of these trusted lexica can be useful for your studies of Aramaic. If you already own HALOT or BDB, you’re good to go and can use them for Aramaic word studies too.
The final Aramaic lexicon to mention is Marcus Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli, and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Hendrickson, 2005). This behemoth volume, as the title conveys, provides lexical information for a much wider camp of Aramaic documents. This may not seem immediately helpful to the beginning Aramaic student, but the Aramaic words that occur in the Scriptures are also here. Therefore, this lexicon would not only help you with reading Biblical Aramaic but would also help you when your enthusiasm for Semitic languages leads you to read the broader corpora of Aramaic documents.
Assuming that you’re not using Van Pelt’s introductory grammar with its annotated reader, where else might you turn to find the Biblical Aramaic texts with annotated parsings and grammatical notes? My first recommendation would be Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook by Donald R. Vance, George Athas, and Yael Avrahami (Hendrickson, 2016). This Aramaic reader provides a clear and readable text of the Aramaic portions of Scripture along with footnoted parsing information, grammatical discussion, and direction to other resources for further study. The footnoted handbook information is not overly burdensome with additional comments and thoughts about what might be going on in the text. Rather, the handbook apparatus gets to the point with a system of abbreviations that provide the reader with the necessary information to keep reading the text and reinforcing his or her Aramaic knowledge. Another feature of this resource is the extensive word lists compiled by Jonathan G. Kline that organize Biblical Aramaic word forms into what seem to be endless (and helpful!) categories. These lists help the student to see patterns of certain types of verbs, to see connections between certain vocabulary roots, and to access lists of vocabulary by frequency so that you learn the most common words first. Apart from a combined resource like Van Pelt, I would recommend starting with Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook.
The next Aramaic reader I would recommend is Takamitsu Muraoka, A Biblical Aramaic Reader: With an Outline Grammar (Peeters, 2015). Without all of the vocabulary lists, Muraoka’s volume is much smaller than the previously discussed reader. However, Muraoka includes in his volume an outline grammar. By “outline” he means a simplified and succinct grammar. The entire outline covers thirty-eight pages, but this gives the student the opportunity to review key paradigms, review key grammatical features, and refer back to grammatical discussions using the keyed notes from the reader. Muraoka references his outline grammar in the reader, so students can read the Aramaic text, study Muraoka’s notes on the text, and then review the grammatical concepts all in the same volume. Coming in at a total of eighty-two pages, you could literally slide this reader into your BHS and take it with you. (I’m assuming you already take your BHS with you wherever you go!)
Vocabulary Guides
To the best of my knowledge, there are no hard-copy vocabulary guides that exclusively have Biblical Aramaic vocabulary.9 However, there are two Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary guides that I think are helpful. I tell my students all the time that you may be able to parse every detail of a verb and give me every exception for an expected vowel point, but if you don’t know the definition of the root word, then you can’t translate. Therefore, vocabulary is essential, especially in Aramaic when we move beyond those words that we know from Hebrew.
The first recommended guide is Larry A. Mitchel, A Student’s Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (Zondervan, 2017). Mitchel’s vocabulary guide displays a simple layout. The Aramaic section lists all words that occur in the Aramaic portions of Scripture in groups based on frequency (50+, 20–50, 13–19, etc.). Within each frequency section, the words are listed alphabetically. Each entry also includes a transliteration for pronunciation purposes, which can be helpful if you use mnemonic devices for memorization that are associated with the sounds of the words. As most any vocabulary guide would do, Mitchel provides only gloss definitions for each word, but it is a concise and easy place to begin.
The second vocabulary guide I would recommend is Gary D. Pratico and Miles V. Van Pelt, The Vocabulary Guide to Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic (Zondervan, 2019). This guide is an updated edition of the 2003 guide that Pratico and Van Pelt published, and one of the delightful updates is the inclusion of Aramaic vocabulary. The Aramaic portion of this guide contains all Aramaic words in the Scriptures (705) listed by frequency only. This format can be helpful because you learn the most common words first. Each entry has the word number (in sequential order), the Aramaic word or root, a couple of gloss definitions, and the number of times that word occurs in the Aramaic portions of Scripture. Like Mitchel’s vocabulary guide, Pratico and Van Pelt’s guide also includes Hebrew words, so either of these guides would be a handy resource to have on hand to continue building your Old Testament language vocabulary.
Many biblical language students are familiar with Jerome and the important work he did on the Latin translation of the Bible. What many of us don’t hear about is his wrestling with the languages. This quote from Jerome’s preface to Daniel is particularly apropos to our discussion of Aramaic:
When I was a young man, after working my way through the flowers of eloquence to be plucked from the books of Quintilian and Cicero, I opened myself up to the hard labor of learning this language [Chaldean, i.e., Aramaic], and only after a great deal of time and toil was I able (just barely) to begin to utter the raspy and hissing words. It was like walking through a dark crypt, glimpsing only the occasional ray of light shining down from above. When I finally threw myself against Daniel, so great a weariness came over me that, in sudden despair, I almost wanted to cast aside all my previous work. But there was a certain Hebrew who encouraged me and often admonished me with the old Latin proverb, in his own language: “Dogged effort overcomes every obstacle”; and so, though I knew that among the Hebrews I was only a rank amateur, I once more became a student of Chaldean. And to tell the truth, to this day, I am still better able to read and understand the Chaldean language than to pronounce it.10
Even though Jerome’s commission was to translate the Bible—demonstrating that someone was confident that Jerome had this language skill set—he still wrestled not only with learning Aramaic but also with enjoying it. He was honest about his abilities and honest about his feelings for the language. Even after much labor, he could still translate better than he could pronounce. But he kept at it with the encouragement of—you guessed it—a Hebrew brother, and he persevered so that he could provide numerous people with the word of God in translation. Our purposes are much the same as Jerome—namely, to translate the Aramaic portions of Scripture for understanding rather than to phonetically read them aloud in liturgy. Therefore, let us never forget the value of the hard labor that goes into learning the biblical languages no matter how difficult the process may be. Perhaps you’ve already devoted a significant amount of time to learning Hebrew. It’s not a big step to finish the task and dive into Aramaic as well. Let us not just rake for leaves in Ezra and Daniel; let us dig for gold even there.
Chapter Reflections
- Honestly assess your current level of Hebrew study. Can you see yourself studying Aramaic too? Are you perhaps more fearful of the transition than you should be? If the task of learning Aramaic seems too daunting, what incentives could you put in place to motivate you to pick up Aramaic as well?
- Identify the two or three primary things that might be keeping you from diving into Biblical Aramaic. What are some specific steps you can write down and execute to overcome these hurdles?
- Consider whether learning Aramaic would legitimately be “going above and beyond” or whether it would be “finishing the task” of knowing God’s word in the original languages. In either case, write down what you think would be your response to having either finished the task or gone above and beyond. Both can be rewarding.
- Write down some things that were particularly challenging to you in Hebrew, and then look those same things up in one of the recommended Aramaic grammars. See if the transition from Hebrew to Aramaic in that particular area is as difficult as you may have initially thought.
- Look back over the recommended grammars. Since we all have different learning styles, which one do you think would serve you best in learning Aramaic?
Jeremiah 10:11
“Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judean [Hebrew].”
—2 Kings 18:26 NASB
One of the many fascinating passages in Biblical Aramaic lies outside the larger Aramaic corpora—an Aramaic island within a sea of Hebrew—just fifteen words nestled in the midst of the book of Jeremiah (10:11).11 Many readers simply glance over this small passage without a second thought, or with nothing more than a quick glance at the footnote. There is no warning of the switch and no mention in the text to alert the reader of the change. It almost reads like an afterthought—as if it were no big deal that the language of the text just switched, and then switches back. Parsed out, it looks as follows:
Jeremiah 10:11
| דִּֽי־שְׁמַיָּ֥א | אֱלָ֣הַיָּ֔א | לְה֔וֹם | תֵּאמְר֣וּן | כִּדְנָה֙ |
| di + noun: determined masculine plural | noun: determined masculine plural | lamed + 3mp | verb: peal imperfect 2mp | kaph + demonstrative pronoun (ms) |
| whom the heavens | gods | to them | you will say | according to this |
| מֵֽאַרְעָ֛א | יֵאבַ֧דוּ | עֲבַ֑דוּ | לָ֣א | וְאַרְקָ֖א |
| preposition + noun: determined masculine singular | verb: peal imperfect 3mp | verb: peal perfect 3mp | negative particle | vav + noun: determined masculine singular |
| from the earth | they will perish | they made | not | and the earth |
| אֵֽלֶּה | שְׁמַיָּ֖א | וּמִן־תְּח֥וֹת | ||
| demonstrative pronoun (pl) | noun: determined masculine plural | vav + preposition + preposition | ||
| these | the heavens | and from under |
Translation: Therefore, you will say to them, “These12 gods that did not make the heaven and the earth will perish from under the earth and under the heavens.”
This passage has captivated and puzzled the imaginations of many biblical students and scholars. Many cautiously explain it as a comment that was written in the margin (called a marginal gloss) that had mistakenly made its way into the text.13 This sort of explanation is very popular within the Greek New Testament, where the scribes were known to be a little “freer” in their copy habits, but would be uncharacteristic of the early Hebrew scribes, who were scrupulous copyists.14 Additionally, it has been shown that the major themes in the verse do fit within the overall idea of the passage—which discusses the nations (Jer. 10:2), who create idols for themselves out of material things created by human hands (10:3, 8–9).15
However, one feature that does not receive emphasis in the many treatments of the passage is this: Could the Aramaic language be a key piece in the prophetic foreshadowing of the events to come? After all, the language was that of the Babylonians, who would soon take Judah captive. So apart from only a rhetorical emphasis on the difference between God and the gods of the nations, the Aramaic here could be a way for God to communicate a deeper message to those listening.
Later in the book, Jeremiah is very specific regarding the coming captivity in Babylon (Jer. 25:8–9 and 27:5–7). It appears that the use of Aramaic here could be another case of this. Jeremiah was one of the last prophets to Judah before the Babylonian captivity, and a major theme in the book is a prophetic warning to Judah of judgment (see the temple sermon in 7:1–13 for a good example). Aramaic was the language spoken in Babylon and was soon to become the first language of the Judean captives and their families. Since Aramaic was the language of the coming exile, a day was approaching when the Israelites would have limited familiarity with Hebrew. This transition from Hebrew to Aramaic was so pronounced that, upon returning to Jerusalem only seventy years later, many Israelites were not familiar with Hebrew at all. For example, Nehemiah 8:8 records that they needed the law of God translated, presumably into Aramaic, so the people could understand it.16 A prophetic language change like this is unique to the entire Old Testament, as God would be using the language itself as a means to communicate his message.17
One additional feature of this text attests to this particular time from which it was written. Within this verse is a puzzling and wonderfully subtle small spelling change. The verse has two ways of spelling “earth”:
| אֲרַע | אֲרַק |
| araʿ | araq |
Why would the original include different spellings in such close proximity? In 539 BCE the dominance of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire was established through the defeat of the Babylonians—the same Babylonians who took Israel captive in Jeremiah’s day. This is what also led to the emancipation of the Jews from Babylon and their return to Jerusalem under Cyrus the Great (see the books of Ezra and Nehemiah). This established a vast empire, which adopted Aramaic as their language. This standardized the language throughout the kingdom, with Old Aramaic giving way to what is known as Imperial Aramaic.
The first form of the word “earth” to appear (אַרְקָ֖א) is the Old Aramaic form, and the second (אַרְעָ֛א) is the Imperial Aramaic form. These two spellings represent distinct markers between the two forms of the language—and they appear in the same verse!18 There are many theories as to why this might be the case, and there are no clear answers here.19 But what can be appreciated is the evidence of the shift that was taking place in the language within this single Aramaic verse. Represented here is the language in transition, from forms before the captivity (the Old Aramaic of Babylon, the nation that would conquer Judah) to emerging forms that would dominate after the captivity (the Imperial Aramaic of the Persians, who let the Israelites settle back in Jerusalem). This linguistic shift is preserved here in the text, captured by the eyes of the reader who understands the Aramaic.20
In this one passage there is an abrupt language change, Old Aramaic mixed with Imperial Aramaic, and a slew of additional unanswered questions that can send the imagination running in several directions at once—and this is just one verse! In fact, many more questions about the Aramaic in the Bible linger, awaiting study from capable students of the Bible. The doorway through which one enters Aramaic is one that leads to many other passages and, like most good endeavors, begins with more questions than answers. And the questions go on and on, through passageways and back alleys of scholarship. These paths are often intimidating from their lack of travel but are nonetheless intriguing and fascinating. Yet they are accessible only by entering through the first door—that of developing a working knowledge of Aramaic.
1. Miles V. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Aramaic: Complete Grammar, Lexicon, and Annotated Text (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), x.
2. University of Richmond, “Researchers Tackle the Nutty Truth on Acorns and Squirrels,” ScienceDaily, November 26, 1998, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/11/981126102802.htm.
3. Keep in mind that we are laying out similarities between Hebrew and Aramaic as they appear in the Hebrew Bible. There are many Aramaic and Hebrew texts written in various ancient scripts, without vowels, and perhaps in mixed dialects that would not exhibit these similarities. In this section, think “similarities in the Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Hebrew Bible,” not necessarily “similarities in the languages themselves.” Discussing similarities (or dissimilarities) between Hebrew and Aramaic as distinct languages is a much more complex conversation. Our goal is to help you make the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic texts in the Hebrew Bible, not necessarily for you to jump from Hebrew as a distinct language to Aramaic as a distinct language.
4. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Aramaic, 5. Alger Johns lists forty-four identical words between Hebrew and Aramaic in his introductory chapter, but he comments that this is “besides a host of others with but minor differences.” Alger F. Johns, A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1972), 4.
5. Van Pelt, Basics of Biblical Aramaic, 80–81.
6. This quote is attributed to Russell Fuller in his Aramaic classroom notes. These are unpublished notes that I used when taking Aramaic in seminary. Lord willing, he will publish these materials in the future. His Aramaic materials build largely from his morphology-heavy system in Hebrew, so those who have used Invitation to Biblical Hebrew: A Beginning Grammar (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006) would be able to more easily transition to Aramaic.
7. A “shewa fight” is when, upon constructing a noun form, you get two vocal shewas side by side at the beginning of a word. Neither Hebrew nor Aramaic will allow this, and so the resulting vowel pattern we see in the Hebrew Bible is usually a hireq/shewa combination (◌ִ◌ְ◌◌ ← ◌ְ◌ְ◌◌). I learned this concept as a “shewa fight,” and I can’t break the habit of calling it that.
8. Frederick E. Greenspahn, Introduction to Aramaic, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), xi.
9. For an online set of Aramaic vocabulary flash cards, see https://decks.memrise.com/course/5585010. Thanks to Greg Wolff for directing us to this resource.
10. I’m grateful to Dr. Tyler Flatt, my colleague and Latin scholar, for directing me to this preface to Daniel in the Vulgate and for his delightful translation conveying the honest struggles Jerome had with Aramaic. See Bonifatius Fischer, Robert Weber, and Roger Gryson, Biblia Sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007), 1341.
11. It is interesting to note here that Jeremiah contains more Hebrew words than any other book in the Bible.
12. Note that the demonstrative pronoun “these” could either be in relation to the noun “gods” or “heavens.” Therefore, an alternate translation could be “. . . from under the earth and under these heavens.”
13. A typical example: “Verse 11, to begin with, is an obvious gloss: it is a sentence in prose which both interrupts the thought and is written in Aramaic.” John Bright, Jeremiah, Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965), 79. See also J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 330; Douglas R. Jones, Jeremiah, NCBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 172; J. Gerald Janzen, Studies in the Text of Jeremiah, Harvard Semitic Monographs 6 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 132; E. W. Nicholson, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah: Chapters 1–25 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 102; B. Duhm, Das Buch Jeremiah, Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1901), 101.
14. To the early Hebrew scribes, the text itself was sacred, a view that was not shared by the Greeks and Romans, who viewed the message as sacred.
15. Garnett Reid, “‘Thus You Will Say to Them’: A Cross-Cultural Confessional Polemic in Jeremiah 10.11,” JSOT 31, no. 2 (2006): 221–38.
16. Also note: “At this time, an interesting development in the Hebrew language occurred. Until this point, Hebrew writing had made use of its own particular script, based on the Phoenician alphabet. However, when the Babylonians exiled Hebrew-speaking Jews to Babylon in the sixth century BCE, it seems those Hebrew speakers began to adopt the Aramaic alphabetic script for writing Hebrew. The original Hebrew script did not die out completely, the Aramaic script became the default script of the Hebrew language—a practice that was taken back to Jerusalem by those who eventually returned there. . . . Thus many students are often surprised to discover that the Hebrew Bible is, perhaps ironically, written in the script of its ‘one percent’ Aramaic (compare, for instance, English, which is written in the Latin script).” Donald R. Vance, George Athas, Yael Avrahami, and Jonathan G. Kline, Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2016), x.
17. See Reid, “‘Thus You Will Say to Them,’” esp. 231–37.
18. Vance et al., Biblical Aramaic, xi. Here it is identified as an isogloss. The book goes on to summarize: “It is difficult to know whether the preservation of the two forms is deliberate or inadvertent, but it is nonetheless indicative of the linguistic transitions that occurred during the sixth century BCE.”
19. Perhaps it was a set phrase or word that was known to many of the audience at the time. Set phrases in language tend to preserve older language features, especially in religious language. For a modern example, when most people quote John 3:16, they quote the King James Version. It is not as if they, in everyday language, use words like “begotten” and “whosoever believeth”; it is just the manner in which they know the verse. This is an even more interesting phenomenon considering that many people do not know what “begotten” means anymore. This view of the Aramaic words could be supported somewhat, though not completely, by the fact that the introductory material of the phrase (“Therefore, you will say to them”) is in Aramaic and not Hebrew.
20. Note that the spelling change is not carried through into the early cognate languages. For example, the Septuagint uses the same word in both occurrences for “earth” (γῆ), as does the Peshitta (ܐܪܥܐ).