The Transition to and From Aramaic in the Book of Daniel

Introduction

Genesis Rabbah 74:14 notes the significance of the Aramaic language, bringing examples of Aramaic being used in all three parts of Tanakh. “Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: Let this Persian language (Aramaic) not be insignificant in your eyes, as in the Torah, in the Prophets, and in the Writings, we find that the Holy One blessed be He pays tribute to it. In the Torah: Laban called it Yegar Sahaduta (Gen. 31:47); in the Prophets: So you shall say to them… (Jeremiah 10:11); in the Writings: The Chaldeans spoke Aramaic to the king (Daniel 2:4).”

While it is logical that Aramaic is used to record the name of the rock of testimony used by Laban the Aramean, and the verse in Jeremiah uses Aramaic as it records the message sent by the prophet for the exiles to reply to the Chaldeans in their own language,¹ it is not clear why Daniel switches to Aramaic beginning in Dan. 2:4, and switches back to Hebrew beginning in chapter 8, continuing in Hebrew until the end of the book, particularly in light of the fact that the book of Daniel is generally viewed as divided into two units, the adventures of Daniel in chapters 1-6, and the visions of Daniel in chapters 7-12, with the Aramaic part not falling neatly into this division.²

Over the years, some scholars proposed multiple authors, a complex compositional history, or sloppiness of a single author to account for the transition to Aramaic and back to Hebrew.³ It should be noted, however, that the oldest textual witnesses from the Qumran scrolls also evidence the same shift of language.⁴ We will focus here on explanations within the more traditional realm of a single author of the Book of Daniel, who was careful in what he wrote.

The Shift to Aramaic in Chapter 2

The other book in Tanakh with a considerable Aramaic component is Ezra-Nehemiah, and comparisons have been made between the use of Aramaic there and in Daniel. The general approach to the Aramaic portions found in Ezra-Nehemiah is that these represent documents from the historical archives and records at the time that were incorporated into the Tanakh as these works were being composed.⁵ This is also the approach used by Ibn Ezra to explain the shift to Aramaic in Daniel chapter 2 beginning with the reply of the Chaldeans to King Nebuchadnezzar. Ibn Ezra (to Dan. 2:4) explains that the narrative shifts to Aramaic at this point as this was the actual language that the dialogue took place in. This would also explain why Daniel chapter 4 is in Aramaic, as it reproduces the letter written by King Nebuchadnezzar in Aramaic. According to this approach, the other material written in Aramaic similarly preserves the original way these sections were transcribed at the time.

Abarbanel relates to this in a similar manner in the introduction to his commentary on Daniel, Mayanei Hayeshua. He states that Daniel recorded chapters 2-6 in Aramaic as that was the language that all the dialogue actually took place in. It wasn’t translated into Hebrew so that it would be more accurate.⁶ Even the parts that don’t record actual dialogue were written in Aramaic, as these were recorded at the time in Aramaic, along with the dialogue,⁷ similar to the archival parts of Ezra-Nehemiah written in Aramaic which flow into the ensuing narrative.⁸ There also is a tendency to write entire verses and even chapters in Aramaic once part of it was recorded in Aramaic, as seen already in Jer. 10:11 where the words introducing the Aramaic letter are written in Aramaic as well. This general approach is found among more modern scholars as well.⁹

The Aramaic used in Tanakh is Imperial Aramaic, which functioned as the language of public life and administration beginning in the late Neo-Assyrian Empire and afterwards to its successors, the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Persian Achaemenid Empire, so within this approach it is not unusual that even chapter 6, which takes place during the reign of Darius the Mede, would be written in Aramaic.¹⁰

Chapter 7 in Aramaic

This leaves the question as to why Daniel chapter 7, the first of Daniel’s visions, is in Aramaic. Taking Abarbanel’s approach that chapters 2-6 represent either court records or Daniel’s own transcription of events which transpired in Aramaic, the visions of the book should still all be in Hebrew.

Abarbanel himself explains that this is because the first vision took place In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon (Dan. 7:1), so it was still written in the language of Babylonia, Aramaic. The next vision took place In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar (Dan. 8:1), the year in which the Babylonian empire came to an end, and so it is no longer written in Aramaic, the language of the Babylonians, reflective of the downfall of that empire.¹¹ Also note that the vision in chapter 8 doesn’t mention the Babylonian Empire at all, only talking about the Persian and Greek Empires. In fact, Babylonia is no longer a factor in any of Daniel’s visions after the first one in chapter 7.

In light of this approach, it is significant that in the vision Daniel says, I was in Shushan the capital, which is in the province of Elam (Dan. 8:2), further disconnecting that vision from Babylonia.¹² Although, as noted, Imperial Aramaic was still used by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which includes the period of Daniel’s visions in chapters 8-12, according to this approach the Jews associated Aramaic more with Babylonia and the experience of exile there, so it wasn’t viewed as a fitting language for post-Babylonian-exile visions.

Scholars note that another reason to maintain the vision of chapter 7 in Aramaic is to create or preserve the parallel with the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2, both revolving around the four empires. Note that these two chapters are the only ones in the Book of Daniel to be called visions of the night (Dan. 2:10; 7:13). The Aramaic of chapter 7 thus provides a kind of ending and conclusion for the entire Aramaic portion of the book which began in chapter 2.¹³ Scholars have noted that the totality of the Aramaic portion of Daniel, chapters 2-7, can be viewed as having a chiastic structure, and the use of Aramaic in this part of the book serves to designate this internal subsection.¹⁴

The Thematic Use of Aramaic

A complication of the approach of Abarbanel is that chapter 6 of Daniel takes place during the reign of Darius, after the Babylonian Empire. If chapter 8 is written in Hebrew in order to demonstrate the end of the Babylonian era, then the same thinking should have been applied to chapter 6 as well.

Recent scholarship has focused on a more thematic reason for the switch to and from Aramaic, consciously choosing different languages to evoke certain ideas in the minds of the readership. For example, the theory that “Daniel used a sequence of language choices to move the audience to the recognition of a new context in which the claims of the empire (represented by Aramaic) had dissolved and the claims of covenant alone (represented by Hebrew) remained.”¹⁵

In this spirit, it would seem that an additional way to understand the transition to Aramaic and back to Hebrew is to give the reader a sense of exile and redemption as the book is being read. The book begins in Hebrew and shifts to Aramaic in the first episode of Daniel engaging in court duties, mirroring the experience of Daniel, taken from Israel into captivity in Babylonia. The Aramaic chapters, including chapter 6 at the time of Darius the Mede, are meant to evoke a sense of a long period of exile. With the reporting of the vision in chapter 8, where no mention is made of the Babylonian Empire, Hebrew is used to give a sense of a transition to redemption and the end of exile. In other words, the language of the book takes the reader on a journey paralleling that of the Jews in the Babylonian exile. Even though Daniel himself is never recorded in Tanakh as returning to Israel, the Jewish People as a whole did, and the language of the Book of Daniel represents this experience. Ultimately, the Aramaic portions of the book are meant to evoke the feelings of being in a foreign land and the Hebrew parts a sense of return and redemption. Thus, the language change isn’t connected to a particular era or subject, but rather to represent the experience of exile followed by that of return. Although the future, after the end of the Babylonian exile, contains difficult times, described as a time of trouble, the like of which has never been since the nation came into being (Dan. 12:1), these periods will be faced by Jews living in their own land.¹⁶

With this in mind, it should be noted that Cyrus is mentioned on three occasions in the Book of Daniel. At the end of chapter 1 we are informed that Daniel was there (in Babylonia) until the first year of King Cyrus (Dan. 1:21). At the end of chapter 6, the conclusion of the first part of the book describing Daniel’s adventures, Thus Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and during the reign of Cyrus the Persian (Dan. 6:29). And as an introduction to the long final vision of Daniel, In the third year of King Cyrus of Persia an oracle was revealed to Daniel (Dan. 10:1). Thus, Cyrus is mentioned in connection to every section of the Book of Daniel, at the end of the introduction of chapter 1, at the end of the first section of the adventures of Daniel in chapter 6, and as an introduction to the last vision of Daniel in chapter 10. The first two parts end with a mention of Cyrus as a reminder of the end of exile under the rule of Cyrus, as described in the opening verses of Ezra. This also gives the reader a sense of hope at the end of each of these parts of the Book of Daniel, as the book works its way to the final vision of redemption, introduced by a mention of Cyrus.

Nahmanides, in his comments to Exodus 12:2, explains why the Jewish People use the Babylonian names for the months of the year. He notes that in Tanakh we only find the Babylonian months used in the Persian Era, after the Babylonian exile. This idea is found in Genesis Rabbah 48:9, “Rabbi Ḥanina said: The names of the months ascended from Babylon.” Nahmanides explains that the reason for this is that once the Babylonian exile ended, “we began to call the months by the names they were called in the land of Babylon. We are thus reminded that there we stayed [during our exile] and from there, blessed God brought us up [to our Land]… Thus, through the names of the months we remember our second redemption even as we had done until then with regard to the first one from Egypt.”

Just as the use of Babylonian names for months is meant to make the Jewish People recall the period of Babylonian exile, so too the Aramaic language itself is used in Daniel to evoke the experience of exile, and Hebrew the experience of living in the Land of Israel. In addition to all the other reasons given, the shift from Hebrew to Aramaic to Hebrew serves to take the reader along on the journey of the Jewish People, from Israel to exile and then from exile to redemption.¹⁷