Special Issue IOSOT 2013 - Books and Journals

62 S. Japhet / Vetus Testamentum IOSOT (2013) 36-76
prominent126 In the various strata of Ezr.-Neh. it is repeated several times, in
sing. and in plural forms:127 Ezr. viii 36; Neh. ii 7, 9; iii 7; v 14;128 15, 18; In Aramaic
Ezr. v 3, 6, 14; vi, 6, 7.
Besides Ezr.-Neh. it is known from other books of the Persian period, i.e.,
Haggai, Mal., Esther and Dan.129 In Chr. it is found only once in a text which is
taken word for word from his sources in Kings. 2 Chr. ix 14 // 1 Ki. x 15.
All these terms, and others which were not discussed,130 demonstrate the
fact that foreign terms taken from the realm of government and administration
entered the language and became a living part of it. Most of the terms were
thoroughly absorbed into the language and their use in Ezr.-Neh. is widespread
and natural.
In the book of Chr. there is not even a trace of all this world. On one hand
which has no special foreign color about it but is closely related with ‏,מדינה
תרשתא,‏ פחה,‏ סגנים the Persian rule, and on the other hand terms such as
which were fully absorbed into the language—all these are absent from the
book of Chr. The question which naturally follows, and cannot be answered in
this context, is whether this lack is a result of linguistic limitations or whether
there is some deliberate tendency in their ommission. In any event, the opposition
between Chr. and Ezr.-Neh. is conspicuously stated.
III. Peculiarities of Style
The purpose of the following discussion is the study of characteristic stylistic
traits. It should be noted beforehand that the general deficiencies of stylistic
investigation are present here as well, and among them the fact that a “personal
style” is a unified whole, and not every aspect of it has its equivalent in
126) In addition to these it is found only in 2 Ki. xviii 24 // Isa. xxxvi 9; 1 Ki. xx 24; 1 Ki. x 15 // 2 Chr.
ix 19 and as a parallel to סגנים in Ez. xxiii 6, 12, 23; Jer. li 23, 28, 57.
127) To the forms פחה and ‏,פחוא their meaning and relation, cf. E. Y. Kutscher: פחוא“‏ and its
cognates’’, Tarbiz xxx, 1961, p. 112ff. (Hebrew, with an English summary).
B.H. Cf. ‏.פחה is a corrupted form of פחם 128)
129) Haggai i 1, 14; ii 2, 21; Mal. i 8; Esther iii 12; viii 9; ix 3; Dan. iii 2, 3, 27; vi 8.
130) Such as 1) which‏—תרשתא is also translated by RSV as “governor”. It is mentioned in
Ezr.-Neh. only five times: Ezr. ii 63; Neh. vii 65, 70; viii 9, x 2 and is not known from other biblical
sources and might be more restricted in meaning. 2) ‏.אחשדרפנים Satraps, which is found in
Ezr.-Neh. only once—Ezr. viii 36, and otherwise in Esther iii 12; viii 9; ix 3 and in Aramaic in Dan.
nine times. 3) פלך which is found only in Nehemiah’s memoirs, in the narrative about the wall
building: Neh. iii 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18. All these do add to the general picture, but the sparsity of material
renders their support limited.