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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 Excerpt:...but Chaldee, as it has come down to us, is Semitic; i.e., it is Aramaic in a different patois, and what is more important, it is in a different character; for here we finally lose the old Phoenician letters, and first become acquainted with the alphabet now in use, called square Hebrew. The word Chaldee, itself, has no existence, in the Old Testament, being represented by Casdim, Hebrew: D"!. Daniel was an intelligent young Hebrew, selected, with others, to acquire "the learning and the tongue of the Casdim." (i. 4.) In ch. ii. 4, the Casdim speak to King Nebuchadnezzar in Aramaic; in ch. v. we find a narration of the circumstances of Belshazzar's fall being predicted by supernatural writing on the wall of his palace, which Daniel interprets. The words of the inscription, as we know it, are pure Chaldee: In explaining the words, and applying the meaning to the case before him, Daniel dwells upon the analogy between peresin, the Hebrew and Chaldee for "divided," and the similar word "Persians," thus: mene. "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it." v. 26. tekel. "Thou art weighed in the balances and found "wanting." v. 27. D"lS peres. "Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." v. 28. 4. The Book of Daniel having shown us the influence of captivity in modifying the national dialects of Judea, the Books of Nehemiah and Ezra will conclude our illustrations drawn from the Old Testament. The remnant return (b.c. 536), but the language of the Pentateuch has to them become archaic, as is the language of Alfred the Great, or of Chaucer, to us. In Ezra iv. 7, we find that the malcontents wrote to King Artaxerxes complaining against Nehemiah, a letter written in Aramai...