Drift Bible

Hebrew · Aramaic · Greek

Why Aramaic?

The Bible was written in three languages, not two. Most of the Old Testament is Hebrew and the New Testament is Greek, but 269 verses of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic, and the Greek of the Gospels keeps some of the Aramaic Jesus spoke.

The language of empires

Aramaic began as the language of the Arameans, Israel's neighbors to the north in Syria. The Assyrian empire took it up for its administration, and the Babylonian and Persian empires kept it: for centuries it was how officials, merchants and diplomats from Egypt to India wrote to one another. In 701 BC, with an Assyrian army outside Jerusalem, King Hezekiah's officials asked the Assyrian commander to speak Aramaic, which they understood, and not Hebrew, which the people listening on the wall would understand too (2 Kings 18:26). After the exile the roles turned around, and Aramaic became the everyday language of the Jews themselves.

That is why the Aramaic in the Old Testament is where it is: official letters quoted as they were sent, a decree from a Persian king, and the stories of Daniel at the court of Babylon.

Where the Old Testament turns to Aramaic

  1. Genesis 31:47 Laban's cairn

    Laban names the heap of stones in Aramaic, Yegar-sahadutha; Jacob names it in Hebrew, Galeed. Both mean "heap of witness": the Bible's first Aramaic, and a border between two families drawn in two languages.

  2. Jeremiah 10:11 A message to the nations

    This one verse is in Aramaic: words the exiles are to say to the nations in their own language, that gods who did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from under them.

  3. Ezra 4:8–6:18 The Persian letters

    Ezra 4:8–6:18 is in Aramaic, the official language of the Persian Empire. It quotes the letters between local officials and the Persian kings about rebuilding Jerusalem, and tells the story around them in the same language.

  4. Ezra 7:12–26 Artaxerxes' decree

    Ezra 7:12–26 is in Aramaic: King Artaxerxes' letter sending Ezra to Jerusalem, quoted in the empire's official language.

  5. Daniel 2:4–7:28 Daniel among the kingdoms

    Daniel 2:4–7:28 is in Aramaic. When the Chaldeans answer King Nebuchadnezzar, the book turns from Hebrew to the language of the Babylonian court, and stays in it through chapter 7: the chapters about the kingdoms of the world.

The switch, mid-sentence

In Daniel 2:4 the king's wise men answer him, and the narrator says they spoke 'aramit, "in Aramaic". Then the text itself changes language: their words, and everything after them to the end of chapter 7, are written in Aramaic. Aramaic is shown in color.

  1. וַֽיְדַבְּר֧וּ and they spoke
  2. הַכַּשְׂדִּ֛ים the Chaldeans
  3. לַמֶּ֖לֶךְ to the king
  4. אֲרָמִ֑ית Aramaic
  5. מַלְכָּא֙ king O
  6. לְעָלְמִ֣ין for ever
  7. חֱיִ֔י live!
  8. אֱמַ֥ר tell!
  9. חֶלְמָ֛א dream the
  10. לְעַבְדָ֖ךְ to servant your
  11. וּפִשְׁרָ֥א and interpretation the
  12. נְחַוֵּֽא׃ we will declare

Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, “O king, may you live forever! Tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation.” BSB

The Aramaic of Jesus

By the first century, Aramaic was the everyday language of Jews in Galilee and Judea, and Jesus almost certainly taught in it. The Gospels were written in Greek, but at a few moments they keep his words as he said them, spelled out in Greek letters and then translated for Greek readers: to a girl who had died, talitha koum, "little girl, get up"; from the cross, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Paul keeps the first church's Aramaic prayer, maranatha, "our Lord, come". These are the places where the Greek New Testament lets you hear the language underneath it.

How Drift Bible shows it

Every verse names its language above the original text. In the Aramaic passages a note says where you are, and where the language changes inside a verse, the Aramaic is marked. Aramaic words have their own word pages, under their own Strong's numbers: the Aramaic word for king, malka, is H4430, and the Hebrew melekh is H4428. The word data, with each word tagged Hebrew or Aramaic, is from STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).