14. How Greek Words May Have Crept Into Daniel

How Greek Words May Have Crept Into Daniel

It is known for a certainty that from the earliest times the kings and peoples of Babylon and Nineveh delighted in music. Now, the Greeks, according to all their traditions and habits, both in war and worship, had practised music at all periods of their history and far excelled all ancient peoples in their attainments in the art of music. We all know how readily musical instruments and their native names travel from land to land. We might instance the ukelele, the guitar, the organ, and the trumpet. The Greeks themselves imported many foreign musical instruments which retained their foreign names. From at least 1000 B.C. there was an active commerce between the Greeks and the Semites. Cyprus and Cilicia were subdued by the Assyrian kings; and Sennacherib about 700 B.C. conquered a Greek fleet and carried many prisoners captive to Nineveh. Assurbanipal received the homage of Gyges, king of Lydia, the neighbor and overlord of many Greek cities in Asia Minor.

Greeks had been settled in Egypt since long before the time of Assurbanipal and Nebuchadnezzar and served as mercenaries in the armies of the Egyptian kings who were subdued by the great kings of Nineveh and Babylon, and also in the army of Nebuchadnezzar himself. Thousands, perhaps, tens of thousands, of captive Greek soldiers would, according to the custom of those days, be settled in the cities of the Euphrates and Tigris valleys. And these valleys were filled with people who spoke Aramaic. The Greeks would mingle with them and, as in the case of the Jews at Babylon, the natives would ask of them a song; and they would sing their strange songs to the accompaniment of their native instruments. This is one way in which the instruments and their names could get into Aramaic long before the time when the Aramaic of Daniel was written. Another was through the slaves, both men and girls, who would certainly be brought from all lands to minister to the pleasures of the luxurious court of the Chaldean king.