Aramaic Peshitta
Buy Lamsa Bible:
Aramaic Peshitta Bible Repository
page VIII
Syriac
was the native tongue of SYRIA. Two territories were called Syria; one to the
east, the other to the west of the Euphrates. The capital of Syria, west of the
Euphrates, was Damascus. In 2 Sam. viii. 6, "The Syrians of Damascus"
are mentioned. Before the ten tribes were carried captive into Assyria, the
kings of Syria had reduced them to long servitude. 2 Kings viii. 12; x. 32;
xiii. 4-7. Dr. Grant suggests that this tended to change the language of the ten
tribes from Hebrew to Syriac. (pg. 147) Syria, to the east of the Euphrates,
included the important city called Edessa. Bar Hebraeus, a very learned Syrian
of the thirteenth century, said, "Of the Syriac language there were three
dialects. Of these the most elegant is the Aramaean spoken by the inhabitants of
Edessa and Haran, and Syria the Exterior," that is, Syria in Mesopotamia.
(Walton's Poly. Prol. xiii. 4; Asseman's Bibliotheca, Vol. I., pg. 476)
G. AMIRA, a Syrian of note, and the author of a Syriac Grammar, made a statement
which tends to show how very widely the Syriac language was used. He said that
"he was able to define the Syriac or Chaldaic tongue to be that which was
born, and had chief rule in the East; which could alike be called Assyrian,
Babylonian, Aramaean, Hebrew, or Christian; since it was known by nations of
those names, and used by them." (Wichelhaus on New Covenant Peshito, pg.
21) Walton also, in his Polyglot (Prol. xiii. 2), says that the language in
which the books of the Old and New Covenants exist in the east, and which to-day
is called Syriac, "has been called Chaldaic, Babylonian, Aramaean, Syriac,
Assyriac, and even Hebrew." The dialect in which the Chaldeans spoke to the
king of Babylon, Dan. ii. 4; and that in which Rabshakeh, the Assyrian, was
asked by the elders of Israel to speak to them, Isa. xxxvi. 11, are both called
in those passages, Aramaean, a name which includes different Syriac dialects.