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Critical Notes

'IN THE PLAIN OF THE WALIj'(DAN B:t)^ In Dan 3:1, Nebuchadnezzar is said to have set up his golden image Nll.1 F!p)!):: n:"'m:. Most commentators and translators understand N-ll'] as the name of aplace whose location today is not knownJ Although most of those who deal with thesubject at all note that the word resembles the Akkadian wo rd dfuru,'wallj's only T. G.Pinches argued that the Akka&an word had been borrowed into Aramaic and thatthe actual meaning of N"l'l''t is, in fact, "the wallrs Pinches's theory as far as I can tell,has won no adherents since it appeared, nor is it evbr citedl rhere is, howevel someevidence not cited by Pinches to support his suggestion and make it worthy of furtherconsideration.

First of all, the translation of the relevant words in the LXX Daniel (not Theodo-tion) is dv raE[

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116 Journal of Biblical LiteratureIf we are to understand N-l!:l in Dan 3:1 as "the wall" and not as a place-name,it also seems that we are obliged to construe i'llt''lD not as "provincel' the usual

translation, but as 'tityi' as in later Aramaic.8 The full translation would then be "inthe plain of the wall in the city of Babylonl'The wall spoken of, of course, would be Nimit-Enlil, the great outer wall ofBabylon built by Nebuchadnezzar, famous in antiquity and described in detail byHerodotus (1.178-82).'g This prominent feature of ancient Babylon thus forms part ofthe local color of the narrative of Daniel; the author wishes us to imagine represen-tatives of 'all peoples, nations, and tongues" (Dan 3:4) gathered to worship the goldenimage in the plain between the outer wall-the wall par sxnell'ence-and the cityproper.

Edward M. CookThe Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218

The answer seems to be that ''11"1 never lost its "foreign' air and eventually was dropped fromlater dialects. The Isaiah targum was probably written at a time when translators and otherspecialists knew the word but the ondinary speaker ofAramaic needed a gloss. The compositionof Daniel must be placed, at the latest, in the early Maccabean period, while TorgLrn Jonathanwas composed after 70 cE at the earliest (see A. T^1, The Longuage of the Targm of the FormerProphets anil its Position uithin the Aramaic Diolects [Tel Aviv: University of Tel Aviv Press,1e751).8 There is some evidence that i'l)r"lD bore this meaning in Qumran Aramaic; see J. A. Fitz-myer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qtrmran Cooe 7: A Cunmentary (BibOr I8A; Rome: PontificalBiblical Instituts 1965) 137. In the Qumran Targum of lob (2d cent. rcr?) the phrase DIltBlDtuJ"lPf flob 36:14) "their life [ends] as cult prostitutes" (?) is translated as JrnDDl lliln:rl[D]"their [c]ity [will perish] by slayers" (llQtglob 27:5: translation from Fitzmyer and D. Harrington,A Marru.al of Palestinian Aramaic Teds [Bibor 34; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1978]). Thetargumist obviously took iltF in the sense of 'groupl' "settlement" (BDB 3f2), for whichi-])!"lD ='tity" would serve better than 1''15:16 ='provincei' See also C. C. Torrey, "Medina andflOAIE, and Luke i 39;'HrR 17 (1924) 83-91.e The modern excavation ofthe wall was described by Robert Koldewey, The Excaoations atBabglon (trans. Agnes Johns; London: Macmillan, 19f4) 1-6. The purpose of this immense outerrampart was to allow wartime fugitives from the surrounding area to take shelter; hence, it isunlikely that the area between Imgur-Enlil, the inner wall, and Nimit-Enlil was much built up(cf. Andre Parrot, Babglon and the Olil Tbstarnent [trans. B. Hooke; London: SCM, 1958] 24).