the Chaldee portions of these, and in general use in the Aramaic, places it beyond all doubt that in this book we have a product of the post-exilian period, and, at the earliest, of the time of Ezra-Nehemiah. All that Wagenmann (Comm. 1856), von Essen (Der Predeger Salomo's, 1856), Böhl (De Aramaismis libri Coheleth, 1860), Hahn (Comm. 1860), Reusch (Tübinger Quartalschr. 1860), Warminski (Verfasser u. Abfassungszeit des B. Koheleth, 1867), Prof. Taylor Lewis (in the American ed. of Lange's Bibelwerk, 1869), Schäfer (Neue Untersuchungen ü d. B. Koheleth, 1870), Vegni (L'Ecclesiaste secondo il testo Ebraico, Florenz 1871) have advanced to the contrary, rests on grounds that are altogether untenable. If we possessed the original work of Sirach, we should then see more distinctly than from fragments[1] that the form of the language found in Koheleth, although older, is yet one that does not lie much further back; it is connected, yet loosely, with the old language, but at the same time it is in full accord with that new Heb. which we meet with in the Mishna and the Barajtha-Literature, which groups itself around it. To the modern aspects of the Heb. language the following forms belong: - 1. Verbs Lamed-Aleph, which from the first interchange their forms with those of verbs Lamed-He, are regularly treated in certain forms of inflexion in the Mishna as verbs Lamed-He; e.g., יצאהis not used, but יצתה.[2]
This interchange of forms found in the later language reveals itself here in יצא, Ecc 10:5, used instead of יצאת; and if, according to the Masora, חוטא (חטא) is to be always written like מוצא at Ecc 7:26 (except Ecc 7:26), the traditional text herein discloses a full and accurate knowledge of the linguistic character of the book. The Aram. ישׁנא for ישׁנה, at Ecc 8:1, is not thus to be accounted for. 2. The richness of the old language in mood-forms is here disappearing. The optative of the first person (the cohortative) is only represented by אחכּמה, Ecc 7:23. the form of the subjunctive (jussive) is found in the prohibitive clauses, such as Ecc 7:16-18; Ecc 10:4; but elsewhere the only certain examples found are שׁיּלך, quod auferat secum, Ecc 5:14, and וגּיד, Ecc 10:10. In Ecc 12:7, וישׁב may also be read, although וישׁב, under the influence of “ere ever” (Ecc 12:6), is also admissible. On the contrary, יהוּא, Ecc 11:3, is indic. after the Mishn. יהא, and so also is וינאץ (derived from נצץ, not נצץ), Ecc 12:5. Yet more characteristic, however, is the circumstance that the historic tense,
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