¹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

³ tn The Aramaic word for “teeth” is dual rather than plural, suggesting two rows of teeth.

¹ tn The Aramaic text has also “and behold,” as also in vv. 8, 13.

³ tn The Aramaic active impersonal verb is often used as a substitute for the passive.

² tc The Aramaic word is plural. Theodotion has the singular (cf. NAB “PERES”).

¹ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common Aramaic idiom that occurs repeatedly in this chapter.

¹ tn The Aramaic participle is used here to express the imminent future.

¹ tn The idea is that of the open countryside. The Aramaism is found only here.

¹ sn Ezra 7:12-26 is written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew.

⁶ sn The double reference in v. 7 to the Aramaic language is difficult. It would not make sense to say that the letter was written in Aramaic and then translated into Aramaic. Some interpreters understand the verse to mean that the letter was written in the Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language, but this does not seem to give sufficient attention to the participle “translated” at the end of the verse. The second reference to Aramaic in the verse is more probably a gloss that calls attention to the fact that the following verses retain the Aramaic language of the letter in its original linguistic form. A similar reference to Aramaic occurs in Dan 2:4b, where the language of that book shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic. Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26 are written in Aramaic, whereas the rest of the book is written in Hebrew.

² tn The parallelism now uses the Aramaic word “my advocate”—the one who testifies on my behalf. The word again appears in Gen 31:47 for Laban’s naming of the “heap of witness” in Aramaic—“Sahadutha.”

¹ tn The word for “famine” is an Aramaic word found again in 30:3. The book of Job has a number of Aramaisms that are used to form an alternative parallel expression (see notes on “witness” in 16:19).

¹ sn At this point the language of the book reverts from Aramaic (4:8-6:18) back to Hebrew. Aramaic will again be used in Ezra 7:12-26.

² tn Or “the Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁴ tn Or “Messiah Jesus”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

¹ sn Simeon is a form of the apostle Peter’s Aramaic name. James uses Peter’s “Jewish” name here.

³ tn Or “the Christ”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁴ tn Or “and Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

² tn Or “the Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

⁴ tn Or “Jesus is the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).