Daily text, Tuesday, September 26. 2017

[Queen Esther]

All the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction.—Rom. 15:4.

God did not restrict his communication with humans to Hebrew. After the Babylonian exile, Aramaic became the everyday language of some of GodÂ’s people. Perhaps to indicate what was to come, Jehovah inspired the prophets Daniel and Jeremiah and the priest Ezra to record portions of their Bible books in Aramaic. Alexander the Great later conquered much of the ancient world, and common, or Koine, Greek became an international language. Many Jews began to speak that language, leading to the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation, thought to have been done by 72 translators, became known as the Septuagint. It was the first translation of the Bible and one of the most important. The work of so many translators resulted in varied translation styles, from literal to rather free. Nevertheless, the Septuagint was viewed as GodÂ’s Word by Greek-speaking Jews and later by Christians. w15 12/15 1:4-6

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/dt/r1/lp-e/2017/9/26