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• Let us now take a closer look at the Babylonian empire, and in particular the exile of the Jews into Babylon. As we have seen, in the land of Israel, prior to being exiled into Babylon, the Jews spoke almost entirely Hebrew, with a few educated people speaking both Hebrew and Aramaic. But in Babylon, the Jews had to learn Aramaic. It became their normal language of communication with the Babylonians. And by the time the exile finished seventy years later, the Jews were so familiar with Aramaic that it had become a second language to them, even to the extent that (for many) it was the language they were most familiar with. And because Aramaic was the spoken language of all the nations around them, Aramaic became even more commonly spoken as the centuries went by.