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• But continuing on through time, Hebrew was by this time the normal spoken language amongst the Israelites. Through the time that Joseph goes into Egypt to serve Pharaoh, through to the time of Moses and coming out of Egypt, the Israelites continued to speak Hebrew. Through the times of David and the divided kingdom, the Israelites continued to speak Hebrew. When the Assyrians came to invade Israel, the Jews also spoke Hebrew. And by the time of the Babylonians, the Jews also spoke Hebrew, except for a few educated people who could speak Aramaic as well.
• But when the Jews were exiled into Babylon, that all changed. The Israelites HAD to learn Aramaic, but for them it would have been a natural fit, because Hebrew and Aramaic are such closely related languages.