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• We need to understand the significance of these events clearly. While at first there would be enormous turmoil and the Jews must have hated the idea of being exiled into Babylon, the above verses show that the Jews were (deliberately) treated extremely well. The best of them, the most intelligent and attractive looking, were taken into the king’s palace and treated well. They were fed from the king’s household, given the best of everything, treated like royalty, and were taught the language and customs of Babylon. Aramaic, of necessity, became the language they would speak in everyday life. Once you are immersed in a language like this, it becomes part of you. It changes you, and it becomes the language that you think in. And so it was with the Jews in Babylon. Aramaic became their everyday language, the language in which they thought.