Nehemiah 13:24 - Exposition

Their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod . Some understand the writer to mean that half of the children in a family spoke the tongue of the father, and half that of the mother. But many of the best Hebraists prefer the sense expressed by our translators, viz; that all the children spoke a jargon half Ashdodite and half Aramaic. The Philistine language is said to have resembled the Egyptian (Hieronym; 'Comment. in Esaiam,' 19:18).