Although Aramaic was used for all diplomatic exchanges, the official language of the Persian court was Persian. Aramaic documents may thus have been translated for the benefit of the king as and when required.1 The Jews learned to speak Aramaic during the Babylonian exile. It was the language of the returned exiles and continued to be the language of the Jews until the time of Christ. Targums are translations/paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible written in Aramaic in this post-exilic time for the Jews that spoke and read Aramaic better than Hebrew.2
7 In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated.