StrongerBible

avad

אֲבַד

AramaicH0007destroy, perish, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jer 10:11Dan 2:12Dan 2:18Dan 2:24 (2×)Dan 7:11Dan 7:26
Word studyuh-VADverb

What avad means

to perish, or to make something perish: to come to a final end, or to put a person or thing out of existence for good.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the Aramaic verb for something being gone. It runs in two directions, and which direction is meant depends on the form of the verb rather than on any change in what it means: a thing can perish on its own, or somebody can make it perish. Both are the same idea seen from either side, much as English can say a fire went out or that someone put it out.

In Daniel 2 the word is a death sentence. When Nebuchadnezzar orders that the wise men of Babylon be destroyed, the next two verses describe that same decree with the ordinary word for killing (קְטַל), so "destroy" here means execute. Daniel asks the officer in charge not to carry it out, and he and his friends pray through the night that they will not be swept away with the rest.

In Daniel 7 the target is a power rather than a person. The beast's body is destroyed and thrown into the fire, and the arrogant horn's rule is taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the very end, where our word stands next to a second verb for wiping out (שְׁמַד). Setting the two side by side is the writer's way of saying that nothing of that rule survives.

The one use outside Daniel sits in a single Aramaic verse dropped into the Hebrew of Jeremiah: the gods who did not make heaven and earth will themselves perish from the earth. Nobody is named as doing the destroying there. The idols simply stop being.

Nuances

1ato have people put to death; to do away with someone by official order.
Dan 2:12Dan 2:18Dan 2:24 (2×)
1bto wipe something out completely, so that nothing of it is left.
Dan 7:11Dan 7:26
1cto perish, to vanish from the scene, with no one named as bringing it about.
Jer 10:11

What scholars say about avad

The Aramaic verb אֲבַד answers to Hebrew אָבַד and to the common Semitic root ʾbd. In Biblical Aramaic it occurs in three stems: the peal (intransitive, "to perish", Jeremiah 10:11), the haphel (causative, "to destroy, put to death", Daniel 2:12, 18, 24; 7:26), and the hophal (passive of the causative, "to be destroyed", Daniel 7:11). HALOT and BDB agree on this distribution, and no lexical dispute attaches to the sense. Commentators on Daniel observe that the haphel in chapter 2 is functionally equivalent to the qetal vocabulary of 2:13 and 2:14, so that "destroy" there denotes judicial execution rather than material demolition; the pairing with שְׁמַד in 7:26 is a doubling for total annihilation. Jeremiah 10:11, the sole occurrence outside Daniel and the only Aramaic verse in that book, is commonly treated as a traditional anti-idol formula, and the peal form there matches the intransitive use widespread in the later Aramaic dialects.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. אֲבַד (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
  • BDB, Biblical Aramaic section, s.v. אֲבַדlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. אָבַד (B. Otzen)theological-dictionary
  • F. Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaicgrammar
  • J. A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel (ICC)commentary
  • J. J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia)commentary

All attested forms of אֲבַד

haphel infinitive-construct construct

לְהוֹבָדָה, וּלְהוֹבָדָה

Dan 2:12, Dan 2:24, Dan 7:26

haphel imperfect 3fs

תְּהוֹבֵד

Dan 2:24

haphel imperfect 3mp

יְהֹבְדוּן

Dan 2:18

hophal perfect 3ms

וְהוּבַד

Dan 7:11

peal imperfect 3mp

יֵאבַדוּ

Jer 10:11