to come, to arrive: to move toward a person or place and reach it.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is one of the ordinary Aramaic verbs for arriving. Someone or something moves toward a place and reaches it: a group of returned exiles reaches Jerusalem, a provincial official comes to make his inquiry, the three men step out of the furnace when they are called.
The same plain word also carries some of the most weighty moments in Daniel's night visions, where one "like a son of man" comes with the clouds of heaven and the Ancient of Days comes to give judgment. The awe there belongs to the scene and the figures in it, not to the verb: on its own the word means only to arrive.
It is the close Aramaic counterpart of the common Hebrew verb בוא, which covers the same ground of coming and, in its causative form, bringing.
to bring: to cause a person or thing to be carried or led to a place.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
When the verb is cast in its causative pattern, the subject no longer simply comes but makes someone or something else come. It means to bring or fetch. Court officials bring in the temple vessels, guards bring Daniel to the lions' den, a stone is brought to seal it, and Daniel's accusers are brought out to their punishment. Some of these are worded so that the thing is "brought" without naming who did the bringing, which English renders as "was brought."
English keeps arriving and causing-to-arrive in two separate words, "come" and "bring," but Aramaic (like its Hebrew cousin בוא) treats them as one verb pointing in two directions.
Dan 3:13 (2×)Dan 5:2Dan 5:3Dan 5:13Dan 5:23Dan 6:16(17)Dan 6:17(18)Dan 6:24(25)
Related words
The English words used to translate atah
“come”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“bring”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“brought”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How atah differs from similar Aramaic words
מְטָאto reach or arrive at, stressing the goal that is finally attained rather than the act of coming toward it.
carries a causative sense that מטא never has: to bring or fetch someone or something to a placeDan 5:2Dan 3:13Dan 6:16
describes people simply coming or being made to appear at a place, whether officials arriving in a province or a captive led before the kingEzr 4:12Ezr 5:3Dan 5:13
Both
both render the plain act of coming or arriving, so either can describe a figure who comes onto the sceneDan 7:13
both mark an arrival at a decisive moment, when the awaited one or the appointed time comesDan 7:22
Looks at movement from the destination: someone reaches the place already in view. The returned exiles have arrived at Jerusalem, the provincial governor turns up on the builders, and Sheshbazzar shows up to lay the foundations.Ezr 4:12Ezr 5:3Ezr 5:16
Doubles as the word for having someone or something fetched. Kings give the order and the person is produced in front of them: the three young men are hauled before the furious king, and Daniel is marched into the banquet hall.Dan 3:13Dan 6:16
Takes objects as well as people, which the word for going never does. The looted temple vessels are carried in for the drinking party, and a stone is brought and laid over the mouth of the den.Dan 5:2Dan 5:23Dan 6:17
Reaches past ordinary travel into the visions, where the arrival itself is the point: a figure like a human being approaches on the clouds of heaven, and the Ancient of Days arrives to give judgment to the holy ones.Dan 7:13Dan 7:22
Serves as a summons that calls people toward the speaker: officials are called in from every province to attend the dedication, and the king shouts into the furnace for the three men to step out and come to him.Dan 3:2Dan 3:26
Both
Both are plain, everyday words for people making a journey, and both normally name the place reached. In the same Ezra story one set of men "went" to Jerusalem and another set had "come" to Jerusalem, with no difference in the kind of trip.Ezr 4:23Ezr 4:12
One and the same trip can be told with either word, depending on which end the writer is standing at. The provincial inspectors "came" to the builders in Jerusalem, and in their own report to the king the same men say they "went" to the province of Judah.Ezr 5:3Ezr 5:8
Looks at movement from the point of departure: someone leaves the place where the story has been standing and heads off somewhere else. The royal officials break off from the king's letter and head for Jerusalem, Daniel leaves the palace for his own house, and the king leaves the banquet for his private rooms.Ezr 4:23Dan 2:17Dan 6:18
Only ever describes people traveling under their own power. Officials walk to the province of Judah to inspect the building work, and Daniel walks in to the officer holding the death warrant. It is never used of an object being carried or fetched.Ezr 5:8Dan 2:24
As an order it sends a person away on an errand, not toward the speaker. The Persian king tells the returning exile to take the temple vessels, "go", and set them down in Jerusalem, which is the first step of a journey the king himself will not make.Ezr 5:15
Carries a note of urgency in two scenes, where the traveler hurries off on something that will not wait: the officials rush to shut the building down, and the sleepless king rushes at first light to the lions' den.Ezr 4:23Dan 6:19
Fixes on the destination: it reports that someone or something reached a place or a person, and the goal is normally named, as in "to Jerusalem" or "to the Ancient of Days".Ezr 4:12Dan 7:13Dan 7:22
It is the ordinary word for a person being fetched and set before a ruler, which is how men are produced in the king's presence throughout the Babylonian and Persian court scenes.Dan 3:13Dan 5:13Dan 6:16Dan 6:24
It can describe an object simply put into position, with no starting point in view at all: a stone is brought and laid over the mouth of the lions' den.Dan 6:17
It covers people assembling for an occasion, gathering in from wherever they were to the event itself.Dan 3:2Ezr 5:3
Both
Both describe people moving at a king's word, and a single command can use them back to back: the three men are told to come out of the fire and then to come over to where the king stands.Dan 3:26
Both can describe making something else move rather than moving oneself, and the two are used of the very same temple vessels: carried out of the sanctuary in Jerusalem, then brought in to the king's banquet.Dan 5:2Dan 5:3
Fixes on the point of departure: the weight falls on where the movement began, and the source is what the sentence names rather than any destination.Dan 5:5Dan 7:10
It is used of what issues from the royal court and takes effect outside it: the death sentence that went out against the wise men, and the officer who had set out to carry it through.Dan 2:13Dan 2:14
It names property being carried out of the building where it was kept, which is how the temple vessels are tracked from Jerusalem to Babylon and back again.Ezr 5:14Ezr 6:5
This is the word for reaching a destination. It looks at the end of a trip, the moment a person or thing turns up where it was headed, and it says nothing at all about height. Officials show up where the builders are working, a returning governor arrives in Jerusalem and lays the foundations, and in Daniel's vision the Ancient of Days at last arrives and gives judgment.Ezr 5:3Ezr 5:16Dan 7:22
It is the ordinary word for fetching. In the forms that mean "bring", it is about delivering a person or an object into someone else's presence, normally because a king ordered it: three men are marched in before Nebuchadnezzar, the temple cups are carried in to a banquet, Daniel is walked to the lions' pit, and a stone is fetched to seal it. The move is toward a person, not toward higher ground.Dan 3:13Dan 5:3Dan 6:16Dan 6:17
Only this word answers a summons. Officials from every province are ordered to come to the dedication of the statue, and Nebuchadnezzar stands at the furnace door and calls the three survivors to come out to him.Dan 3:2Dan 3:26
Both
Both describe real people on the move, and one sentence in the letter to Artaxerxes uses them back to back for a single journey: the exiles "went up" away from the king, and then they "came" to Jerusalem. One word tracks the climb out of Babylon, the other the arrival at the city, and English often flattens both into "came".Ezr 4:12
Height is the whole of it. Something moves from a lower place to a higher one, and the sentence cares about the rising itself rather than about any destination or anyone waiting to receive it. Four great beasts rise out of the sea, and a small horn pushes up among the ten already there.Dan 7:3Dan 7:8Dan 7:20
Because rising can happen inside a person as well as in the world, this word is used of thoughts surfacing in the mind. Nebuchadnezzar's questions about the future come up in him while he lies on his bed, with no one and nothing travelling anywhere.Dan 2:29
When it is used of making something rise, it means hauling a person up and out of a place below. The king gives the order and Daniel is lifted out of the lions' pit, unhurt.Dan 6:23
It covers a whole journey and its arrival: people who set out from one place and turn up in another. Returned exiles are said to have "come" to Jerusalem, a provincial governor arrives to inspect the building work, and a royal summons orders officials from across the empire to come to a ceremony.Ezr 4:12Ezr 5:3Ezr 5:16Dan 3:2
It is the everyday word for having a person or an object fetched and set down in front of the king. The temple cups are brought in for a banquet, Daniel is brought in to read the writing, a prisoner is brought to the den, and even a stone is brought to seal its mouth.Dan 5:2Dan 5:13Dan 6:16Dan 6:17Dan 6:24
It can announce an arrival on the stage of history, the moment when someone who was absent is now present and everything changes.Dan 7:22
Both
Both are words for movement toward a person or a place, close enough that a single scene can use them side by side: at the furnace the king comes up to the opening, and in the same breath he calls the three men to come out to him.Dan 3:26
Both belong to the language of appearing before someone of higher rank, and in the throne vision they run together as one continuous movement: the human figure comes with the clouds of heaven, and then is brought in before the Ancient of Days.Dan 7:13
It is the word for presenting an offering: bringing a sacrifice up to the altar and handing it over to God. That worship use belongs to this word and not to the other one.Ezr 6:10Ezr 6:17Ezr 7:17
It names the short step forward that puts a person within speaking range, usually so they can say something: officials move up to the king to inform on the Jews, accusers step up to remind him of his own decree, and a bewildered visionary goes over to a bystander to ask what he is seeing.Dan 3:8Dan 6:12Dan 7:16
What it measures is the closing of the last gap, not the trip that got you there. The king has already reached the den before this word describes him drawing right up to its mouth to call out.Dan 6:20
atah in the other biblical languages
בּוֹאHebrew“to come (in): come”the common Hebrew verb for the same range: to come, and in its causative form to bring.
This is the everyday come/bring verb only inside Biblical Aramaic, and it lives entirely in the Aramaic sections of Ezra and Daniel, a small closed body of text rather than the whole Old Testament.Ezr 5:3Dan 3:2
It carries the great vision scenes of Daniel 7, where one like a son of man comes with the clouds and the Ancient of Days comes to give judgment, a use with no counterpart in the Hebrew word's range.Dan 7:13Dan 7:22
Both
Each is the ordinary intransitive verb for coming or arriving in its own language.Gen 7:1Ezr 5:3
Each also does duty as a causative meaning to bring or carry something in, so the same verb covers both a person arriving and an object being brought.Gen 4:3Dan 5:3
The far larger Hebrew corpus builds the fixed pair coming in and going out, a way of naming a person's whole daily conduct or freedom of movement.Deu 28:6Deu 31:2Num 27:17
It becomes the standard verb for entering the promised land and coming into a place to possess or settle it.Gen 12:5Exo 12:25
It reaches into set expressions the small Aramaic corpus never develops: the sun coming in for sunset, and going to one's fathers as a gentle way of speaking of death.Gen 15:12Gen 15:17Gen 15:15
What scholars say about atah
A common Biblical Aramaic verb (אתה/אתא) meaning "to come" in the peal, with a well-attested causative (haphel/aphel, with a hophal passive "to be brought") meaning "to bring, cause to be brought." It is cognate with Hebrew בוא and is widely paralleled across the Aramaic dialects. The lexicons treat the come/bring pairing as the ordinary intransitive-versus-causative alternation of a single root, not as separate homonyms.