StrongerBible

zeman

זְמָן

HebrewH2165“time, season, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Neh 2:6Est 9:27Est 9:31Ecc 3:1
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradezeh-MAHNnoun

What zeman means

a fixed or appointed time: a set date or period decided in advance, rather than time in general

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word does not mean time in the open-ended sense. It means a time that has been set: a date pinned down, a period marked out, a moment fixed by someone or something. That is what separates it from the ordinary Hebrew word for time (עת), which simply names when something happens. Here the point is always that the time has been decided.

Who does the deciding gives the word its two shades. In Nehemiah and Esther a person or a law does the setting: the king grants a return date, and the Jewish community locks in the yearly days of Purim. In Ecclesiastes the frame is wider, and the set time belongs to the rhythm of life itself, the fixed span allotted to each thing that happens under heaven. The core is the same in both: a time that is not just happening but appointed.

The word is also a latecomer to Hebrew. It appears only four times, all in books from after the exile, and it carries the flavor of official, calendar-keeping language. That background is why it leans so naturally toward decrees, dates, and appointments.

Nuances

1aa date or day fixed by human decree or authority: a set appointment, a legislated day
Neh 2:6Est 9:27Est 9:31
1bthe set time allotted to a thing within the order of life
Ecc 3:1
Ecc 3:1

Whether, in the pairing at Ecclesiastes 3:1, this word carries a distinct nuance from the ordinary word for time or the two are a near-synonymous poetic doublet.

  • contestedThe two nouns are distinguishable: this word denotes a fixed or bounded allotted span, while its partner denotes the fitting occasion or moment.; C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes (Anchor Bible 18C, 1997); Stuart Weeks, Ecclesiastes 1-5 (ICC, 2020)
  • contestedThe two nouns form a near-synonymous poetic pair, used together for fullness, with no significant difference in sense.; Robert Gordis, Koheleth: The Man and His World, 3rd ed. (1968); Michael V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up (Eerdmans, 1999)

What scholars say about zeman

The standard critical lexicons agree closely on the sense. BDB ("appointed time, time," marked late), HALOT ("appointed time"), Gesenius 18th ed. ("festgesetzte Zeit, Termin"), and DCH ("appointed time, time, season") all define a fixed, set, or appointed time, and all flag the noun as characteristic of Late Biblical Hebrew. The word occurs only four times in Hebrew (Neh 2:6; Est 9:27, 9:31; Qoh 3:1), never in the Pentateuch or the classical prophets, and its wider spread (Biblical Aramaic, Qumran, Rabbinic Hebrew, Targumic and Syriac) places it firmly in the Second Temple period; Hurvitz treats it as a paradigm case of a post-exilic loanword (A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew, VTSup 160), while Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvaerd caution that four tokens mark possibility rather than necessity for dating. The etymology is genuinely open: an Iranian derivation (Noeldeke, Scheftelowitz, and now Panaino, Iran and the Caucasus 21 [2017]), an Akkadian derivation from simanu via Assyrian pronunciation (Zimmern, Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic [1974]; Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew [2000]), and a common-Semitic or Wanderwort view (Wilson-Wright, VT 65 [2015]) all have serious defenders. On Qoheleth 3:1 the semantic question is whether this word carries a distinct nuance (a bounded, allotted span) against its partner (a fitting occasion), argued by Delitzsch, Seow (Anchor Bible; JBL 115 [1996]), Murphy, and Weeks, or whether the two form a near-synonymous poetic pair, argued by Gordis, Crenshaw, and Fox. The commentators on Esther (Berlin, Levenson, Bush, Clines) stress that the author's choice of this administrative word over the sacred-calendar term marks Purim as fixed by human decree rather than by divine appointment.

Where scholars disagree about zeman

Where the word came from: whether it is a loan from Old Iranian, a loan from Akkadian by way of Aramaic, or an inherited common-Semitic word.

  • contestedIt derives from an Old Iranian word for time or age, borrowed into Aramaic and then Hebrew during the Persian empire.; Antonio Panaino, "The Origins of Middle Persian Zaman and Related Words," Iran and the Caucasus 21 (2017): 150-195; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. (Aramaic entry, p. 1091)
  • contestedIt derives from Akkadian simanu, taken into Aramaic through an Assyrian pronunciation, and the Iranian forms are themselves borrowings.; Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Assyriological Studies 19, Chicago 1974), pp. 91-92; Paul V. Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (HSS 47, Eisenbrauns 2000), pp. 54-55
  • minorityIt is an inherited common-Semitic word, present in Arabic and Ethiopic outside any Persian contact, and should not be counted a loanword at all.; Aren Wilson-Wright, "From Persepolis to Jerusalem," Vetus Testamentum 65 (2015): 152-167
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. זמן, p. 273lexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. זמןlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 3, s.v. זמןlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebraeisches und Aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch, 18th ed. (Meyer/Donner), s.v. זמןlexicon
  • Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Assyriological Studies 19, Chicago 1974), pp. 91-92monograph
  • Paul V. Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (HSS 47, Eisenbrauns 2000), pp. 54-55monograph
  • Antonio Panaino, "The Origins of Middle Persian Zaman and Related Words," Iran and the Caucasus 21 (2017): 150-195article
  • Aren Wilson-Wright, "From Persepolis to Jerusalem," Vetus Testamentum 65 (2015): 152-167article
  • C. L. Seow, "Linguistic Evidence and the Dating of Qohelet," Journal of Biblical Literature 115 (1996): 643-666article
  • C. L. Seow, Ecclesiastes (Anchor Bible 18C, 1997)commentary
  • Avi Hurvitz, A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew (VTSup 160, Brill 2014)monograph
  • Ian Young, Robert Rezetko, and Martin Ehrensvaerd, Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts (2 vols., Equinox 2008)monograph
  • Adele Berlin, Esther (JPS Bible Commentary, 2001)commentary
  • Max Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebraeisch (BZAW 96, 1966), p. 152monograph

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of זְמָן

m s absolute

זְמָן

Neh 2:6, Ecc 3:1

m p construct

זְמַנֵּיהֶם

Est 9:31

m s construct

זְמַנָּם

Est 9:27