StrongerBible

zeman

זְמַן

AramaicH2166“time, season, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 5:3Dan 2:16Dan 2:21Dan 3:7Dan 3:8Dan 4:36(33)Dan 6:10(11)Dan 6:13(14)Dan 7:12Dan 7:22Dan 7:25
Word studyzeh-MAHNnoun

What zeman means

a set time: the point or stretch of time marked out for something to happen

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This Aramaic word names a time that has been pinned down. Someone has fixed it, or the story has arrived at it: a deadline a king grants, the moment a decree takes effect, the season that comes around on schedule. It is not time in the abstract, and it is not simply how long something lasts.

The same word does four everyday jobs across Daniel and Ezra:

  • a time fixed for something to happen, such as the deadline Daniel asks the king to set in Daniel 2:16
  • the moment at which something took place, in the recurring phrase usually rendered "at that time"
  • the recurring seasons that give shape to a year or an age, as when God is said to change the times and the seasons
  • one occasion counted among others, as in praying three times a day

Daniel keeps circling back to who controls those times. God changes them (Daniel 2:21), an arrogant king sets out to change them and fails (Daniel 7:25), and when the set time arrives the kingdom passes to God's people (Daniel 7:22). For readers living under someone else's calendar, that claim was not abstract: the schedule of history was not the empire's to set.

Aramaic has a second word for time, עִדָּן, and the two stand side by side in Daniel 7:12, where English has to reach for something like "a season and a time." The partner word leans toward a stretch that runs its course; this one leans toward a time that has been set.

Nuances

1aa time fixed for something: a deadline granted, or a term allotted
Dan 2:16Dan 7:12Dan 7:22
1bthe moment at which something happened, in the phrase "at that time"
TranslatabilityDirect
Ezr 5:3Dan 3:7Dan 3:8Dan 4:36(33)
1cthe appointed seasons that order a year or an age
Dan 2:21Dan 7:25
1done occasion among a counted number of them
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 6:10(11)Dan 6:13(14)

What scholars say about zeman

Biblical Aramaic זְמָן is a noun of the semantic field of fixed or determined time, attested eleven times (Daniel and Ezra 5:3) alongside the more frequent עִדָּן. The standard lexica converge on a fourfold usage: a determined time or term (Dan 2:16; 7:12, 22); the adverbial formula בֵּהּ־זִמְנָא, "at that time" (Dan 3:7, 8; 4:33 [English 4:36]; Ezra 5:3); the plural for recurring appointed seasons (Dan 2:21; 7:25); and the plural in an enumerative sense, "occasions" (Dan 6:11, 14 [English 6:10, 13]). The word is well attested in Imperial Aramaic and later in Syriac and Jewish Aramaic, and is widely regarded as ultimately a loanword of Old Persian origin (zrvan), which suits its distribution in the exilic and post-exilic material; the Hebrew cognate H2165 occurs only in Late Biblical Hebrew (Esther, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes) and is generally treated as an Aramaism. In Dan 7:25 the pairing זִמְנִין וְדָת is commonly read by commentators as the cultic calendar together with the Torah, with the Antiochene measures of 1 Maccabees 1:41-50 as the historical analogue, though a broader reading of the ordering of time as such is also represented. Note the deliberate juxtaposition of the two time words in Dan 7:12 (עַד־זְמַן וְעִדָּן), often taken as a hendiadys for an indefinite reprieve.

Sources

  • HALOT, Aramaic section, s.v. זְמָןlexicon
  • BDB, Aramaic section, s.v. זְמָןlexicon
  • TWOT, s.v. זמןreference
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • John E. Goldingay, Daniel (Word Biblical Commentary 30; Word, 1989)commentary
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16; Word, 1985)commentary
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (7th ed.; Harrassowitz, 2006)reference

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

All attested forms of זְמַן

c s determined

זִמְנָא

Ezr 5:3, Dan 3:7, Dan 3:8, Dan 4:36, Dan 7:22

m p absolute

זִמְנִין

Dan 6:10, Dan 6:13, Dan 7:25

c s absolute

זְמַן, זְמָן

Dan 7:12, Dan 2:16

m p determined

זִמְנַיָּא

Dan 2:21