a beast: any wild, non-human living creature; an animal.
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This is the ordinary Aramaic word for an animal, a wild living creature. It is the close relative of the common Hebrew word for a wild animal (חַיָּה), and like it, the noun is plain and neutral: it names a creature without saying anything about whether the creature is gentle or fierce. Every one of its appearances is in the book of Daniel.
The word does two kinds of work there, and they are worth keeping apart even though the underlying idea is the same:
In most places it means real animals, the beasts of the open field. It is the word for the creatures that shelter under the great tree of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and, poignantly, the word for the company the king himself keeps when he loses his mind and lives outdoors like an animal.
In the vision of chapter 7 the same word names the four huge creatures that rise out of the sea, one like a lion, one like a bear, one like a leopard, and a fourth too dreadful to compare to anything. The vision itself then explains that these beasts stand for four kingdoms.
So the menace people feel in the beasts of Daniel 7 does not come from this word. The noun only ever means "animal." What makes those creatures terrifying is how they are described, not the plain word used to name them.
Nuances
1aa wild animal, a beast of the open field; also the animals a person lives among when reduced to living outdoors.
The broad word for any animal that is not human, used for whatever lives out in open country: the animals of the field that shelter under the great tree, feed on the grass, or are handed over to the king's rule.Dan 2:38Dan 4:12Dan 4:15Dan 4:21
Stands for animal nature as a whole set against human nature: Nebuchadnezzar is given "a beast's heart" in place of a man's and lives among the animals until he learns who really rules.Dan 4:16Dan 4:25Dan 4:32Dan 5:21
Serves as the label for each figure in the vision whatever its shape, from the one like a bear to the one like a leopard to the fourth that resembles nothing else, and it is the word the interpretation keeps: "these great beasts are four kings".Dan 7:3Dan 7:5Dan 7:6Dan 7:17Dan 7:23
Both
Both name living creatures that are a real physical danger and are not under human control: the lions crush the bones of the men thrown to them, and the second figure of the vision is told to get up and eat much flesh.Dan 6:24Dan 7:5
Both belong to the same picture of empires as animals in Daniel 7, one word calling the four figures beasts that stand for four kings, the other naming the lion the first of them looks like.Dan 7:17Dan 7:4
Names one particular kind of animal, the lion, so the text can point at specific creatures in a specific place: the pit Daniel is thrown into is "the den of lions", and it is those same lions whose mouths are shut so that they do him no harm.Dan 6:7Dan 6:16Dan 6:22Dan 6:27
In the vision of Daniel 7 it supplies the shape a creature is likened to rather than the kind of thing it is: the first of the four is "like a lion" with wings of an eagle.Dan 7:4
This is the word for actual animals, the wild creatures of the open country. They are handed over to a king's rule along with the birds, they take shelter under the great tree of the dream, and they graze the grass where a man driven out from people has to live.Dan 2:38Dan 4:12Dan 4:21Dan 4:25Dan 5:21
It marks the boundary between living as a human being and living as an animal. Nebuchadnezzar's human mind is taken away and an animal's mind put in its place, and for seven appointed times his home and his food are those of the herd.Dan 4:16Dan 4:23Dan 4:32
In the night vision it becomes the word for the four huge creatures that come up out of the sea, each one a picture of a kingdom that rises and then answers for itself. The fourth is the most frightening, with iron teeth, and the one that speaks proudly is killed and its body burned.Dan 7:3Dan 7:7Dan 7:11Dan 7:17Dan 7:23
Both
Both belong to the world of what is alive, and Daniel 7:12 puts them in the same sentence: the remaining creatures lose their rule, yet they are still given more time to go on living. One word names the creature itself, the other names the living that the creature is granted.Dan 7:12
This is the word Daniel uses for God's own aliveness. Darius calls him "the living God" whose kingdom never breaks, and Nebuchadnezzar blesses the one who lives forever. The word for "beast" is never stretched to God in this way.Dan 4:34Dan 6:20Dan 6:26
It can gather every person who is alive into one company, "all the living", the whole population that has to learn who really rules the kingdoms of people.Dan 2:30Dan 4:17
It also names a lifetime as a stretch of time someone holds, the sort of thing you can ask God to protect on another person's behalf. The Persian decree orders sacrifices offered and prayers made for the life of the king and his sons.Ezr 6:10
It is the wide word for a living creature of any kind, the whole animal world rather than one species: birds and animals handed over to a king's rule, or every animal of the open country sheltering under a great tree.Dan 2:38Dan 4:12Dan 4:21
It names what a person becomes when human reason is taken away, so it works as the opposite of being human, not simply as the name of an animal.Dan 4:16Dan 4:23
It carries the weight of vision language: the four huge creatures rising from the sea are read as four kings and their kingdoms, so the word can stand for an empire and not a real animal at all.Dan 7:3Dan 7:17Dan 7:23
Both
Both name creatures a person can be lumped in with once he is driven out of human society: the king's home is with the one and his food is that of the other, in a single sentence.Dan 4:25
Both belong to the open country rather than to settled human life, so each pictures a creature out under the sky living off what grows in the field.Dan 5:21
It names one particular domestic animal, the ox or bull, an animal that is bought, counted and kept, never a creature of the wild.Ezr 7:17Ezr 6:9
It belongs to worship vocabulary: these are the animals supplied for offerings at the temple and slaughtered by the hundred at its dedication.Ezr 6:9Ezr 6:17
It is the animal chosen to picture feeding on grass, which is why the humbled king's diet is described by this word and never by the general word for beast.Dan 4:33
ḥeva in the other biblical languages
חַיHebrew“alive”the everyday Hebrew word this Aramaic one matches almost exactly: a wild living creature, the beast of the field.
Used distinctively for the four symbolic beasts of Daniel's vision, each a world empire rising from the sea, a visionary sense the plain Hebrew word never carries.Dan 7:3Dan 7:7Dan 7:17Dan 7:23
Names the literal wild animals among which the humbled king lives, sharing their grass and the dew of heaven.Dan 4:15Dan 4:25Dan 5:21
Both
Both are the everyday word for an animal or beast, and both appear in the fixed phrase "beast of the field," the wild creatures of the open country.Gen 2:19Gen 3:1Dan 2:38Dan 4:12
Carries the whole idea of life and being alive, not just animals: it is the ordinary Hebrew word for a lifetime and for being alive rather than dead, a range the Aramaic word never has.Gen 23:1Gen 43:7Gen 43:27
Works as an adjective meaning "living" applied to a being, the breath-bearing life shared by animals and humankind in the creation account.Gen 1:20Gen 1:21Gen 2:7
θηρίονGreek“wild animal”the Greek word for a wild beast; Revelation borrows its terrifying beast imagery straight from the creatures of Daniel 7.
Names the animal condition a proud human is reduced to: the king is driven from people to live with the beasts and eat grass like an ox.Dan 4:25Dan 5:21
Keeps the symbolic beasts as four separate creatures, each a distinct successive kingdom, rather than merging them into one.Dan 7:3Dan 7:17
Both
Both name a wild, non-human living creature, the animals set over against people.Mrk 1:13Dan 2:38
Both grow the animal picture into an apocalyptic symbol: a beast seen rising in a vision that stands for a ruling kingdom or power, and Daniel's vision of beasts as kingdoms is the direct source John draws on.Rev 13:1Dan 7:17
Fuses the several beasts of Daniel's vision into one composite Beast that is worshipped and wages war on God's people before its final judgment.Rev 13:2Rev 19:20
Reaches past the apocalyptic symbol to ordinary and dangerous animals, and even to people spoken of as brutes.Act 28:4Tit 1:12
What scholars say about ḥeva
חֵיוָא is the Biblical Aramaic noun for "animal, beast," cognate with Hebrew חַיָּה and derived from the root meaning "to live." All 20 occurrences fall within the Aramaic portion of Daniel. Its default reference is to wild animals, especially in the recurring construct phrase חֵיוַת בָּרָא, "the beast(s) of the field" (Dan 2:38; 4:12, 21, 23, 25, 32). The same noun designates the four composite beasts of the chapter 7 night vision, which the chapter's own interpretation identifies as four successive kingdoms (7:17, 23). The lexical meaning of the noun is transparent and undisputed in the standard lexica; the substantial scholarly discussion attached to Daniel 7 concerns the identity of the four kingdoms and the background of the vision's imagery, not the semantics of the word itself.