hand: the physical hand, and by extension the power, control, or safekeeping that a hand stands for
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the Aramaic word for the hand, and it does the same wide work its Hebrew twin (יָד) does across the Old Testament. A hand is the natural picture of power: to be "in someone's hand" is to be under their control, and to be rescued "out of" a hand is to be pulled free of it.
The books of Ezra and Daniel lean hard on this. Kingdoms and peoples are handed over "into the hand" of a conquering ruler, and the great question of the fiery furnace and the lions' den is whether any god can deliver "out of the hand" of the king or the beasts. The same image lifts to God himself: a person's very breath is "in his hand," and no one can stay his hand or call him to account.
A gentler branch of the idea is trust and charge. When Ezra carries "the law of your God that is in your hand," the hand stands for what has been entrusted to his keeping, not something he is merely gripping. To "stretch out the hand against" the temple, by contrast, is to lift a hand to harm it. Only in Daniel's night vision does the word stay strictly physical, in the fingers of a human hand that write on the palace wall. Its Greek counterpart (χείρ) carries the same range.
Nuances
1aa literal, physical hand
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 2:34*Dan 2:45*Dan 5:5 (2×)Dan 5:24
1bpower, control, or dominion: what someone holds sway over, or is handed over to
regularly stands for power, control, or safekeeping rather than the body partEzr 5:12Dan 5:23
Both
both name the physical hand, and both naturally say something is "in" or "out of" a person's hand to mean under their controlDan 5:5Dan 3:17
Only hand
English "hand" first calls to mind the physical body part, which can flatten the idea of mastery or care the original often intends
“power”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
yad in the other biblical languages
יָדHebrew“hand”the Hebrew word for hand, of which this Aramaic word is the direct twin, sharing the same reach from a literal hand to power and safekeeping
The Aramaic word keeps to the two plainest uses only, the literal hand and the grip of power, and never branched into the memorial, portion, or side meanings its Hebrew twin grew; it appears solely in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel and Ezra.Dan 2:34Ezr 5:12
Both
Both name the literal hand, the part of the body that takes hold of a thing or does the writing.Gen 22:6Dan 5:5
Both carry the idiom of power and control, where to be given "into the hand of" someone is to fall under their mastery, and to be delivered "out of the hand" is to be rescued from it.Jdg 2:14Dan 2:38Dan 7:25
appears in the one dramatic vision of a disembodied hand: the fingers of a hand come out and write judgment on the palace wall.Dan 5:5Dan 5:24
marks the opposite of human agency in the phrase cut out without hands: the stone that shatters the empires is quarried by no human hand at all.Dan 2:34Dan 2:45
holds the delegated authority of an imperial commission: the law and wisdom of God are said to be in the hand of the one the king sends.Ezr 7:14Ezr 7:25
Both
both make the hand stand for the power over life itself, the place where a person's breath or spirit rests and is held.Dan 5:23Luk 23:46Jhn 10:29
both saturate the idiom of being delivered out of the hand of enemies or given into the hand of a ruler, so that the hand names the power to rescue or to dominate.Dan 3:17Dan 6:27Luk 1:74Mat 26:45
is the living human hand in physical action: Jesus reaches out, takes a person by the hand, or lays his hand on the sick to heal and to raise.Mat 8:3Mrk 1:41Luk 4:40
names the ritual gesture of the laying on of hands, by which a blessing, the Spirit, or an office is passed to another person.Act 8:17Act 13:31Ti 4:14
is the hand that seizes and arrests: men lay hands on someone to take him by force.Mat 26:50Luk 20:19Act 4:3
What scholars say about yad
The Biblical Aramaic יַד is the exact cognate of Hebrew יָד and shares its full semantic range, from the literal hand to a well-developed metaphor of power, agency, and possession. The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB) treat the Aramaic entry as parallel to the Hebrew, noting the same idiomatic constructions with the preposition b- ("in/into the hand of" for control, "out of the hand of" for deliverance) that dominate the Hebrew corpus. In Daniel and Ezra the metaphorical uses far outnumber the literal, reflecting the court-tale and apocalyptic settings in which sovereignty, whether human or divine, is repeatedly figured as a hand into which nations and persons are delivered.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. יַד (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
BDB, s.v. יַד (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
P. R. Ackroyd, "יָד yād," in TDOT vol. 5theological-dictionary