StrongerBible

seliq

סְלֵק

AramaicH5559come up, take up, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 4:12Dan 2:29Dan 6:23(24) (2×)Dan 7:3Dan 7:8Dan 7:20
Word studyseh-LEKverb

What seliq means

to go up or come up, and in its lifting forms to bring someone up out of a place

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the everyday Aramaic word for going up, and in the Aramaic parts of Ezra and Daniel it does the work that the common Hebrew verb for going up (עָלָה) does elsewhere in the Old Testament. In Ezra 4:12 it describes people who "came up" from Babylon to Jerusalem, the ordinary way of speaking about that journey, since the city sits high in the hills. The letter that reports it pairs this verb with the plain word for arriving (אֲתָה) in a single sentence: they went up, and they got there.

In Daniel's visions the word is how a new power arrives. Four great beasts come up out of the sea, and a small horn comes up among ten others and shoulders three of them aside. The verb is not only reporting movement; it marks the moment something appears on the scene that was not there before. Revelation later reaches for the matching Greek verb (ἀναβαίνω) to show a beast rising out of the sea in just this way.

The same word turns inward and outward. Inward: on his bed Nebuchadnezzar's thoughts "came up," the way a worry surfaces in a sleepless night. Outward: its lifting forms put the movement in someone else's hands, whether that is the guards who carried Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego up to the mouth of the furnace, or the king's order that Daniel be brought up out of the lions' den, where the plain verb quietly carries the rescue.

Nuances

1ato travel up to a place, especially to go up to Jerusalem
Ezr 4:12
1bto come up out of something and rise into view, as a new power appearing on the scene
Dan 7:3Dan 7:8Dan 7:20
1cof a thought: to come up into the mind
Dan 2:29
1dto bring or carry someone up, and to be lifted up out of a place
Dan 3:22Dan 6:23(24) (2×)

What scholars say about seliq

The standard Aramaic lexica treat סלק as the regular Biblical Aramaic verb of upward motion, functionally equivalent to Hebrew עלה: peal "come up, go up" (Ezra 4:12; Daniel 2:29; 7:3, 8, 20), haphel "bring up, take up" (Daniel 3:22; 6:23), hophal "be brought up" (Daniel 6:23). STEPBible's lexicon files both Aramaic headwords under the same Hebrew source entry, סלק (H5266), which is itself attested once, at Psalm 139:8. The causative surfaces in two shapes, one preserving the nun (הַנְסָקָה, Daniel 6:23) and one with the nun assimilated (הַסִּקוּ, Daniel 3:22; הֻסַּק, Daniel 6:23); on the strength of the nun forms Strong's assigns a second number to נְסַק (H5267), but grammars of Biblical Aramaic describe these as causative forms of one and the same verb, which is why the family is treated here as a single word. Commentaries on Daniel 7 note that the vision presents the four beasts as coming up one after another out of the sea, so the verb carries the sequence of successive kingdoms.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), Aramaic section, s.v. סלקlexicon
  • BDB, Biblical Aramaic lexicon, s.v. סְלִק and נְסַקlexicon
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, on the causative stems of the Aramaic verbgrammar
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia), on the four beasts of Daniel 7commentary

All attested forms of סְלֵק

peal perfect 3fs

סִלְקַת, סִלְקָת

Dan 7:20, Dan 7:8

peal perfect 3mp

סְלִקוּ

Ezr 4:12, Dan 2:29

haphel infinitive-construct construct

הַנְסָקָה

Dan 6:23

hophal perfect 3ms

הֻסַּק

Dan 6:23

peal participle f p absolute

סָלְקָן

Dan 7:3