avad

This word never stands on its own. In all seven of its appearances it is attached to a name or a pronoun, so it always says whose servant the person is:

• "your servants, the men of the region beyond the River", in a letter to the Persian emperor (Ezra 4:11)
• "your servants" and "his servants", spoken by the wise men standing in Nebuchadnezzar's throne room (Daniel 2:4, Daniel 2:7)
• "the servants of the God of heaven and earth", said by the men rebuilding the temple (Ezra 5:11)
• "servants of the Most High God", said by Nebuchadnezzar at the mouth of the furnace (Daniel 3:26)
• "servant of the living God", said by Darius at the lions' pit (Daniel 6:20)

The two shades of the word belong together because they describe the same kind of bond, just with different masters. In the Persian and Babylonian world this was ordinary court language: the officers and advisers of a king called themselves his servants, and imperial letters used the word for the ranking men of a province, not for household help. So the wise men who ask the king to tell "his servants" the dream are naming their place in his administration.

That makes the second use of the word pointed rather than merely pious. The men who will not bow to Nebuchadnezzar's statue are called "servants of the Most High God", and it is the king himself who says it. Daniel, thrown to the lions for praying, is "servant of the living God" on the lips of Darius. When the Persian governor asks who authorized the rebuilding in Jerusalem, the builders answer with an owner rather than a permit: "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth." One word runs through both settings, and the story keeps asking whose servant a person really is.