StrongerBible

illay

עִלַּי

AramaicH5943“Most High”

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Dan 3:26Dan 4:2(3:32)Dan 4:17(14)Dan 4:24(21)Dan 4:25(22)Dan 4:32(29)Dan 4:34(31)Dan 5:18Dan 5:21Dan 7:25
Word studyil-LAIadjective

What illay means

the Most High: God named as the one who stands above every other power, throne, and kingdom

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In Aramaic this word simply means "high" or "upper," and in the Bible it does only one job: it names God. All ten of its appearances sit in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel, and not one of them describes a high wall or an upper floor. Every time, the one who is highest is God.

It turns up in two shapes. Four times it stands beside the ordinary Aramaic word for God (אֱלָה), giving "the Most High God": the God being spoken of is marked out as the one at the top. Six times it stands on its own and works like a name, so that "the Most High" is simply who God is, as in the refrain of Daniel 4 that the Most High rules over human kingdoms and hands them to whomever he wishes.

Part of what makes the word striking is who says it. The speakers are mostly outsiders: Nebuchadnezzar reporting what happened to him, the heavenly watchers issuing their decree, Daniel explaining to Belshazzar how his father learned the lesson. "The Most High" is the name for Israel's God that a Babylonian court can pronounce, a title about rank rather than about covenant, and Daniel uses it to press the point every empire needs to hear: the throne above all thrones is not in Babylon.

Daniel 7 carries the title into a courtroom of a different kind. There a beastly king "speaks words against the Most High," and a few words later the verse switches to a closely related Aramaic word (עֶלְיוֹן) for the holy ones who belong to him. The offense is not just political rebellion; it is talking back to the one who is over everything.

Nuances

1athe Most High God: the title set beside the word for God, marking the God being named as the highest of all
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 3:26Dan 4:2(3:32)Dan 5:18Dan 5:21
1bthe Most High: the word standing alone as a name for God, especially as the ruler who gives out and takes back human kingdoms
Dan 4:17(14)Dan 4:24(21)Dan 4:25(22)Dan 4:32(29)Dan 4:34(31)Dan 7:25

What scholars say about illay

עִלַּי (determined עִלָּאָה, once spelled עִלָּיָא at Daniel 4:32) is the Biblical Aramaic adjective from the root ʿly "be high," functionally equivalent to Hebrew עֶלְיוֹן, and the standard Aramaic lexica (HALOT's Aramaic section, BDB's Aramaic lexicon) list it in Biblical Aramaic only as an epithet of God. All ten occurrences are of God: four attributive, beside אֱלָהָא (Daniel 3:26; 4:2; 5:18, 21), and six substantival (Daniel 4:17, 24, 25, 32, 34; 7:25), the substantival uses carrying the refrain that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mortals (Daniel 4:17, 25, 32). Rosenthal treats the alternate spelling at Daniel 4:32 (Aramaic 4:29) as an orthographic variant of the determined form rather than a distinct lexeme. Commentators on Daniel, including Collins and Goldingay, note that the title suits the book's diaspora setting: it is intelligible to a foreign court and to readers outside Israel while asserting that Israel's God outranks every empire, which is why it is placed in the mouths of Nebuchadnezzar and of the heavenly watchers. A separate lexeme, עֶלְיוֹנִין at Daniel 7:18, 22, 25, 27 (H5946), has generated a long discussion over whether its plural is a plural of majesty for God or designates "the holy ones on high"; that debate concerns the plural form and does not bear on the sense of עִלַּי, which is uncontested.

Sources

  • HALOT, Aramaic section, s.v. עִלַּיlexicon
  • BDB, Aramaic lexicon, s.v. עִלַּיlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. עֶלְיוֹןtheological-dictionary
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz)grammar
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • John E. Goldingay, Daniel (Word Biblical Commentary 30; Dallas: Word, 1989)commentary

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

All attested forms of עִלַּי

c s determined

עִלָּאָה, עִלָּיָא

Dan 3:26, Dan 4:2, Dan 4:17, Dan 4:24, Dan 4:25, Dan 4:34, Dan 5:18, Dan 5:21