StrongerBible

qetal

קְטַל

AramaicH6992“to slay”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Dan 2:13 (2×)Dan 2:14Dan 3:22Dan 5:19Dan 5:30Dan 7:11
Word studykeh-TAHLverb

What qetal means

to kill a person, usually by the order of a king or the verdict of a court.

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary Aramaic verb for killing, and every one of its appearances falls in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel. It passes no judgment on whether the killing is right or wrong. It simply reports that a life was taken.

What stands out is the company it keeps. Five of its six verses sit in a setting where someone with power has decided who dies:

  • a royal decree goes out and the king's officer sets off to kill the wise men of Babylon (Daniel 2:13 and 2:14)
  • Nebuchadnezzar is remembered as a king who killed whomever he pleased and spared whomever he pleased (Daniel 5:19)
  • Belshazzar is killed the same night his kingdom is weighed and found wanting (Daniel 5:30)
  • the heavenly court hands down its verdict and the fourth beast is killed (Daniel 7:11)

The one exception shows that the legal weight belongs to the setting rather than to the word. In Daniel 3:22 the flame of the overheated furnace kills the soldiers who carry Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego up to it. Nobody sentenced them. The fire simply killed them, and the same verb reports it.

Daniel 7:11 sets the word beside a second one. The beast is killed, and then its body is destroyed (אֲבַד) and burned. The first word ends a life; the second gets rid of what is left.

Nuances

1ato put someone to death by order or verdict: to execute a sentence.
Dan 2:13 (2×)Dan 2:14Dan 5:19Dan 5:30Dan 7:11
1bto kill as the plain physical cause of death, with no sentence behind it.
Dan 3:22

What scholars say about qetal

The lexica are unanimous. HALOT's Aramaic volume, the Aramaic section of BDB, and Vogt's Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic all give קְטַל a single sense, "to kill, slay," with the various verbal stems distributing active and passive voice rather than marking off distinct meanings. The root is the standard verb of killing across the Aramaic dialects (Imperial Aramaic, Targumic, Syriac), whereas its Hebrew cognate קטל is marginal, occurring three times and only in poetry (Job 13:15; 24:14; Psalm 139:19). Commentators on Daniel observe that the verb clusters in scenes of royal and judicial power: Arioch, the chief of the executioners, in 2:14; Nebuchadnezzar's arbitrary power over life and death in 5:19; and the sentence of the heavenly court on the fourth beast in 7:11. No lexicon proposes a sense division for the word, so the grouping of the verses by setting given above is a reading aid rather than a lexical claim.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, s.v. קְטַלlexicon
  • BDB (Brown, Driver, Briggs), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, s.v. קְטַלlexicon
  • Ernst Vogt, A Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic, trans. and rev. J. A. Fitzmyer (2011), s.v. קטלlexicon
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 7th expanded ed. (2006)grammar
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (1993)commentary
  • Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period, 2nd ed. (2002), s.v. קטלlexicon

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

All attested forms of קְטַל

hitpaal participle m p absolute

מִתְקַטְּלִין

Dan 2:13

hitpael infinitive-construct construct

הִתְקְטָלָה

Dan 2:13

pael infinitive-construct construct

קַטָּלָה

Dan 2:14

pael perfect 3ms

קַטִּל

Dan 3:22

peal participle m s absolute

קָטֵל

Dan 5:19

peil perfect 3fs

קְטִילַת

Dan 7:11

peil perfect 3ms

קְטִיל

Dan 5:30