StrongerBible

qal

קָל

AramaicH7032voice: sound

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Dan 3:5Dan 3:7Dan 3:10Dan 3:15Dan 4:31(28)Dan 6:20(21)Dan 7:11
Word studyKAHLnoun

What qal means

a sound that reaches the ear: the noise a thing makes, or the voice of someone speaking.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Aramaic gets by with one word where English needs two. It names the noise a thing makes and it names the sound of a living voice, and the setting decides which English word a translator reaches for. All seven of its appearances sit in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel, so the whole life of this word plays out inside one book.

Five of those uses are about noise. Four of them belong to a single repeated scene, the royal band in Daniel 3, where the blast of horn, pipe, and harp is the signal to fall down and worship the golden statue. The wording is repeated almost identically each time, which turns the sound itself into the pressure point of the story: hear it, and you have to choose. The fifth, in Daniel 7:11, names the racket of the boastful words a small horn keeps speaking, and it is that noise that pulls the prophet's attention toward the beast's destruction.

The other two point at a speaker rather than a thing. In Daniel 4:31 a voice falls out of heaven while the king is still congratulating himself, and in Daniel 6:20 the king calls down into the lion pit in a voice thick with grief. Both do exactly what the Hebrew word for voice and sound (קוֹל) does across the rest of the Old Testament. The two are the same ancient word in two closely related languages, and the Aramaic one simply has far fewer verses to work with.

Nuances

1athe sound something makes: the blast of a musical instrument, or the noise of words spoken out loud.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 3:5Dan 3:7Dan 3:10Dan 3:15Dan 7:11
1bthe voice of a speaker: the sound a person, or a speaker from heaven, makes when calling out.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 4:31(28)Dan 6:20(21)

What scholars say about qal

The standard lexica treat קָל as a single Biblical Aramaic lexeme with two contextual values rather than as homonyms: "sound", chiefly of musical instruments in the Daniel 3 refrain (3:5, 7, 10, 15) and of speech in 7:11, and "voice" in 4:31 (Aramaic 4:28) and 6:20 (Aramaic 6:21). HALOT and BDB's Biblical Aramaic section agree on this division and neither posits a second root, so the two sub-entries carried in STEPBible's lexicon are contextual glosses, not distinct words. The noun is the direct cognate of Hebrew קוֹל, the same base attested in Ugaritic ql and Syriac qālā, and TDOT handles the Aramaic material under its Hebrew article. The Daniel 3 refrain is the focus of a long-running discussion about the Greek loanwords in the instrument list and what they imply for the date of the book (Collins), but that argument concerns the instrument names standing beside קָל, not the noun itself.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. קָל (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
  • BDB, Biblical Aramaic lexicon, s.v. קָלlexicon
  • TDOT, s.v. קוֹל (qôl)theological-dictionary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1993)commentary

All attested forms of קָל

c s construct

קָל

Dan 3:5, Dan 3:7, Dan 3:10, Dan 3:15, Dan 7:11

c s absolute

קָל

Dan 4:31, Dan 6:20