StrongerBible

qerev

קְרֵב

AramaicH7127came near, approached, ...

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 6:10Ezr 6:17Ezr 7:17Dan 3:8Dan 3:26Dan 6:12(13)Dan 6:20(21)Dan 7:13Dan 7:16
Word studykeh-REVverb

What qerev means

to come near, or to bring near: to close the distance to a person or a place, and to present someone, or a sacrifice, before a ruler or before God.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary Aramaic verb for closing a distance. Someone walks right up to whatever is in front of him: Nebuchadnezzar steps to the mouth of the blazing furnace to call the three men out, and Darius reaches the pit where the lions are. Nothing solemn attaches to the word itself. It reports only that the last stretch of ground was covered.

Most of its appearances sit in a royal court, where coming near means coming forward to speak. Officials step up to the throne to lodge an accusation against the Jews, and Daniel himself steps up to one of the figures standing by in his vision to ask what he has just seen. The formality belongs to the throne room, not to the word.

Reshaped slightly, the same verb stops saying that the subject comes near and starts saying that he brings someone or something near. In Daniel 7:13 that is how the one like a son of man arrives before the Ancient of Days: he is brought forward and presented. In Ezra it is the word for putting sacrifices on the altar. An offering, in this way of speaking, is simply a gift carried close to God and set down there. The Hebrew verb קָרַב works the same way and carries most of the sacrificial vocabulary of Leviticus, while Greek splits the job between ἐγγίζω for drawing near and προσφέρω for bringing an offering up.

Aramaic has other verbs for shrinking a distance, and they do not overlap with this one:

  • אֲתָה is arrival, getting to a place from somewhere else.
  • עֲלַל puts a person inside, past a door or in front of a throne.
  • This word is the last few steps, ending up beside whatever was ahead.

Nuances

1ato come up to a place or an object: to walk right up to the thing ahead.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 3:26Dan 6:20(21)
1bto come forward to speak: to close the last of the distance in order to say something.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 3:8Dan 6:12(13)Dan 7:16
1cto bring someone forward: to present a person before the one seated in authority.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 7:13
1dto present an offering: to bring a sacrifice up to the altar and set it before God.
Ezr 6:10Ezr 6:17Ezr 7:17

What scholars say about qerev

Biblical Aramaic קְרֵב occurs nine times. Five are peal and intransitive, "to approach, draw near" (Dan 3:8; 3:26; 6:12 [Aramaic 6:13]; 6:20 [Aramaic 6:21]; 7:16); four are causative, haphel at Dan 7:13 and Ezra 6:10, 6:17, and pael at Ezra 7:17. HALOT's Aramaic section, BDB's Aramaic lexicon, and Vogt treat the intransitive and causative uses as the ordinary voice alternation of a single root rather than as separate lexemes. The root is the standard Aramaic verb of approach across the dialects (Targumic and Syriac qreb), and its causative supplies the regular cultic term for presenting an offering, matching the role of Hebrew קרב in the hiphil throughout the priestly sacrificial legislation and its derived noun קָרְבָּן; Williamson notes that the Ezra passages use the vocabulary of the Aramaic administrative and cultic idiom of the Persian period rather than translating Hebrew formulae. Ezra 7:17 alone is pael; Rosenthal and Bauer-Leander observe that in Biblical Aramaic the pael and haphel are not consistently kept functionally distinct, and no difference in sense from the haphel of Ezra 6:10 and 6:17 is discernible. At Dan 7:13 הַקְרְבוּהִי is a plural form with no expressed subject: Montgomery and Collins read it as an indefinite plural functionally equivalent to a passive, most naturally with the attending host of vv. 10 and 16 in view, and קֳדָמוֹהִי הַקְרְבוּהִי is the same courtly presentation idiom the book uses elsewhere for being brought before a monarch. The heavily litigated questions at Dan 7:13 concern the identity of the one like a son of man and the Old Greek reading ὡς παλαιὸς ἡμερῶν against Theodotion's ἕως παλαιοῦ ἡμερῶν; neither turns on the sense of this verb.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), Aramaic section, s.v. קרבlexicon
  • BDB, Aramaic lexicon, s.v. קְרֵבlexicon
  • Ernst Vogt, A Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic: Clarified by Ancient Documents, trans. and rev. J. A. Fitzmyer (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2011), s.v. קרבlexicon
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 7th ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006)grammar
  • Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramaischen (Halle: Niemeyer, 1927)grammar
  • James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1927)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16; Waco: Word, 1985)commentary
  • TDOT (Botterweck, Ringgren, and Fabry, eds.), s.v. קרבdictionary

All attested forms of קְרֵב

haphel perfect 3mp

הַקְרְבוּ, הַקְרִבוּ

Dan 7:13, Ezr 6:17

peal perfect 3mp

קְרִבוּ, קְרִיבוּ

Dan 3:8, Dan 6:12

haphel participle m p absolute

מְהַקְרְבִין

Ezr 6:10

pael conjunctive-imperfect 2ms

וּתְקָרֵב

Ezr 7:17

peal infinitive-construct construct

מִקְרְבֵ

Dan 6:20

peal perfect 1cs

קִרְבֵת

Dan 7:16

peal perfect 3ms

קְרֵב

Dan 3:26