StrongerBible

ravrav

רַבְרַב

AramaicH7260great, boastful, ...

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Dan 2:48Dan 4:3(3:33)Dan 7:3Dan 7:7Dan 7:8Dan 7:11Dan 7:17Dan 7:20
Root family
Word studyrahv-RAHVadjective

What ravrav means

great: outsized in bulk, in worth, or in the swagger of what is said

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This word belongs to the book of Daniel alone, and it never describes just one thing. It comes out whenever several things at once are bigger than they ought to be: four beasts heaving up out of the sea, the iron teeth in the jaws of the fourth one, the heap of presents a king pushes on the man who has just read his dream, the signs God works where the whole world can see them.

From bulk to boasting is a short step. When the little horn opens a mouth speaking "great things", nothing is actually large. The words are simply outsized, swollen past the speaker who says them, and Daniel keeps returning to the phrase in Daniel 7:8, 7:11 and 7:20 until it is clear that the mouth is the real charge against the last king. Aramaic needed no separate word for arrogance here. It just called the words big.

Two neighbors stay clear of it. The singular (רַב) describes one thing at a time and can also work as a job title, the "chief" set over some body of royal servants, which this word never does. The word for quantity (שַׂגִּיא) counts instead of sizing up, and Daniel 2:48 lines the two up in a single breath: gifts that were both big and many.

Nuances

1agreat in bulk: huge, said of the beasts in the vision and of the iron teeth in their jaws
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 7:3Dan 7:7Dan 7:17
1bgreat in worth: lavish, said of the gifts a king hands out
Dan 2:48
1cgreat in wonder: awe-inspiring, said of the signs God works in front of the world
Dan 4:3(3:33)
1dgreat in swagger: boastful, said of the words that come out of a proud mouth
TranslatabilityPartial
Dan 7:8Dan 7:11Dan 7:20

What scholars say about ravrav

BDB and HALOT enter רַבְרַב as a Biblical Aramaic adjective attested only in the plural, glossed simply "great", and the reference grammars describe it as standing in complementary distribution with the singular רַב, which never appears in the plural in Daniel or Ezra (Rosenthal). BDB itemizes the eight occurrences by what is qualified: beasts (Dan 7:3, 17), teeth (7:7), gifts (2:48), signs (Aramaic 3:33 = English 4:3), and words, where the gloss shifts to "boastful" (7:8, 11, 20). The reduplicated formation is the same one behind the noun רַבְרְבָנִין "nobles" (H7261) and is well attested in Imperial Aramaic and in the later dialects. Commentators on Daniel 7 treat מְמַלִּל רַבְרְבָן as a set idiom for arrogant speech directed against God, comparing the mouth of Revelation 13:5, which echoes the Danielic phrase with μεγάλα (Collins; Goldingay). No lexical dispute attaches to the adjective itself: the debated questions in these verses concern the identity of the fourth beast and its horn, not what the word means.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. רַבְרַב (Biblical Aramaic section)lexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. רַבְרַב (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 7th ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006)grammar
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • John E. Goldingay, Daniel, Word Biblical Commentary 30 (Dallas: Word, 1989)commentary

All attested forms of רַבְרַב

f p absolute

רַבְרְבָן

Dan 2:48, Dan 7:3, Dan 7:7, Dan 7:8, Dan 7:20

f p determined

רַבְרְבָתָא

Dan 7:11, Dan 7:17

m p absolute

רַבְרְבִין

Dan 4:3