StrongerBible

ru'aḥ

רוּחַ

AramaicH7308“wind, spirit, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Dan 2:35Dan 4:8(5)Dan 4:9(6)Dan 4:18(15)Dan 5:11Dan 5:12Dan 5:14Dan 5:20Dan 6:3(4)Dan 7:2Dan 7:15
Word studyROO-akhnoun

What ru'aḥ means

the unseen power that moves: the wind outside a person, and inside a person the spirit that carries insight, ability, and temper.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Eleven times in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel this one word reaches across a span that English has to split. Outside a person it is the wind. Inside a person it is the spirit: the power that grants insight, the capacity that sets someone apart, the temper that can swell into arrogance. What holds those together is not a substance but a force known only by what it does, the wind by what it drives away, the spirit by the person it moves.

The wind uses are plain. A wind sweeps off the shattered pieces of the king's statue until no trace of them is left, and four winds from every quarter churn the great sea at the opening of Daniel's night vision.

The inner uses all belong to one royal court, where three different things are said with this single word:

  • a spirit of the holy gods is said to be in Daniel, which is how the Babylonian court accounts for his power to read dreams and hidden things
  • an extraordinary spirit is found in him, named alongside his knowledge and his insight
  • a king's spirit hardens into arrogance, and later Daniel's own spirit is shaken with distress inside him

The Aramaic word is spelled exactly like the Hebrew one (רוּחַ) and shares its core, but the Aramaic evidence is much smaller and much narrower. Nothing here means breath, or a direction of the compass, or a thing that is empty and fleeting, and nothing here carries the developed teaching about the Spirit of God that the Hebrew books build up. These eleven verses should be read for what they actually say.

Nuances

1awind: the moving air that sweeps things away, including the winds blowing in from all four quarters of the sky.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 2:35Dan 7:2
1ba divine spirit inside a person: a power from the gods living in someone, which is how the Babylonian court explains Daniel's ability to read dreams and uncover what is hidden.
Dan 4:8(5)Dan 4:9(6)Dan 4:18(15)Dan 5:11Dan 5:14
1can exceptional spirit in a person: outstanding capacity of mind and character that marks someone out from everyone around them.
Dan 5:12Dan 6:3(4)
1da person's own spirit: the inner self where mood and attitude sit, which can harden into pride or be shaken with distress.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Dan 5:20Dan 7:15

What scholars say about ru'aḥ

The Biblical Aramaic noun is attested eleven times, all in Daniel, and the standard reference works divide the material consistently. The Aramaic volume of HALOT and Vogt's lexicon (in Fitzmyer's revision) list the meteorological sense first (Daniel 2:35; the four winds of heaven in 7:2), then the anthropological and theological uses: the spirit of the (holy) gods resident in Daniel (4:8, 9, 18; 5:11, 14 in English numbering, where the Aramaic verse numbers of chapters 4 and 6 differ), the human spirit as disposition or temper (5:20; 7:15), and the "surpassing spirit" of 5:12 and 6:3. BDB's Aramaic section arranges the same evidence under wind and spirit. The one genuine question of sense concerns 5:12 and 6:3: whether the phrase designates Daniel's innate capacity, catalogued there with his knowledge and insight, or functions as shorthand for the divine endowment the court ascribes to him elsewhere; the lexica place it with the anthropological uses, and most commentators follow, while noting that the narrative deliberately keeps the two hearings in play. On the plural in chapters 4 and 5, Montgomery (ICC), Collins (Hermeneia), and Newsom (OTL) read "holy gods" as genuine polytheistic idiom appropriate to the Babylonian speakers rather than a plural of majesty for the God of Israel; Goldingay (WBC) likewise treats the court's confession as its own. TDOT's article on the Hebrew cognate observes that the Aramaic evidence is too slight to demonstrate independent semantic development: the Daniel usage sits within the Hebrew word's range, minus the breath, direction, and futility senses and minus the developed theology of the divine Spirit.

Sources

  • Koehler, Baumgartner, and Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, English ed. (Brill, 2000), s.v. רוּחַlexicon
  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, s.v. רוּחַlexicon
  • Ernst Vogt, A Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic, trans. and rev. J. A. Fitzmyer (Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2011), s.v. רוחlexicon
  • Tengstrom and Fabry, "רוּחַ," Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament XIII (Eerdmans, 2004), 365-402dictionary
  • James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel, ICC (T&T Clark, 1927)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • John E. Goldingay, Daniel, Word Biblical Commentary 30 (Word Books, 1989)commentary
  • Carol A. Newsom, Daniel: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (Westminster John Knox, 2014)commentary

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

All attested forms of רוּחַ

c s construct

רוּחַ

Dan 4:8, Dan 4:9, Dan 4:18, Dan 5:11, Dan 5:14

c s absolute

רוּחַ

Dan 5:12, Dan 6:3

c s construct

רוּחִי

Dan 7:15

c s construct

וְרוּחֵהּ

Dan 5:20

c s determined

רוּחָא

Dan 2:35

m p construct

רוּחֵי

Dan 7:2