the rest: whatever is left of a group or a supply once part of it has been named or taken
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary Aramaic word for "the rest." It looks back at something the text has just named and points to whatever lies beyond it. The word itself says nothing about how much is left or whether the leftover matters. It only marks the remainder.
That remainder is always counted off from something already given:
the other officials, once a letter has named its senders by rank
the money and equipment still on hand after the named purchases
the crushed remains the fourth beast of Daniel's vision did not swallow
Most of its uses belong to the language of Persian government. Official letters open by listing the important names and then gather up everyone else in a single phrase, and this is that phrase. The same habit carries into the accounting instructions the king gives Ezra, where the word covers the funds and supplies left over after the purchases he has specified. Only in Daniel's vision does it stand on its own, without naming what it is left of, for the wreckage the beast trampled underfoot.
Nuances
1athe others in a group already named: the remaining members alongside the ones singled out
makes no judgment about worth: what is left can be silver and gold set aside for the templeEzr 7:18
Both
both can name what survives after part of something has been consumed or destroyedDan 7:7
Only residue
English "residue" suggests dregs, waste, or a stain left behind, a verdict on the leftover that this word does not deliver
she'ar in the other biblical languages
שְׁאָרHebrew“remnant”the Hebrew word written with the same letters; it can mean a plain remainder too, but in the prophets it becomes the loaded term for the surviving remnant of Israel
Only the Aramaic word belongs to the vocabulary of Persian imperial paperwork, where it sweeps up whole peoples an emperor had deported and resettled, and names the remainder of an entire province as a single party to a royal letter.Ezr 4:10Ezr 4:17
Only the Aramaic word works inside Daniel's night visions, pointing at the wreckage a destroyer leaves: the prey the fourth beast does not swallow but grinds underfoot, and the other beasts, who lose their rule yet are left alive for a while.Dan 7:7Dan 7:12Dan 7:19
Both
Both are the plain way to say "and the rest of" a group of people once part of it has been named, and Ezra 4 catches them doing the identical job on either side of the switch from Hebrew to Aramaic: the Hebrew narrative says "the rest of his companions", and the Aramaic letter it introduces opens with "the rest of their companions".Ezr 4:7Ezr 3:8Ezr 4:9Ezr 6:16
Both name what is left of a store of valuables after the first call on it has been met, with the balance passed on for another use: the leftover temple money turned into vessels, the leftover silver and gold spent as the givers see fit.2Ch 24:14Ezr 7:18
Both reach past countable piles to whatever else of a record or a task is still outstanding: the untold rest of Solomon's story, and whatever else the house of God turns out to need.2Ch 9:29Ezr 7:20
Only the Hebrew word becomes the prophets' word for the remnant of Israel: the survivors God deliberately keeps back through judgment, the small group the future hangs on. Isaiah even builds a slogan and a child's name out of it, "a remnant shall return".Isa 10:20Isa 10:21Isa 11:11Isa 28:5
Only the Hebrew word is used to measure how little a catastrophe leaves standing, and the measure is always meant to sound painfully small: trees a boy could count, the survivors of Moab and of Syria, even the last traces of a cult God intends to erase.Isa 10:19Isa 16:14Isa 17:3Zep 1:4
Only the Hebrew word marks the still unrepaired portion of a physical place, the part of Jerusalem left over for Joab to bring back to life after David took the stronghold.1Ch 11:8
יֶתֶרHebrew“remainder”the common Hebrew word for what is left over of a quantity or a record, without any remnant theology attached
Its usual home is the language of Persian government. Official letters name the important senders or addressees by rank and then gather up everyone else with this one word, "and the rest of their colleagues." That bureaucratic sweep is where most of its occurrences sit.Ezr 4:9Ezr 4:17
It can also stand on its own, without saying what it is left of, for sheer wreckage. In Daniel's vision it names the crushed remains the fourth beast did not swallow but trampled underfoot, which is debris rather than a portion counted off a named whole.Dan 7:7Dan 7:19
Both
Both name whatever is left of a group once part of it has been singled out. David hands the rest of the troops to his brother; the other beasts of the vision keep their lives for a season.2Sa 10:10Dan 7:12
Both do plain accounting work, covering the goods, money, and supplies still on hand after the named portions have been dealt with. One counts the plunder left after the offering is set aside; the other covers the silver and gold and further needs of the temple after the specified purchases.Num 31:32Ezr 7:18Ezr 7:20
Neither word carries the loaded prophetic idea of a surviving remnant on its own. Each simply marks the part not yet accounted for, and the weight a passage may add comes from its setting, not from the word.Exo 10:5Ezr 6:16
The Hebrew word can tilt toward plenty rather than shortage. The same word names the surplus a family holds in reserve, the wealth left over for the children, and the harvest the poor and the wild animals eat in the seventh year. The Aramaic word never moves in that direction; it stays a plain leftover.Exo 23:11Psa 17:14
It stretches further still, to an extra measure that raises someone above the ordinary. Jacob calls his firstborn the extra portion of dignity and strength, and Proverbs speaks of speech that is more than a fool deserves. Nothing in the Aramaic word reaches beyond quantity to worth or rank.Gen 49:3Pro 17:7
It carries the fixed record-keeping refrain that closes a king's reign in Kings and Chronicles, where the rest of a king's deeds are said to be written in another book. That formula sends the reader to a source outside the page, and it has no counterpart in the Aramaic material.1Ki 11:412Ki 20:20
A second, unrelated Hebrew word is written with the same letters and names a physical cord, most often the taut string of a bow. Samson is bound with fresh cords, and the wicked lay their arrow on the string. Readers who know only the leftover sense are caught out here, and the Aramaic word has no such look-alike.Jdg 16:7Psa 11:2
λοιπόςGreek“remaining”the everyday Greek word for the others or the remaining ones, doing the same partitive work in New Testament lists
Names the physical remains of something that has been eaten or wrecked: what is still left of the prey after the beast has chewed it, which it then tramples underfoot.Dan 7:7Dan 7:19
Is the wording of official correspondence, chaining out a roster of named officials or peoples with "and the rest of their colleagues", "and the rest of the nations", "and the rest of the province across the river".Ezr 4:9Ezr 4:10Ezr 4:17
Both
Both point to the remaining members of a group already in view, so that "the rest of" a named set of people takes in everyone the list has not singled out.Dan 2:18Ezr 6:16Act 2:37
Both reach past people to leftover things and unfinished business, covering money still in hand or matters still to be settled.Ezr 7:18Ezr 7:201Co 11:341Co 15:37
Both can name who is left once part of a group has been struck down, and both then report what happens to those survivors.Dan 7:12Rev 19:21Rev 11:13
Stands on its own as "the others", with no group named after it. The story simply divides the people present into the ones it has been following and everybody else, and lets that second party act.Mat 22:6Mat 27:49Act 5:13Luk 24:9
Names a spiritual class rather than a leftover count: everyone outside the believing community, gathered up as "the rest of mankind", the people the readers once were or must not copy.Eph 2:31Th 4:131Th 5:6Luk 18:11Rev 9:20
Works as a yardstick inside an argument, "like the others do", holding up the conduct of a wider group as something to claim as a right or to refuse to imitate.1Co 9:5Gal 2:13Eph 4:17
What scholars say about she'ar
The lexicons treat שְׁאָר as a single Aramaic noun from the root שאר "to remain," glossed uniformly as "rest, remainder" (HALOT, Aramaic section; BDB, Aramaic appendix; Vogt, s.v.). No lexicon posits homonymy. Ten of the twelve occurrences are the bound partitive phrase "the rest of X"; the two determined absolute forms are Daniel 7:7 and 7:19. Williamson and other commentators on Ezra note that וּשְׁאָר כְּנָוָתְהוֹן belongs to the standard formulary of Achaemenid chancery correspondence, in which named senders or addressees are followed by a collective sweep of their associates, an idiom also attested in the Elephantine documents; the same formulary shapes Ezra 4:9, 4:10 and 4:17, while Ezra 7:18 and 7:20 apply the noun to residual temple funds and requisitions. In Daniel 7:7 and 7:19 the absolute שְׁאָרָא is rendered by Collins and Goldingay as "what was left," the residue of the fourth beast's prey rather than the other beasts of the vision, which Daniel 7:12 designates with the bound phrase. The theologically weighted remnant sense that Hebrew שְׁאָר and שְׁאֵרִית acquire in the prophetic literature is absent from the Aramaic material, a point the standard treatments of the remnant motif consistently make.