StrongerBible

shelaḥ

שְׁלַח

AramaicH7972send, put out

Appears 14 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 4:11Ezr 4:14Ezr 4:17Ezr 4:18Ezr 5:6Ezr 5:7Ezr 5:17Ezr 6:12Ezr 6:13Ezr 7:14Dan 3:2Dan 3:28Dan 5:24Dan 6:22(23)
Word studysheh-LAKHverb

What shelaḥ means

to send: to make a person, a message, or a written order go out from you to someone else

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary verb for sending in the Aramaic sections of Ezra and Daniel, and nearly every use of it sits inside an imperial chain of command. Letters and reports travel up to the king, replies and decrees travel back down, and officials go out with royal authority behind them. The word itself says only that something left the sender and headed toward someone else; the setting supplies what left.

Because the sending is so often official, what was sent frequently goes unnamed. A governor "sends" to the king and the reader supplies the letter; a king "sends" and the reader supplies either the written order or the men carrying it. English almost always has to name the thing sent even where the Aramaic does not.

Two uses reach past ordinary correspondence. God is the sender in Daniel, dispatching his angel to rescue three men from a furnace and Daniel from a pit of lions. And twice what is sent is a hand: the hand that writes on the palace wall in Daniel 5, and, in Ezra 6:12, a hand reaching out to tamper with the rebuilt temple.

The Hebrew verb this one answers to (שָׁלַח) covers a much wider field, including letting a captive go, dismissing someone, and divorcing a wife. The Aramaic word stays close to dispatching.

Nuances

1ato send a letter, a report, or word about a matter
Ezr 4:11Ezr 4:14Ezr 4:17Ezr 4:18Ezr 5:6Ezr 5:7Ezr 5:17Ezr 6:13
1bto dispatch someone on an errand: a messenger, an official envoy, or God's own angel
TranslatabilityDirect
Ezr 7:14Dan 3:2Dan 3:28Dan 5:24Dan 6:22(23)
1cto send out a hand toward something: to reach for it, here in order to tamper with it or wreck it
TranslatabilityPartial
Ezr 6:12

What scholars say about shelaḥ

Biblical Aramaic שְׁלַח is the direct cognate of Hebrew שָׁלַח, and the standard lexica (HALOT's Aramaic volume, BDB's Aramaic section) treat it as a single verb of sending: transitive in the pe'al of letters, decrees, persons, and angels, and passive in the pe'il at Ezra 7:14 and Daniel 5:24. The Aramaic range is markedly narrower than the Hebrew one, since the release, dismissal, and divorce senses that occupy much of the Hebrew field are unattested here, and the phrase with יַד at Ezra 6:12 is the one figurative extension in the corpus. Critical commentaries on Ezra and Daniel place the verb within the formulaic vocabulary of Persian-period official correspondence, where the object of the sending is regularly left unexpressed and must be supplied from the epistolary frame. No dispute over the verb's sense is recorded in the lexica or the commentary literature.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. שְׁלַח (Aramaic)lexicon
  • BDB, s.v. שְׁלַח (Biblical Aramaic)lexicon
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia)commentary
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaicgrammar

All attested forms of שְׁלַח

peal perfect 3ms

שְׁלַח

Ezr 4:17, Ezr 5:6, Ezr 6:13, Dan 3:2, Dan 3:28, Dan 6:22

peal imperfect 3ms

יִשְׁלַח

Ezr 5:17, Ezr 6:12

peal perfect 3mp

שְׁלַחוּ

Ezr 4:11, Ezr 5:7

peil perfect 3ms

שְׁלִיחַ, שְׁלִיַחַ

Ezr 7:14, Dan 5:24

peal perfect 1cp

שְׁלַחְנָא

Ezr 4:14

peal perfect 2mp

שְׁלַחְתּוּן

Ezr 4:18