StrongerBible

shallit

שַׁלִּיט

AramaicH7990“ruler, lawful, ...”

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 4:20Ezr 7:24Dan 2:10Dan 2:15Dan 4:17(14)Dan 4:25(22)Dan 4:26(23)Dan 4:32(29)Dan 5:21Dan 5:29
Word studyshah-LEETadjective

What shallit means

in authority: holding the power to decide, whether over a kingdom, in an office, or in a single action that is allowed.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This Aramaic word answers one question: who has the say. It can be said of a person, so that the man himself is named as the one with power, and it can be turned into a flat statement about who is in charge, which is what the book of Daniel does with it again and again.

Its widest stretch is the legal one. When the Persian king writes that no one may tax the temple staff, this is the word he uses, and it means that nobody has the standing to do it. Being allowed and being in charge are a single idea here, because permission comes down from whoever holds the power.

The word describes a state rather than reporting an action. The matching Aramaic verb (שְׁלֵט) says that someone ruled or gained power; the matching noun (שָׁלְטָן) names the ruling power itself as a thing that can be handed over, taken away, or made to last forever. This word sits between them and says of a person that the power is his.

In Daniel it carries the book's central claim. Four times the same sentence lands on a proud king: the Most High is the one in charge of human kingdoms, and he gives them to whomever he wants. A fifth line says it in three words, that heaven rules, and it is the sentence Nebuchadnezzar has to learn before he gets his throne back.

Nuances

1ain charge of a realm: holding the power to rule over a named sphere.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Ezr 4:20Dan 4:17(14)Dan 4:25(22)Dan 4:26(23)Dan 4:32(29)Dan 5:21
1bpowerful: describing a king who wields real power.
TranslatabilityDirect
Dan 2:10
1ca ruler or ranking official: a person who holds power, whether at the top or delegated from the king.
Dan 2:15Dan 5:29
1dallowed: having the standing to do something, so that the action is permitted.
Ezr 7:24

What scholars say about shallit

The Aramaic lexica agree on the core and differ only in how finely they subdivide it. BDB's Aramaic section glosses the adjective "having mastery" and arranges the material in three groups: predicative use with בְּ of the sphere ruled (Dan 4:14, 22, 29 [English 4:17, 25, 32]; 5:21; and, absolutely, שַׁלִּטִן שְׁמַיָּא at 4:23 [English 4:26]), substantival use for a person of power (Dan 2:10, 15; 5:29), and the impersonal לָא שַׁלִּיט of Ezra 7:24. HALOT's Aramaic volume and Vogt's Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic list the same range, Vogt separating "potestatem habens" from the concrete "praefectus" of Dan 2:15. Rosenthal's Grammar classes the form with the qattil adjectives built on שלט, alongside the verb שְׁלֵט and the abstract noun שָׁלְטָן, and the same formation is well attested for officials in the Achaemenid Aramaic documents (Cowley; Driver), which supports the concrete "official" reading at Dan 2:15. On Dan 2:10 the syntax is the one open question: Montgomery (ICC) and Collins (Hermeneia) take רַב וְשַׁלִּיט attributively of מֶלֶךְ, while the older versional tradition behind KJV construed the terms as a series of persons. Williamson (WBC) treats the Ezra 7:24 formula as standard chancellery language for what an authority is competent to impose, which is the idiom that later Aramaic and Hebrew develop into the ordinary expression for permissibility.

Sources

  • BDB, Aramaic section, s.v. שַׁלִּיטlexicon
  • HALOT, Aramaic volume, s.v. שַׁלִּיטlexicon
  • E. Vogt, A Lexicon of Biblical Aramaic, trans. J. A. Fitzmyer (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2011), s.v. שליטlexicon
  • F. Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz)grammar
  • J. A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel (ICC; Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1927)commentary
  • J. J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (Word Biblical Commentary 16; Waco: Word, 1985)commentary
  • G. R. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1957)monograph

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

All attested forms of שַׁלִּיט

c s absolute

שַׁלִּיט

Ezr 7:24, Dan 2:10, Dan 4:17, Dan 4:25, Dan 4:32, Dan 5:21, Dan 5:29

m p absolute

שַׁלִּטִן, שַׁלִּיטִין

Dan 4:26, Ezr 4:20

c s determined

שַׁלִּיטָא

Dan 2:15