StrongerBible

shum

שֻׁם

AramaicH8036name, named

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 5:1Ezr 5:4Ezr 5:10 (2×)Ezr 5:14Ezr 6:12Dan 2:20Dan 2:26Dan 4:8(5) (2×)Dan 4:19(16)Dan 5:12
Word studyshoomnoun

What shum means

a name: what a person or a god is called, which in these Aramaic chapters regularly stands in for the one who bears it rather than working as a bare label.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Biblical Aramaic uses this word almost exactly the way English uses "name": it is what you are called, and it is how officials and storytellers pick one person out from everyone else. The settings here are formal ones. Persian investigators in Ezra demand the names of the men rebuilding the temple so those names can be written into a report going up to the king, and the Aramaic chapters of Daniel keep reminding the reader that the man called Daniel is the same man the Babylonian court renamed Belteshazzar.

Naming is never idle in these books. Nebuchadnezzar gives Daniel a name drawn from the name of his own god, and in that world the king who assigns a name is claiming the person he names. The double name keeps returning at the tense moments of the story, and each time it quietly raises the question of whom Daniel finally belongs to.

The other group of verses puts the word on God, where it does far more than label. Daniel blesses God's name forever; the prophets speak in the name of the God of Israel; Darius warns anyone who would damage the house of the God who made his name live in Jerusalem. In each of these the name stands in for God himself: his authority behind the prophets' words, his own presence bound to the rebuilt temple. Nothing rests on the sound of the name. Everything rests on whose name it is.

This is the same idea the Hebrew books carry with their own word for name (שֵׁם) and the New Testament with its word for name (ὄνομα), which is what a reader should expect, since the Aramaic sections of Daniel and Ezra sit inside Hebrew books and share their way of thinking about names.

Nuances

1athe name a person is called by: the word that identifies who is meant, including a new name a ruler assigns to someone.
TranslatabilityDirect
Ezr 5:4Ezr 5:10 (2×)Ezr 5:14Dan 2:26Dan 4:8(5) (2×)Dan 4:19(16)Dan 5:12
1bthe name of a god: most often the name of Israel's God, which stands in for God himself, for his authority, and for his presence.
Ezr 5:1Ezr 6:12Dan 2:20Dan 4:8(5) (2×)

What scholars say about shum

The lexicons agree on this word without qualification. BDB's Aramaic section and HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner and Stamm, Aramaic material) both gloss it "name", subdividing only between names of persons and the name of God, and both note the distinctive Aramaic plural attested at Ezra 5:4 and 5:10. Franz Rosenthal's A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic documents that plural pattern among the regular noun formations of the dialect, so the Ezra forms need no special explanation. On the divine-name material, the theological dictionaries treating the Hebrew cognate (TDOT vol. XV, F. V. Reiterer; TLOT, A. S. van der Woude) describe the name of God as a way of speaking of God's revealed self, character and presence rather than as a designation, and Ezra 6:12 states the Aramaic counterpart of the Deuteronomic formula about God causing his name to dwell at the chosen sanctuary. H. G. M. Williamson (Ezra, Nehemiah, Word Biblical Commentary 16) reads the Aramaic documents of Ezra 5 and 6 against Achaemenid chancellery practice, in which recording the names of responsible parties is standard investigative procedure, which accounts for the clustering of the plural there. John J. Collins (Daniel, Hermeneia) and Louis F. Hartman with Alexander A. Di Lella (The Book of Daniel, Anchor Bible 23) treat the renaming of Daniel as Belteshazzar, a name formed on the name of a Babylonian deity, as the court asserting its claim over him, and note that the narrator's repeated double naming keeps that claim visible.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. שֻׁם (Aramaic)lexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Aramaic section, s.v. שֻׁםlexicon
  • Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Harrassowitz)grammar
  • TDOT vol. XV, s.v. שֵׁם (F. V. Reiterer)theological-dictionary
  • TLOT, s.v. שֵׁם (A. S. van der Woude)theological-dictionary
  • H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, Word Biblical Commentary 16 (Word, 1985)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Fortress, 1993)commentary
  • Louis F. Hartman and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel, Anchor Bible 23 (Doubleday, 1978)commentary

All attested forms of שֻׁם

c s construct

שְׁמֵהּ

Dan 2:20, Dan 2:26, Dan 4:8, Dan 4:19, Dan 5:12

c s construct

שֻׁם

Ezr 5:1, Ezr 5:10, Dan 4:8

c s construct

שְׁמֵהּ

Ezr 5:14, Ezr 6:12

f p construct

שְׁמָהָת

Ezr 5:4

f p construct

שְׁמָהָתְהֹם

Ezr 5:10