Hebrew word · H2165

זְמָ֑ן

zeman

time

A fixed or appointed time: a date agreed on, a set term, a designated occasion. It stresses that the time is set, not how long it lasts.

Appears 4 times in 4 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

a set time, appointed time, time

Aramaic equivalent: ze.man (זְמַן "time" H2166)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Ecclesiastes 3:1

Range of meaning

A fixed or appointed time: a date agreed on, a set term, a designated occasion. It stresses that the time is set, not how long it lasts.

Against the English

KJV/BSB/WEB/ESV/NLT "season"; NASB "appointed time"; NIV puts "time" first and "season" second. "Season" was a good choice in 1611, when it meant "the proper or fitting time" (as in "a word in season"). Modern readers hear spring and summer, or a "season of life" lasting months or years.

How it drifted

English "season" has narrowed in everyday use to the climatic seasons and, in church speech, to phases of a person's life. The older sense of "the due or appointed moment" has faded.

Used elsewhere in the period

Found only in late books of the Hebrew Bible: Nehemiah 2:6 ("I set him a time"), Esther 9:27, 31 (the appointed days of Purim), and here. It is common in Biblical Aramaic: Daniel 2:16; 3:7–8; 7:12, 25; and Daniel 2:21, where God "changes times and seasons". It is generally taken as a loanword from Aramaic and is usually compared with Akkadian simanu, "appointed time, proper season". It became the ordinary word for "time" in later (Mishnaic) Hebrew and Jewish liturgy. The Greek Septuagint renders it chronos.

Where it appears

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 2:6 זְמָֽן׃ a time

    Then the king, with the queen seated beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I set a time.

Esther · 2

  1. Esther 9:27 וְכִזְמַנָּ֑ם and according to appointed time their

    the Jews bound themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should not fail to celebrate these two days at the appointed time each and every year, according to their regulation.

  2. Esther 9:31 בִּזְמַנֵּיהֶ֗ם at appointed times their

    in order to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed time, just as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had established them and had committed themselves and their descendants to the times of fasting and lamentation.

Ecclesiastes · 1

  1. Ecclesiastes 3:1 זְמָ֑ן an appointed time

    To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:

    Here: A fixed, appointed time: a set date or moment, not a season of the year. It is a late word, borrowed from Aramaic, and the sentence has no verb: "for everything, a set time."

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.