Aramaic word · H2234

זְרַע

bizra'

seed

Zera': seed, sown grain; by extension offspring, descendants, lineage, family line. 'Enash / 'anasha: human being(s), humankind. Together: "human offspring" or "human descent".

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears once in the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

seed, offspring

Aramaic of ze.ra (זֶ֫רַע ": seed" H2233)

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 Daniel 2:43

Range of meaning

Zera': seed, sown grain; by extension offspring, descendants, lineage, family line. 'Enash / 'anasha: human being(s), humankind. Together: "human offspring" or "human descent". The Hebrew equivalent zera' 'adam appears in Jeremiah 31:27 ("the seed of man and the seed of beast"), meaning human population and offspring.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and YLT keep "seed of men", which is literal but opaque to modern readers. ESV and NRSV interpret it as "in marriage" and NLT as "through intermarriage". BSB and NIV drop it and speak of "peoples" or "the people" being mixed.

How it drifted

Modern English "seed" suggests biology or genetics, and some popular prophecy writing has taken "seed of men" to mean non-human beings mixing with human DNA. In Aramaic and Hebrew, "seed" was the everyday word for descendants and family lines.

Used elsewhere in the period

Daniel 11:6 describes the same kind of event in Hebrew: the king of the south's daughter is given to the king of the north to make an agreement, and "she will not retain her strength". Daniel 11:17 says "he will give him a daughter of women" to destroy the kingdom, and "it will not stand". Ezra 9:2 links "seed" with mixing through marriage. Jerome's Vulgate has humano semine ("with human seed").

Where it appears

Daniel · 1

  1. Daniel 2:43 בִּזְרַ֣ע with [the] offspring of

    As you saw the iron mixed with clay, so the peoples will mix with one another but will not hold together any more than iron mixes with clay.

    Here: "By (or with) the seed of". "Seed" is the normal Semitic word for offspring and family line. Mixing "by seed" points to joining families through marriage and children.

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