Aramaic word · H2562
חֲמַר
chamar
wine
ḥămar: 'wine' (the same word as the poetic Hebrew ḥemer, Deut 32:14). šĕtâ: 'to drink.' Here it is a participle, a verb form showing ongoing action.
A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?
Appears 6 times in 6 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·
What it means
wine
Aramaic of che.mer (חֶ֫מֶר "wine" H2561)
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
- Range of meaning
ḥămar: 'wine' (the same word as the poetic Hebrew ḥemer, Deut 32:14). šĕtâ: 'to drink.' Here it is a participle, a verb form showing ongoing action.
- Against the English
BSB/KJV 'drank wine' turns it into a single past event. YLT 'he is drinking' and NASB 'was drinking' keep the ongoing action. None of them can show the Aramaic emphasis from putting 'the wine' before the verb.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The pair comes back in 5:2 (biṭʿēm ḥamrāʾ, 'under the taste/influence of the wine') and in 5:4 and 5:23, where the drinking is linked with praising gods of gold and silver and with dishonoring the vessels from the Jerusalem temple.
- Range of meaning
Wine. This is the ordinary fermented grape drink; Aramaic ḥamrāʾ is related to Hebrew ḥemer. It appears in Daniel 5:1, 2, 4, 23 and Ezra 6:9; 7:22, where wine is a temple supply.
- Against the English
No real drift. 'Wine' means wine. The definite form ('the wine') points back to the banquet wine of 5:1–2.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Royal banquets with huge numbers of guests are well attested for Mesopotamian kings. Ashurnasirpal II's banquet stela claims 69,574 guests. Greek writers say Babylon fell during a festival with feasting: Herodotus 1.191 and Xenophon, Cyropaedia 7.5.15. In 5:2 Belshazzar gives his order 'under the taste of the wine', meaning when the wine had taken hold.
Where it appears
Ezra · 2
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Ezra 6:9 חֲמַ֣ר wine
Whatever is needed—young bulls, rams, and lambs for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, as well as wheat, salt, wine, and oil, as requested by the priests in Jerusalem—must be given to them daily without fail.
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Ezra 7:22 חֲמַר֙ wine
up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of olive oil, and salt without limit.
Daniel · 4
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Daniel 5:1 חַמְרָ֥א <the> wine
Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.
Here: 'The wine.' In the Aramaic it comes before the verb, which gives it emphasis: wine is the focus. The same word comes back in 5:2, where Belshazzar gives his orders 'under the taste of the wine.'
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Daniel 5:2 חַמְרָ֗א wine the
Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.
Here: "The wine": the wine of the feast already described in v.1, where the king drank it "in front of the thousand" in a public show.
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Daniel 5:4 חַמְרָ֑א wine the
As they drank the wine, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.
Here: 'The wine.' The ending -āʾ works like English 'the'. This is the wine of the banquet already named in 5:1–2, where Belshazzar gave his order 'under the taste of the wine', meaning while it was taking effect.
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Daniel 5:23 חַמְרָא֮ <the> wine
Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.
Here: 'The wine.' This is the wine of the feast. Its effects are already hinted at in 5:2 ('under the taste of the wine').
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.