Aramaic word · H2868

טְאֵב

te'ev

be good

ṭə'ēḇ means "to be good, pleasing." It is the Aramaic relative of Hebrew ṭôḇ. With 'al + person ("it was good upon him") it is an idiom for "he was pleased, glad." It appears only here in Biblical Aramaic but is common in later Aramaic, such as the Targums.

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. · Updated October 25, 2026

What it means

(P'al) to be glad, be good

Aramaic of ya.tav (יָטַב "be good" H3190)

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 6:23

Range of meaning: ṭə'ēḇ means "to be good, pleasing." It is the Aramaic relative of Hebrew ṭôḇ. With 'al + person ("it was good upon him") it is an idiom for "he was pleased, glad." It appears only here in Biblical Aramaic but is common in later Aramaic, such as the Targums.
Against the English: BSB has "overjoyed," WEB "exceedingly glad," and KJV and YLT "glad for him." The "for him" of KJV and YLT reads the pronoun as Daniel (glad on Daniel's behalf). The idiom actually describes the king's own feeling: "he was glad."
Used elsewhere in the period: The exact mirror phrase is in Dan 6:14 (6:15 in Aramaic numbering): saggî' bə'ēš 'ălôhî, "it was very bad upon him," when Darius realized he had trapped Daniel. Daniel 2:12 and 3:13 use similar emotion idioms for kings. Hebrew has the same pattern with ṭôḇ 'al (e.g., Esth 3:9, "if it is good upon the king").

Where it appears

Daniel · 1

Daniel 6:23 טְאֵ֣ב it was good

The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den, and when Daniel was lifted out of the den, no wounds whatsoever were found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

Here: Literally "it was good." Together with the next word it is an idiom for being glad. This is the only time the verb appears in Biblical Aramaic, and it is the exact opposite of 6:14, "it was very bad upon him."

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