Aramaic word · H3330

יַצִּיב

yatziv

certain

Firm, fixed, reliable, certain. As an adverb it means "certainly, for sure." With the article, as here, it means "the certain thing," "the exact facts."

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

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

n

1) the truth

adv

2) surely, reliably, truly

adj

3) reliable, true, certain, sure

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 7:16

Range of meaning

Firm, fixed, reliable, certain. As an adverb it means "certainly, for sure." With the article, as here, it means "the certain thing," "the exact facts."

Against the English

KJV and ESV "the truth"; BSB "the true meaning"; YLT "the certainty"; NASB has "exact meaning." "Truth" is not wrong, but the Aramaic is about reliability and precision, getting it exactly right, rather than truth as an abstract idea.

How it drifted

The Latin Vulgate's veritatem ("truth") passed into the KJV's "the truth of all this." A modern reader may hear a philosophical or doctrinal "Truth."

Used elsewhere in the period

In Daniel: 2:8 ("I know for certain"), 2:45 ("the dream is certain and its interpretation trustworthy"), 3:24 ("Certainly, O king"), 6:12 ("the thing is certain"), 7:19 ("I wanted to know for certain about the fourth beast"). The related Hebrew root yṣb means "to take one's stand, be firm." The Greek versions of Daniel translate the sense as akribeia, "precise account."

Where it appears

Daniel · 5

  1. Daniel 2:8 יַצִּיב֙ certain

    The king replied, “I know for sure that you are stalling for time because you see that my word is final.

  2. Daniel 2:45 וְיַצִּ֥יב and [is] certain

    And just as you saw a stone being cut out of the mountain without human hands, and it shattered the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, so the great God has told the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

    Here: "And firm / certain." It answers the king's own word: in 2:8 he said he knew "for certain" (min-yaṣṣîv) that his experts were stalling.

  3. Daniel 3:24 יַצִּיבָ֖א certain

    Suddenly King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in amazement and asked his advisers, “Did we not throw three men, firmly bound, into the fire?” “Certainly, O king,” they replied.

  4. Daniel 6:12 יַצִּיבָ֧א [is] certain

    So they approached the king and asked about his royal decree: “Did you not sign a decree that for thirty days any man who petitions any god or man except you, O king, will be thrown into the den of lions?” The king replied, “According to the law of the Medes and Persians the order stands, and it cannot be repealed.”

  5. Daniel 7:16 וְיַצִּיבָ֥א and truth the

    I approached one of those who were standing there, and I asked him the true meaning of all this. So he told me the interpretation of these things:

    Here: "And the certain thing." It is placed first in its clause for emphasis: what Daniel wants is the sure, dependable account of what he has seen, not a guess. Elsewhere in Daniel the same word means "certain" or "for sure" (2:8, 2:45, 3:24, 6:12).

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