Aramaic word · H3551
כַּוָּה
vekhavin
window
Kawwâ means a window or opening in a wall, often latticed. Pətîḥān is a passive participle, 'opened' or 'standing open', and describes a state rather than an action.
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
window
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
Kawwâ means a window or opening in a wall, often latticed. Pətîḥān is a passive participle, 'opened' or 'standing open', and describes a state rather than an action.
- Against the English
KJV 'his windows being open' and NASB's parenthesis keep it as background description. Popular retellings often say 'Daniel opened his windows', which turns a state into a deliberate act.
- How it drifted
Retellings make it a dramatic gesture. One ancient Greek version (the Old Greek) also has Daniel open the windows himself.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Hebrew equivalent is ḥallôn. Tobit 3:11 has Sarah praying with outstretched hands 'toward the window.' The Babylonian Talmud (b. Berakhot 34b) cites this verse for the rule that one should pray only in a room with windows.
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
-
Daniel 6:10 וְכַוִּ֨ין and windows
Now when Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house, where the windows of his upper room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Here: Window openings, probably with lattices. The clause is background description: it sets the scene rather than reporting something Daniel did.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.