Aramaic word · H3679

כַּשְׂדָּ֑י

kasdaya'

Chaldean

(1) The Chaldeans (Akkadian Kaldu), tribes of southern Babylonia. Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar's father, founded the Neo-Babylonian ruling family from them in 626 BC. (2) In Daniel, a later specialised sense: a class of Babylonian scholar-diviners (Dan 2:2, 4, 10).

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

Aramaic of kas.di (כַּשְׂדִּים "Chaldea" H3778)

§ Chaldean, of Chaldea "clod-breakers"

1) a group of people usually associated with the area around Babylonia

2) the learned class of priests, magicians, or astronomers

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 Ezra 5:12

Range of meaning

(1) The Chaldeans (Akkadian Kaldu), tribes of southern Babylonia. Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar's father, founded the Neo-Babylonian ruling family from them in 626 BC. (2) In Daniel, a later specialised sense: a class of Babylonian scholar-diviners (Dan 2:2, 4, 10).

Against the English

All the major versions say 'Chaldean'. Some (e.g., NIV) put it before 'king of Babylon'. Readers who know Daniel may hear 'astrologer', but that sense does not fit here.

How it drifted

The sense 'astrologer/magus' came from the Babylonian scholar class and is common in Greek and Roman writers. For many modern readers it is the only meaning they know.

Used elsewhere in the period

2 Kgs 24:2; 25:4–26 and Jeremiah throughout ('the Chaldeans' as Nebuchadnezzar's army). Assyrian royal inscriptions use 'Kaldu' for the southern tribes. Daniel 5:30 has the same Aramaic form for Belshazzar.

Where it appears

Ezra · 1

  1. Ezra 5:12 כַּסְדָּאָ֑ה Chaldean the

    But since our fathers angered the God of heaven, He delivered them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean who destroyed this temple and carried away the people to Babylon.

    Here: 'The Chaldean' is an ethnic and family label. Nebuchadnezzar's ruling family came from the Chaldean tribes of southern Mesopotamia. Here it does not mean 'astrologer', as it sometimes does in Daniel.

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