Aramaic word · H4070

מְדוֹר

medoreh

dwelling

A noun meaning dwelling, home, place of residence, from the Aramaic verb dur, "to live, reside." It is an everyday word about where someone lives, without any special religious charge.

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

Appears 4 times in 4 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

dwelling place

Aramaic of ma.gur (מָגוֹר "sojourning" H4033)

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 2:11

Range of meaning

A noun meaning dwelling, home, place of residence, from the Aramaic verb dur, "to live, reside." It is an everyday word about where someone lives, without any special religious charge.

Against the English

"Dwelling" (KJV, WEB, BSB, ESV) keeps the noun. NASB's "dwelling place" is similar. NIV and NLT turn it into a verb, "do not live," which reads naturally and keeps the sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

Daniel uses the same noun and the same "with" pattern when Nebuchadnezzar is told his dwelling will be with the wild animals (4:25 and 4:32 in English numbering, and 5:21 with the wild donkeys). The verb from the same root appears in 2:38: the king rules wherever human beings dwell. Compare 1 Enoch 15, a Jewish text probably from the third century BC, which says the home of the spirits of heaven is in heaven, in contrast to flesh on earth. The idea is shared, though no direct link can be shown.

Where it appears

Daniel · 4

  1. Daniel 2:11 מְדָ֣רְה֔וֹן dwelling place their

    What the king requests is so difficult that no one can tell it to him except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.”

    Here: "Their dwelling": where someone lives. It is an ordinary word for a place of residence, so the picture is that the gods simply do not live in this neighborhood.

  2. Daniel 4:25 מְדֹרָ֜ךְ dwelling place your

    You will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling will be with the beasts of the field. You will feed on grass like an ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass you by, until you acknowledge that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes.

    Here: "Your dwelling". The place where he lives. It recalls the tree in his dream, where the birds made their homes (4:12, 21). Now he is the one without a proper home.

  3. Daniel 4:32 מְדֹרָ֗ךְ dwelling place your

    You will be driven away from mankind to live with the beasts of the field, and you will feed on grass like an ox. And seven times will pass you by, until you acknowledge that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes.”

    Here: 'Your dwelling.' The man who boasted of building Babylon as his royal house (4:30) now lives where animals live.

  4. Daniel 5:21 מְדוֹרֵ֔הּ dwelling place his

    He was driven away from mankind, and his mind was like that of a beast. He lived with the wild donkeys and ate grass like an ox, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until he acknowledged that the Most High God rules over the kingdom of mankind, setting over it whom He wishes.

    Here: Where he lodged and lived. The builder of 'great Babylon' (4:30) now has his home among herd animals in the wild.

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