Aramaic word · H4223

מְחָא

mechat

to smite

məḥāʾ means to strike or hit (Daniel 2:34–35 for the stone smiting the statue). In the Pael form (a stronger form of the verb) with bəyad, 'strike on/against the hand', it is an idiom: to restrain, block or protest someone's action.

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

1) to strike, smite, kill

1a) (P'al) to strike

1b) (Pael) to hinder

1c) (Ithp'al) to allow to be stricken

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 4:35

Range of meaning

məḥāʾ means to strike or hit (Daniel 2:34–35 for the stone smiting the statue). In the Pael form (a stronger form of the verb) with bəyad, 'strike on/against the hand', it is an idiom: to restrain, block or protest someone's action.

Against the English

KJV 'stay his hand', ESV 'stay his hand', NIV 'hold back his hand', NASB 'ward off his hand', BSB 'restrain his hand', WEB 'stop his hand'. YLT 'clap with his hand' is wooden and misleading: it is not applause but a hand-check.

How it drifted

'Stay' in the sense 'stop, hold back' is archaic. Modern readers may not grasp KJV/ESV 'stay his hand' at all, and YLT's literalism invents a wrong picture.

Used elsewhere in the period

Later Jewish Aramaic and rabbinic Hebrew use mîḥāh bəyad in the sense 'to protest against, to restrain', e.g., a duty to protest wrongdoing. That supports the idiom, though the exact picture behind it (slapping away a hand, gripping the arm) is uncertain.

Where it appears

Ezra · 1

  1. Ezra 6:11 יִתְמְחֵ֣א let him be impaled

    I also decree that if any man interferes with this directive, a beam is to be torn from his house and raised up, and he is to be impaled on it. And his own house shall be made a pile of rubble for this offense.

Daniel · 3

  1. Daniel 2:34 וּמְחָ֤ת and it struck

    As you watched, a stone was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.

    Here: "And it struck." The stone is the subject. It is a single violent blow.

  2. Daniel 2:35 מְחָ֣ת it struck

    Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

    Here: 'Struck': a violent, deliberate blow, the same verb as in v.34.

  3. Daniel 4:35 יְמַחֵ֣א he will strike

    All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

    Here: 'Will strike', from a verb meaning to hit. Daniel 2:34–35 uses it for the stone that struck the statue. With 'on his hand' it forms an idiom for checking, blocking or protesting someone's action.

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