Aramaic word · H5202
נְטַר
nitret
to keep
To guard, watch over, keep, retain. Hebrew nāṭar means 'keep (a vineyard)' (Song 1:6; 8:11–12) and, figuratively, 'hold on to' anger or a grudge (Lev 19:18; Jer 3:5; Ps 103:9). The core idea is holding something under guard and not letting it go.
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
(P'al) to keep
Aramaic of na.tar (נָטַר "to keep" H5201)
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
To guard, watch over, keep, retain. Hebrew nāṭar means 'keep (a vineyard)' (Song 1:6; 8:11–12) and, figuratively, 'hold on to' anger or a grudge (Lev 19:18; Jer 3:5; Ps 103:9). The core idea is holding something under guard and not letting it go.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB/ESV 'kept the matter in my heart' (literal); NIV/BSB/NASB 'kept the matter to myself' (stresses secrecy).
- Used elsewhere in the period
Common in later Aramaic (Targums, Syriac nṭar) for guarding and keeping. In Daniel's Aramaic this is its only use. Theodotion's Greek renders it synetērēsa and the Vulgate conservavi: the same verbs Luke uses of Mary (Luke 2:19, 51).
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
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Daniel 7:28 נִטְרֵֽת׃ פ I have kept
Thus ends the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts troubled me greatly, and my face turned pale. But I kept the matter to myself.”
Here: 'I kept.' The tense describes a completed act. The verb means to guard or retain something: he held on to the revelation, in memory and (at least at that time) in private. It contrasts with the ongoing alarm described before it.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.