Aramaic word · H521

אַמָּה

'amin

cubit

Cubit (forearm length, about 45–52 cm); sixty.

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

Appears 4 times in 2 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

cubit-a measure of distance (the forearm), roughly 18 in (. 5 m)

Aramaic of am.mah (אַמָּה "cubit" H0520A)

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 6:3

Range of meaning

Cubit (forearm length, about 45–52 cm); sixty.

Against the English

All translations give 'sixty cubits' for height and width. The NIV and BSB smooth the wording into 'sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide'. None supplies the missing length.

Used elsewhere in the period

Solomon's temple: 60 long, 20 wide, 30 high (1 Kgs 6:2). The same height-and-breadth formula appears for the statue in Daniel 3:1. Haggai 2:3 says the second temple looked 'like nothing' to those who remembered the first.

Where it appears

Ezra · 2

  1. Ezra 6:3 אַמִּ֣ין אַמִּ֥ין cubits

    In the first year of King Cyrus, he issued a decree concerning the house of God in Jerusalem: Let the house be rebuilt as a place for offering sacrifices, and let its foundations be firmly laid. It is to be sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide,

    Here: The cubit was a forearm length, about 45 cm (a royal cubit about 52 cm).

Daniel · 2

  1. Daniel 3:1 אַמִּ֣ין אַמִּ֣ין [was] cubits

    King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

    Here: 'Cubits'. A cubit was the length from elbow to fingertip, about 45–52 cm (18–21 in). Babylon also had a longer royal cubit.

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