Aramaic word · H6088
עֲצַב
'atziv
to pain
A participle used as a description: 'pained, hurt, grieved, distressed.' The root has to do with emotional pain: the grief of loss, deep upset. This is the only time it appears in Biblical Aramaic.
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
1) to pain, grieve
1a) (P'al) pained (participle)
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
A participle used as a description: 'pained, hurt, grieved, distressed.' The root has to do with emotional pain: the grief of loss, deep upset. This is the only time it appears in Biblical Aramaic.
- Against the English
BSB and NIV 'anguish/anguished', WEB and NASB 'troubled', YLT 'grieved', KJV 'lamentable'. All aim at the same thing. KJV's 'lamentable' meant 'full of lament' in 1611, but readers today hear 'regrettable' or 'pathetic.'
- How it drifted
The Aramaic does not drift, but the KJV's English word does. 'Lamentable' has moved from 'mournful' to 'deplorable.'
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Hebrew verb from the same root (ʿatsav) describes God being 'grieved to his heart' (Gen 6:6) and Jonathan being 'grieved' over David (1 Sam 20:34). Biblical Aramaic dictionaries (BDB, HALOT) list the Aramaic form only here.
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
-
Daniel 6:20 עֲצִ֖יב pained
When he reached the den, he cried out in a voice of anguish, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”
Here: A voice 'hurt' or 'grieved', strained with anguish. It is the only time this word appears in the Aramaic of the Bible. It shows a ruler shaken by grief, not composed.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.