Aramaic word · H6136
עִקַּר
'ikar
root
In Biblical Aramaic: the root-stock or stump of a tree, the base where trunk and roots meet. In later Aramaic it also means 'root, essence, main part' of something. The Hebrew relative ʿēqer means 'offshoot' or 'descendant' (Lev 25:47), the idea of what grows from the root.
A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·
What it means
root, stock
Aramaic of e.qer (עֵ֫קֶר "descendant" H6133)
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
In Biblical Aramaic: the root-stock or stump of a tree, the base where trunk and roots meet. In later Aramaic it also means 'root, essence, main part' of something. The Hebrew relative ʿēqer means 'offshoot' or 'descendant' (Lev 25:47), the idea of what grows from the root.
- Against the English
'Stump' (BSB, KJV, ESV) is accurate, but a modern reader may picture something dead. The point of the word is what is still alive below ground and can sprout again.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Used only in Daniel 4 (4:15, 23, 26). The idea of a stump regrowing is common in Israel's writings: Job 14:7–9 ('there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again'), Isaiah 6:13 ('the holy seed is its stump') and Isaiah 11:1 (a shoot from the stump of Jesse).
- Range of meaning
ʿiqqar is the root-stock or stump, the base of a plant that stays in the earth. šōreš is 'root'. Together, 'the stump of its roots': a living base that still has roots.
- Against the English
KJV's 'stump of the roots thereof' is close to the Aramaic. BSB's 'the stump with its roots' smooths it. Both convey that something alive is left.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The image of a felled tree that can sprout again is common biblical idiom: Job 14:7–9 ('there is hope for a tree'), Isaiah 6:13 (the holy seed in the stump), Isaiah 11:1 (shoot from the stump of Jesse). Ezekiel 31 likewise pictures a world-tree empire (Assyria/Egypt) cut down, but with no stump spared.
Where it appears
Daniel · 3
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Daniel 4:15 עִקַּ֤ר [the] stump of
But leave the stump with its roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, in the tender grass of the field. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven and graze with the beasts on the grass of the earth.
Here: The base of the trunk where the roots join, the part of a felled tree that can still sprout. The same word comes back in 4:23 and 4:26, where Daniel explains that leaving it means the kingdom will be given back.
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Daniel 4:23 עִקַּ֤ר [the] stump of
And you, O king, saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying: ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump with its roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze around it, in the tender grass of the field. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and graze with the beasts of the field till seven times pass him by.’
Here: The stump or base of the trunk that stays in the ground. The interpretation in v. 26 explains it as the promise that the kingdom will be given back.
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Daniel 4:26 עִקַּ֤ר [the] stump of
As for the command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots, your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.