Aramaic word · H6246
עֲשִׁת
'ashit
to plan
'To think, form a plan, intend'. Found only here in biblical Aramaic. Cognates: Hebrew ʿešet / ʿeštōnōt, 'thoughts, plans' (Ps 146:4), and the reflexive form in Jonah 1:6 ('perhaps God will give a thought to us').
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 think, plan
Aramaic of a.shat (עָשַׁת "to think" H6245B)
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 think, form a plan, intend'. Found only here in biblical Aramaic. Cognates: Hebrew ʿešet / ʿeštōnōt, 'thoughts, plans' (Ps 146:4), and the reflexive form in Jonah 1:6 ('perhaps God will give a thought to us').
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'thought to set him'; YLT 'hath thought to establish him'; BSB 'planned to set him'. All are accurate. The point is that the plan is still only in the king's mind.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Rare. Its meaning is secured by the Hebrew cognates and later Aramaic (HALOT; BDB Aramaic section).
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
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Daniel 6:3 עֲשִׁ֔ית [was] planning
Soon, by his extraordinary spirit, Daniel distinguished himself among the administrators and satraps. So the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.
Here: 'Was intending / had in mind'. A rare verb, found only here in biblical Aramaic. It describes a plan not yet carried out, and that pending promotion is exactly what triggers the plot in v. 4.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.