Aramaic word · H7359
רַחֲמִין
verachamin
compassion
Compassion, pity, tender mercy. It is always plural ('compassions') and comes from the Semitic root for 'womb' (Hebrew reḥem). It describes a deep, bodily, protective feeling, like a parent's for a child. It is not mainly a legal word for letting off someone who is guilty.
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
compassion
Aramaic of ra.cha.mim (רַחֲמִים "compassion" H7356B)
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
Compassion, pity, tender mercy. It is always plural ('compassions') and comes from the Semitic root for 'womb' (Hebrew reḥem). It describes a deep, bodily, protective feeling, like a parent's for a child. It is not mainly a legal word for letting off someone who is guilty.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'mercies' keep the plural. BSB, ESV and NIV 'mercy' and NASB 'compassion' make it singular. 'Mercy' in modern English usually suggests sparing someone who deserves punishment, which is only part of the picture.
- How it drifted
In later Christian usage 'mercy' came to mean mostly the remission of deserved punishment for sin. That framework does not fit here: Daniel and his friends are under a death sentence for the failure of other men, not for any wrong of their own.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The cognate Hebrew raḥamim appears in Daniel's own prayer in 9:9, 18: 'not because of our righteousness, but because of your great compassions'. Related words appear in Akkadian (rēmu, both 'womb' and 'compassion') and Ugaritic. The exact phrase here, 'to seek compassion', became the standard Jewish Aramaic expression for praying: in the Babylonian Talmud, baʿei raḥamei ('he sought compassion') simply means 'he prayed'.
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
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Daniel 2:18 וְרַחֲמִ֗ין and compassion<s>
urging them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be killed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
Here: Comes first in the sentence for emphasis. The plural 'compassions' is the normal idiom for deep, felt pity, the kind a mother has for the child of her womb. It is what they are to ask for, before anything is said about the secret.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.