Aramaic word · H7868

שִׂיב

savei

be gray

From a root meaning 'to be gray, hoary'. As a noun it means 'old man, elder': the senior men of a community, usually heads of extended families. In Biblical Aramaic it occurs only in Ezra (5:5, 9; 6:7, 8, 14), always as 'the elders of the Jews'.

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

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament.

What it means

1) to be gray, be hoary, be hoary-headed

1a) (P'al) elders (subst)

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 6:14

Range of meaning

From a root meaning 'to be gray, hoary'. As a noun it means 'old man, elder': the senior men of a community, usually heads of extended families. In Biblical Aramaic it occurs only in Ezra (5:5, 9; 6:7, 8, 14), always as 'the elders of the Jews'. The Hebrew equivalent for elders is usually zəqēnîm ('bearded ones').

Against the English

'Elders' is accurate. Modern readers may picture a church board or ordained office. In Persian Judah these were lay family heads acting as the community's civic leaders and its representatives to imperial officials.

Used elsewhere in the period

Ancient Near Eastern towns were commonly run by assemblies of elders. In the Persian period the Elephantine papyri (late 5th century BC) show Jewish community leaders writing to the governor of Judah and naming the high priest and the 'nobles of the Jews' as the local authorities. Ezra's repeated phrase fits the same civic arrangement.

Where it appears

Ezra · 5

  1. Ezra 5:5 שָׂבֵ֣י [the] elders of

    But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, so that they were not stopped until a report was sent to Darius and written instructions about this matter were returned.

  2. Ezra 5:9 לְשָׂבַיָּ֣א to elders the

    So we questioned the elders and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?”

  3. Ezra 6:7 וּלְשָׂבֵ֣י and <to> [the] elders of

    Leave this work on the house of God alone. Let the governor and elders of the Jews rebuild this house of God on its original site.

  4. Ezra 6:8 שָׂבֵ֤י [the] elders of

    I hereby decree what you must do for these elders of the Jews who are rebuilding this house of God: The cost is to be paid in full to these men from the royal treasury out of the taxes of the provinces west of the Euphrates, so that the work will not be hindered.

  5. Ezra 6:14 וְשָׂבֵ֤י and [the] elders of

    So the Jewish elders built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah son of Iddo. They finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia.

    Here: Literally 'the gray-haired ones', from a root meaning 'to be gray'. The heads of the leading families who spoke for the community before the Persian authorities (Ezra 5:5, 9; 6:7–8). The title marks seniority and standing, not a religious office.

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