Aramaic word · H8131
שְׂנָא
lesane'ayikh
to hate
śānēʾ is 'hate'; its participle used as a noun means 'those who hate', 'enemies'. ʿār is a rare word for 'foe, adversary'. It appears only here in biblical Aramaic, and possibly in Hebrew at 1 Sam 28:16 and Ps 139:20.
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) (P'al) to hate
1a) foe (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
śānēʾ is 'hate'; its participle used as a noun means 'those who hate', 'enemies'. ʿār is a rare word for 'foe, adversary'. It appears only here in biblical Aramaic, and possibly in Hebrew at 1 Sam 28:16 and Ps 139:20.
- Against the English
KJV and YLT keep the original's verbless wish ('the dream [be] to them that hate thee'). BSB and WEB spell it out as 'may the dream apply to / be for'. All are fair. The supplied word-gloss 'enemy' is singular, but both words are plural in form.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Ancient Near Eastern dream practice treated a bad dream as an omen whose evil could be turned aside or transferred by spoken formulas and rituals. Mesopotamian dream-omen and ritual texts include ways to send a bad dream away, as discussed by Oppenheim. The Bible has a similar wish in 1 Sam 25:26 ('let your enemies… be as Nabal') and 2 Sam 18:32 ('may the enemies of my lord the king be like that young man').
Where it appears
Daniel · 1
-
Daniel 4:19 לְשָֽׂנְאָ֖ךְ [be] for enemy your
For a time, Daniel, who was also known as Belteshazzar, was perplexed, and his thoughts alarmed him. So the king said, “Belteshazzar, do not let the dream or its interpretation alarm you.” “My lord,” replied Belteshazzar, “may the dream apply to those who hate you, and its interpretation to your enemies!
Here: 'For those who hate you'. The form is plural, a participle used as a noun ('haters'). There is no verb: 'the dream to your haters!' is a short exclamation, a wish that the bad omen fall on them.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.