Aramaic word · H8411

תְּדִירָא

bitdira'

continuance

'Continuance, constancy'. With 'in' it works as an adverb: 'continually, constantly, regularly'. In Biblical Aramaic it occurs only here and in 6:20, both times in the king's mouth, of Daniel's service.

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

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) continuance, continuity, perpetuity

1a) constantly (as adverb)

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 Daniel 6:16

Range of meaning

'Continuance, constancy'. With 'in' it works as an adverb: 'continually, constantly, regularly'. In Biblical Aramaic it occurs only here and in 6:20, both times in the king's mouth, of Daniel's service.

Against the English

'Continually' (KJV, BSB, ESV, NIV, WEB) can sound like nonstop activity every minute. The sense is steady, unbroken habit: Daniel's practice never lapsed.

Used elsewhere in the period

The same word appears in later Aramaic and Syriac (e.g., Syriac tdīrā/tdīrāʾīt, 'continually'). The Greek translation known as Theodotion renders it endelechōs, 'constantly', the word the Greek Old Testament also uses for the 'continual' daily offerings. The Old Greek, as usually reconstructed, spells it out as 'three times a day'.

From the study of Daniel 6:20

Range of meaning

'Continuance, constancy.' With 'in' it means 'continually, constantly, at all the regular times.' It probably comes from a root meaning 'go round, recur, endure.'

Against the English

'Continually' is right. NLT turns it into 'so faithfully', which keeps the point about loyalty but loses the idea of steady, repeated practice.

Used elsewhere in the period

Found only in Dan 6:16 and 6:20 in the Bible. In the later Aramaic translations of the Old Testament (Targums) it renders Hebrew tamid, the word for the 'continual' daily burnt offering. That suggests the word had a worship-routine flavour.

Where it appears

Daniel · 2

  1. Daniel 6:16 בִּתְדִירָ֔א in <the> continuance

    So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!”

    Here: 'In constancy', that is, regularly and without fail. It looks back to Daniel's prayer three times a day, which he kept up 'just as he had done before' (v. 10).

  2. Daniel 6:20 בִּתְדִירָ֔א in <the> continuance

    When he reached the den, he cried out in a voice of anguish, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”

    Here: Literally 'in constancy': without a break, as a regular habit. Later Aramaic translations of the Old Testament use this word for the 'continual' daily temple offering. It describes regular faithfulness, the very habit that got Daniel thrown into the pit.

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