Aramaic word · H846

אֻשַּׁרְנָא

ve'usharna'

wall

A rare term found in the Bible only here and in 5:9, in the officials' letter quoting the same question. It is probably a loanword from Old Persian. Proposed meanings include 'structure, building work', 'timber framework or woodwork', 'furnishings or equipment', and possibly 'sanctuary'.

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

wall, panelling, beams, structure (precise meaning and derivation uncertain)

Aramaic of shur (שׁוּר "wall" H7791A)

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 5:3

Range of meaning

A rare term found in the Bible only here and in 5:9, in the officials' letter quoting the same question. It is probably a loanword from Old Persian. Proposed meanings include 'structure, building work', 'timber framework or woodwork', 'furnishings or equipment', and possibly 'sanctuary'. Most lexicons (e.g. HALOT) treat it as a technical construction term and lean toward something like 'structure' or 'woodwork/fittings'.

Against the English

KJV and WEB: 'wall'. BSB: 'structure'. Most modern versions use 'structure' or a general phrase. 'Wall' is a guess from older scholarship that the word does not support well.

How it drifted

Older translators had no comparative evidence and guessed from context, landing on 'wall'. Later finds in Aramaic documents point instead toward building materials or fittings. Because of Nehemiah, an English reader who sees 'this wall' tends to think of Jerusalem's city wall.

Used elsewhere in the period

ʾšrn appears in Imperial Aramaic documents from Egypt (Elephantine material, including the papyrus on repairing a boat, TAD A6.2), where it appears to mean materials or equipment, often wooden. It also occurs in a few other Aramaic inscriptions. The Greek translators had trouble with it too: 2 Esdras (the Greek Ezra) appears to render it with a word for 'supply/equipment', and 1 Esdras 6:4 paraphrases with 'this roof'.

Where it appears

Ezra · 2

  1. Ezra 5:3 וְאֻשַּׁרְנָ֥א and structure the

    At that time Tattenai the governor of the region west of the Euphrates, Shethar-bozenai, and their associates went to the Jews and asked, “Who authorized you to rebuild this temple and restore this structure?”

    Here: 'And the ʾuššarnāʾ', a rare technical building word, probably borrowed from Persian. It most likely refers to part of the construction or its fittings (perhaps the timberwork or the structure as a whole), not a city wall.

  2. Ezra 5:9 וְאֻשַּׁרְנָ֥א and structure the

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

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