ʿAlma is one word doing the work English splits in two. The glossary's curated sense: the inhabited world and the stretch of time that holds it, at once the ordered realm where people live and the long age that runs on without end; it points both at the world around you and at the span of duration, even eternity. When you hear ʿalma, you are hearing "world" and "age" at once: the where and the when of everything, held in a single breath.
With 131 occurrences it is one of the great load-bearing nouns of the corpus, and every translator has to keep choosing which half to show. The gold shows both: "the field is the world" (space) and "the completion of the age" (time), the same Aramaic word underneath. This entry carries Palestinian Aramaic (DJPA) attestation: the Galilean-closest evidence.
| Form | Pattern | Transliteration | Script | Standard | Qala rendering |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun | ʿalm- + -a | ʿalma | עלמא ܥܳܠܡܳܐ | world | world · age · this present world |
| Adverbial | l- prefix, no ending | l-ʿalam | — | forever | forever, never (with a negative): "to the age" |
| With prepositions | b-, d- prefixes | b-ʿalma, d-ʿalma | — | in / of the world | in this age; of the age |
| Stem | Force | This root | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peal | simple | not attested | — |
| Ethpeel | simple passive | not attested | — |
| Pael | intensive | not attested | — |
| Ethpaal | intensive passive | not attested | — |
| Aphel | causative | not attested | — |
| Ettaphal | causative passive | not attested | — |
| Shaphel | rare causative | not attested | — |
The range keeps showing: "the worry of this age" chokes the seed (Matthew 13:22), the reign is "prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:34), and with a negative the word makes "never": l-ʿalam, "not unto the age."
Stand at a window and hold both senses of ʿalma at once: the world you can see (street, weather, people) and the age you are standing in, the particular stretch of history that holds this view. English makes you pick one; the Aramaic ear hears one thing. Then try Matthew 13:22 on yourself: what "worry of this age" is currently choking the seed? Name the era-shaped anxiety, not just the personal one. Noticing which world you are worried about is half the weeding.
The Hebrew cognate is ʿolam (עוֹלָם), the l'olam va'ed, "forever and ever," of the Psalms, and Biblical Aramaic uses ʿalma the same way in Daniel. Jewish teaching has long heard a play between ʿolam and the Hebrew verb "to hide" (neʿlam): the world as the place where God is concealed. That is homiletic wordplay, not established etymology; note that in Aramaic, hiding is a different root, Ṭ-Sh-Y (day 47). Within the 75, ʿalma leans hardest on M-L-K (day 1): Matthew 25:34 joins them: the reign prepared "from the foundation of the world." No genuine English descendants.
Take two or three minutes and teach a friend the one-word world-and-age of ʿalma. Use Matthew 13:38 and 13:39 as your two poles: the field is the world, the harvest is the completion of the age, same word, both times. Finish with what changes if "the end of the world" was actually "the completion of the age."