This Aramaic noun denotes a brief span of time — a 'moment' or 'hour' — and appears only in the book of Daniel. The expression בַּהּ־שַׁעֲתָא ('in that very hour/moment') conveys dramatic immediacy: the instant the music sounds, all must bow (Dan 3:6, 15); at that very moment Nebuchadnezzar's decree is fulfilled (Dan 4:33); and the fingers appear writing on the wall 'in that same hour' (Dan 5:5). The cognates in Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic all share the sense of a measured portion of time, though the biblical Aramaic usage emphasizes instantaneousness rather than a precise sixty-minute span.