SHERIFF.In Dan_3:2; Dan_3:8 sheriffs Is the EV [Note: English Version.] tr. [Note: translate or translation.] of Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] liphlâyç, a word of quite uncertain meaning.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
sher?if (Aramaic תּפתּיא, tiphtāyē' ?judicial,? ?a lawyer,? ?a sheriff? (Dan_3:2 f): Probably a ?lawyer? or ?jurist? whose business it was to decide points of law. At best, however, the translation ?sheriff? is but a conjecture.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
occurs only in Dan_3:2-3, as a rendering; in the A.V. of the Chald. תַּפְתִּי, tiphtay (according to Fürst a derivation from the old Persic atipaiti= supreme master [Stern Monatsnamen, p. 196 ]; Sept. ἐπ᾿ ἐξουσιών; Vulg. proefectus) one of the classes of court officials at Babylon, probably lawyers or jurists, like the present Mohammedan mufti, who decides points of laws in the Turkish courts.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.