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I'm studying Daniyel, most of it for the first time, and keep coming across two (Aramaic) words that are troubling me: אֱדַיִן and בֵּאדַיִן. (The latter appears to be, morphologically, the former with a prefixed בְּ־‎.) Both seem to mean "thereafter" (or "then" or "thereupon" or, as the commentators put it in Hebrew, "אָז"). What is the difference in meaning or connotation between them (as used in Daniyel)? If there is no difference in meaning or connotation, then what determines which is used each time (in Daniyel specifically)?

Some examples showing that they both appear to mean "thereafter": אֱדַיִן in 2:17, 2:19, 2:25; בֵּאדַיִן in 2:14, 2:35, 2:46. But there are plenty more examples of each.

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Gesenius's dictionary has this to say:

אדין - afterwards, then

באדין - at the same time, ie. immediately.

Thus, there seems to be a question of immediacy in the choice of whether to have the ב prefix or not. This meaning seems to be hinted at in Jastrow as well, but not as explicitly as in Gesenius.

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    To give the quote from Jastrow: "אדין - at that time, thereupon... באדין - at the same time, forthwith."
    – Fred
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 7:09

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