StrongerBible

gadaph

גָּדַף

HebrewH1442“blaspheme, revile, ...”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Num 15:302Ki 19:62Ki 19:22Psa 44:16(17)Isa 37:6Isa 37:23Ezk 20:27
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradegah-DAHFverb

What gadaph means

to attack someone with cutting, contemptuous words, and when God is the target, to blaspheme him

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Behind this verb lies a picture of cutting. The older Hebrew evidence, and the matching Arabic word, point back to a root for hacking or cutting something off, and this verb is what a person does to someone else with speech: he cuts at them. That is why it never describes mild disagreement or honest complaint. It is always an attack meant to wound.

The word appears only seven times, and what changes across those seven is not the action but its target.

  • When enemies jeer at a beaten nation, it is simply reviling, the sound of a mocking voice.
  • When a foreign general tells a besieged city that its God cannot save it, the same word becomes an assault on God's honor.
  • When Israelites worship at the hill shrines, or sin deliberately with a raised hand, the affront is a course of conduct rather than a sentence spoken aloud.

It travels almost everywhere in company with the ordinary word for reproaching or taunting (חָרַף), standing as the sharper and rarer of the two. English Bibles usually print "blaspheme," but in Hebrew the word had not yet hardened into the name of a religious crime. That happened later, in Aramaic and then in the Hebrew of the rabbis, which is the world the Greek word the New Testament uses for blasphemy (βλασφημέω) belongs to. The ancient Greek translators of the Old Testament reached for it here only once, preferring words for reproaching (ὀνειδίζω) or provoking.

Nuances

1ato jeer at other people: the insulting talk of a hostile enemy
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 44:16(17)
1bto hurl insults at God himself, denying his honor or his power to save
2Ki 19:62Ki 19:22Isa 37:6Isa 37:23
1cto affront God by open defiance, where the insult is carried out in conduct rather than spoken
CertaintyContested
Num 15:30Ezk 20:27

What scholars say about gadaph

The verb occurs only in the Piel and only seven times (Numbers 15:30; 2 Kings 19:6, 22 // Isaiah 37:6, 23; Psalm 44:17 [English 44:16]; Ezekiel 20:27), alongside four nominal derivatives (Ezekiel 5:15; Isaiah 43:28; 51:7; Zephaniah 2:8). BDB, Gesenius and HALOT derive it from a concrete root "to cut, hack" (compare Arabic jadafa, and the neighbouring verb gada "cut off"), so that the Piel means to cut with opprobrious words; DCH, by editorial policy, withholds comparative etymology and records only glosses and syntax, though its extended corpus is the place to check for any Ben Sira or Qumran attestation. BDB's two-sense arrangement is the base division later discussion follows: (1) revile, used absolutely, between human beings (Psalm 44:17); (2) blaspheme, with YHWH as accusative object (Numbers 15:30; 2 Kings 19:22 = Isaiah 37:23, in parallel with cherep; Ezekiel 20:27), and with a double accusative at 2 Kings 19:6 = Isaiah 37:6. The constant parallel term is charap / cherpah, and the attestations cluster in late monarchic and exilic prophetic and liturgical material, which invites the inference that the specialized "blaspheme" sense was reinforced by Aramaic contact. The Septuagint has no fixed equivalent: across the nine passages it uses at least seven Greek renderings (paroxyno, oneidizo / oneidismos, blasphemeo, paralaleo, parorgizo, phaulismos, kondylismos) plus a free paraphrase at Ezekiel 5:15, and blasphemeo renders the root only at 4 Kingdoms 19:22 (LXX Isaiah 37:23 has paroxynas in the ancient text, per Rahlfs and Ottley, though modern printed Greek Bibles read eblasphemesas there). The technical equation with blasphemy hardens only in Jewish Aramaic and Syriac (Pael gaddep) and in Rabbinic Hebrew, where gidduph is the standard noun and megaddeph the standard designation of the blasphemer; Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:5 then restricts the capital offense so narrowly, to cursing the Name with the Name, that prosecution became nearly impossible. Brichto (Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Blasphemy") argues that there is no single Biblical Hebrew equivalent of English "blasphemy" at all, the offense being marked by the divine object; tellingly, the Leviticus 24:10-23 statute uses naqab with qillel rather than this verb. Milgrom (JPS Numbers) reads the "high hand" of Numbers 15:30 as arrogant revolt in deed as much as in word, and Greenberg (Anchor Bible Ezekiel 1-20) construes the affront of Ezekiel 20:27 as the high-place cult itself. Exact page-level wording in HALOT, DCH, TDOT and the critical commentaries should be confirmed in print.

Where scholars disagree about gadaph

Whether the verb's underlying sense is a concrete image of cutting, so that reviling is "cutting with words," or simply "to revile" with no recoverable image behind it.

  • majorityThe earliest recoverable sense is concrete, "to cut, hack, wound," and the Piel is a metaphor for cutting someone with abusive words; "blaspheme" is then a contextual narrowing that occurs whenever God is the object, not a separate homonym.; Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. גָּדַף; W. Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, trans. S. P. Tregelles, s.v. גָּדַף; Koehler and Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. גדף
  • minorityComparative etymology should not be adjudicated here at all; the lexicon records only the attested senses, "revile" and "blaspheme," together with their syntax, leaving the derivation from a root for cutting aside as unproven.; D. J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2, s.v. גדף; D. J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 1, Introduction
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1907), s.v. גָּדַףlexicon
  • Koehler and Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. גדףlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2, s.v. גדףlexicon
  • W. Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, trans. S. P. Tregelles, s.v. גָּדַףlexicon
  • Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 8, s.v. גדףtheological dictionary
  • New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 2, s.v. גדףtheological dictionary
  • J. Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary, 1990), on 15:30-31commentary
  • M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (Anchor Bible 22, 1983), on chapters 5 and 20commentary
  • W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia, 1979), textual notes on 5:15commentary
  • H. C. Brichto, "Blasphemy," in Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971)encyclopedia
  • L. W. Levy, Blasphemy: Verbal Offense Against the Sacred, from Moses to Salman Rushdie (Knopf, 1993)monograph
  • D. L. Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism: The Charge against Jesus in Mark 14:53-65 (Mohr Siebeck)monograph
  • E. W. Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. جدفlexicon
  • Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:5ancient source

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of גָּדַף

piel perfect 3cp

גִּדְּפוּ

2Ki 19:6, Isa 37:6, Ezk 20:27

piel participle m s absolute

מְגַדֵּף

Num 15:30, Psa 44:16

piel perfect 2ms

גִדַּפְתָּ

2Ki 19:22, Isa 37:23