StrongerBible

de'agah

דְּאָגָה

HebrewH1674“anxiety, care, ...”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jos 22:24Pro 12:25Jer 49:23Ezk 4:16Ezk 12:18Ezk 12:19
Root family
Word studydeh-ah-GAHnoun

What de'agah means

anxiety: the unsettled weight a person or a people carries about trouble that has not arrived yet

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is the noun that belongs with the Hebrew verb for worrying (דָּאַג). The verb describes someone worrying; this word names the anxiety itself, the load being carried. It turns up only six times, and in every one of them something bad is expected. The trouble has not landed, and the waiting is the pain.

Half of those six sit in Ezekiel, where the prophet is told to act out a siege: weigh out your bread, measure out your water, and eat and drink in anxiety (Ezekiel 4:16; 12:18, 19). Ezekiel sets the word beside shaking and beside a stunned kind of horror, which shows how heavy it can get. The other three uses cover gentler ground:

  • the worry that presses a person's heart down until a kind word lifts it (Proverbs 12:25)
  • the anxious concern that made the eastern tribes build an altar as a safeguard (Joshua 22:24)
  • the alarm that spread through Damascus when bad news arrived (Jeremiah 49:23)

So the range runs from everyday worry to something close to terror, and the surrounding verse decides where a given use sits. What holds steady is the forward tilt: this anxiety is always aimed at what may happen next, never a shudder at something already in the room. Hebrew keeps other words for that. פַּחַד is dread that seizes a person all at once, and חֲרָדָה is the trembling that fright puts in the body.

Nuances

1adread of a disaster closing in: the fear people live under when food, water, and safety are running out
Jer 49:23Ezk 4:16Ezk 12:18Ezk 12:19
1bworry that weighs a person's heart down
TranslatabilityDirect
Pro 12:25
1canxious concern about what could go wrong later, strong enough to make people act now to head it off
Jos 22:24

What scholars say about de'agah

A feminine noun from the root דאג, six occurrences, always singular (Joshua 22:24; Proverbs 12:25; Jeremiah 49:23; Ezekiel 4:16; 12:18, 19). BDB glosses "anxiety, anxious care," HALOT "worry, anxiety," DCH "anxiety, care"; none posits homonymy, and all organize the material by construction and context rather than by separate senses. The noun stands as subject in Proverbs 12:25, in an adverbial phrase with bet in the three Ezekiel passages, with min of cause in Joshua 22:24, and in a nominal clause in Jeremiah 49:23. Zimmerli (Hermeneia) treats the Ezekiel occurrences as part of the fixed vocabulary of the sign acts, where the noun is coordinated with shimmamon "appalled dismay" (Ezekiel 4:16; 12:19) and with ragzah "quaking" (12:18); that pairing supplies the strongest, most fear-laden coloring the word receives, and TWOT and NIDOTTE both cite it as the upper limit of the range. Jeremiah 49:23 is the textual crux: the Masoretic bayyam de'agah has been read as a simile of the restless sea, as alarm on the seacoast, and by others as corrupt and in need of emendation, and McKane's ICC commentary reviews the proposals without settling on one. Waltke (NICOT) reads Proverbs 12:25 as an inward burden relieved by a good word, the clearest attestation of the milder end of the range and the verse most often quoted for the word. The root is thinly attested outside Hebrew, so the derivation remains uncertain even though the sense is not.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. דְּאָגָהlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. דְּאָגָהlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. דאגהlexicon
  • TWOT, s.v. דאגtheological-dictionary
  • NIDOTTE, s.v. דאגtheological-dictionary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1 (Hermeneia)commentary
  • William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah, vol. 2 (ICC)commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15 (NICOT)commentary

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

All attested forms of דְּאָגָה

f s absolute

דְּאָגָה

Jos 22:24, Pro 12:25, Jer 49:23, Ezk 4:16, Ezk 12:18, Ezk 12:19