StrongerBible

dagan

דָּגָן

HebrewH1715grain, corn

Appears 40 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 27:28Gen 27:37Num 18:12Num 18:27Deu 7:13Deu 11:14Deu 12:17Deu 14:23Deu 18:4Deu 28:51Deu 33:282Ki 18:322Ch 31:52Ch 32:28Neh 5:2Neh 5:3Neh 5:10Psa 4:7(8)Psa 65:9(10)Psa 78:24Isa 62:8Hos 2:9(11)
Root family
Word studyda-GAHNnoun

What dagan means

grain: the harvested cereal crop, chiefly wheat and barley, that a land yields for food

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the everyday word for grain as a harvested crop. It is a collective term, not the name of a single plant: it gathers up the cereal yield of the fields, mainly wheat and barley, considered as food. English Bibles usually render it "grain" or, in older versions, "corn."

Almost every time it appears, it stands beside two companions: new wine and fresh oil. That trio (grain, wine, and oil) is the shorthand of the Hebrew Bible for the staple produce of the land, and so for prosperity and God's blessing on a farming people. To speak of grain, then, is usually to speak less about botany than about provision: what the ground gives, what fills the storehouse, what is tithed and offered.

Because it names the yield itself, the word turns up wherever the harvest is at stake: in blessings and curses over the land, in tithes and firstfruits brought to the temple, and in scenes of famine when there is none. When the prophet Hosea says the people never grasped that it was the LORD who gave them the grain, the wine, and the oil, the point rides on this word: the harvest is a gift, not something the local fertility gods supplied.

Gen 27:28Gen 27:37Num 18:12Num 18:27Deu 7:13Deu 11:14Deu 12:17Deu 14:23Deu 18:4Deu 28:51Deu 33:282Ki 18:32

What scholars say about dagan

The standard lexica (BDB; HALOT; DCH) gloss דָּגָן uniformly as "grain, cereal," a collective term for threshable cereal crops, chiefly wheat and barley. It is most at home in the recurring triad דָּגָן / תִּירוֹשׁ / יִצְהָר (grain, new wine, fresh oil), which denotes the staple produce of the land and, in Deuteronomy and the prophets, the fruit of covenant blessing (see the TDOT treatment of דָּגָן). A long-standing etymological question relates the noun to the West Semitic deity Dagon; whether that divine name derives from a word for grain or is unrelated remains unsettled, but it does not bear on the agreed sense of the noun.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. דָּגָןlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. דָּגָןlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. דָּגָןlexicon
  • G. J. Botterweck, "דָּגָן dāgān," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT)theological-dictionary

All attested forms of דָּגָן

m s absolute

דָּגָן

Gen 27:28, Gen 27:37, Num 18:12, Num 18:27, Deu 28:51, Deu 33:28, 2Ki 18:32, 2Ch 31:5

m s construct

דְּגָנְךָ, דְגָנֶךָ

Deu 7:13, Deu 12:17, Deu 14:23, Deu 18:4, Deu 11:14

m s construct

דְּגָנָם

Psa 4:7, Psa 65:9

m s construct

דְגַן

Psa 78:24

m s construct

דְגָנִי

Hos 2:9

m s construct

דְּגָנֵךְ

Isa 62:8