StrongerBible

dod

דּוֹד

HebrewH1730“uncle, beloved, ...”

Appears 61 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Lev 10:4Lev 20:20Lev 25:49 (2×)Num 36:111Sa 10:141Sa 10:151Sa 10:161Sa 14:502Ki 24:171Ch 27:32Est 2:7Est 2:15Pro 7:18Sng 1:2Sng 1:4Sng 1:13Sng 1:14Sng 1:16Sng 2:3Sng 2:8Sng 2:9Sng 2:10Sng 2:16Sng 2:17Sng 4:10 (2×)Sng 4:16Sng 5:1Sng 5:2Sng 5:4Sng 5:5Sng 5:6 (2×)Sng 5:9 (4×)Sng 6:1 (2×)Sng 6:3 (2×)Sng 7:9(10)Sng 7:10(11)Sng 7:12(13)Sng 8:5Jer 32:7Jer 32:8Jer 32:9Jer 32:12Ezk 16:8Ezk 23:17Amo 6:10
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeDODEnoun

What dod means

1

a father's brother: a man's paternal uncle, or by extension a near male relative on the father's side

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In the law and the histories this is a precise family word: the brother of one's father, the closest male kin after father and brother. It marks the man who carries weight in the clan as protector, provider, and redeemer. Leviticus 18:14 spells it out by naming the same person two ways in one breath, your father's brother and your uncle, so the meaning is not in doubt.

The word anchors a chain of family duty. In the redemption laws it names the rung just past brother, the relative obligated to buy back a poor kinsman or his land (Leviticus 25:49); add son to it and you get the first cousin, the daughters of Zelophehad marrying their cousins to keep the inheritance in the father's line (Numbers 36:11). The same word fixes Esther as Mordecai's cousin, not his niece, since she is the daughter of his uncle.

The boundary is the father's side. Hebrew uses this word for the paternal uncle and keeps it there; it does not reach across to the mother's brother or to relatives outside the father's line. In a few places, especially the funeral scene of Amos 6:10 and the purchase in Jeremiah 32, it loosens to a wider near relative, but always within that paternal, duty-bound family circle.

Nuances

1aa man's paternal uncle, the brother of his father
Lev 10:4Lev 20:201Sa 10:141Sa 10:151Sa 10:161Sa 14:502Ki 24:171Ch 27:32Est 2:7Est 2:15
1bthe uncle within the redemption order, where uncle and uncle's son set the rung of cousin
Lev 25:49 (2×)Num 36:11
1ca wider near relative on the father's side, the kinship word loosened beyond the uncle proper
Jer 32:7Jer 32:8Jer 32:9Jer 32:12Amo 6:10
2

a beloved man: the cherished one a woman loves, and in the plural the love-making between lovers

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

Away from the family records the same sounds carry a wholly different weight. This is the woman's name for the man she loves, the one word she returns to again and again in the Song of Songs. It is a term of pure endearment, my beloved, with none of the legal or genealogical flavor of the family word; the two senses do not blend, they simply share a spelling.

The Song shows the pattern clearly. She calls him this; he answers with his own names for her. The word carries longing, delight, and belonging all at once, which is why English keeps reaching for beloved rather than any plainer term. Isaiah borrows the love-song register to open his vineyard poem, singing of his beloved before the song turns to judgment.

In the plural the word names not the person but the act, the caresses and the love-making themselves. This is its most physical use:

  • the lovers' nights in the Song
  • the bride's coming of age in Ezekiel
  • turned dark, the seductress of Proverbs and the unfaithful sisters of Ezekiel who borrow the same intimate words for illicit love

The shift from one cherished person to the shared act of love is what holds this meaning's senses together.

Nuances

2athe beloved man, a woman's cherished lover
Sng 1:13Sng 1:14Sng 1:16Sng 2:3Sng 2:8Sng 2:9Sng 2:10Sng 2:16Sng 2:17Sng 4:16Sng 5:2Sng 5:4
2blove-making: the caresses and physical intimacy between lovers
Pro 7:18Sng 1:2Sng 1:4Sng 4:10 (2×)Sng 5:1Sng 7:12(13)Ezk 16:8Ezk 23:17

What scholars say about dod

Modern lexica treat the word as one inherited noun with a spread of senses rather than the older to boil, then love derivation, which Gesenius's eighteenth edition and HALOT have abandoned. BDB lists the loved one or lover, the uncle, and the plural love-making together; HALOT and DCH keep the unrelated pot, basket word as a separate root. The fullest study, Sanmartin-Ascaso in TDOT, argues the affective darling sense is primary, a baby-talk dada like mama and papa, with uncle a later Northwest Semitic specialization; older works made uncle primary. Cognates run across Akkadian dadu (both darling and paternal kinsman), Ugaritic dd, and Amorite personal names, supporting a reduplicative origin. In the kinship law Milgrom and Levine show the word is kept narrowly to the father's brother. In the love poetry the post-1985 commentary consensus (Fox, the Blochs, Murphy, Longman, Exum, Keel) reads the plural as concretely physical love-making, parallel to the Egyptian love-song convention of calling lovers brother and sister, against Marvin Pope's earlier reading of the term as belonging to a fertility cult, which is now largely set aside.

Where scholars disagree about dod

Which sense of the word came first, the affectionate beloved or the family uncle, and how closely the two are related.

  • majorityThe affectionate darling, beloved sense is primary, an old baby-talk word like mama and papa, with the father's brother sense a later Northwest Semitic specialization.; J. Sanmartin-Ascaso, dod, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 3 (Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 143-156; W. A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 1 (Zondervan, 1997), GK 1856
  • minorityThe kinship uncle sense is primary, with beloved a later extension from it.; E. Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (Carta, 1987), s.v.
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, 1906), p. 187lexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, Eng. ed. 1994-2000), s.v.lexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2 (Sheffield, 1995), s.v.lexicon
  • W. Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed., ed. H. Donner et al. (Berlin: Springer, 1987-2013), s.v.lexicon
  • J. Sanmartin-Ascaso, dod, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 3 (Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 143-156dictionary
  • W. A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 1 (Zondervan, 1997), GK 1856dictionary
  • J. Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A; Doubleday, 2000), pp. 1540-1543commentary
  • B. Levine, Numbers 21-36 (Anchor Bible; Doubleday, 2000), pp. 580-581commentary
  • M. V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985)monograph
  • A. Bloch and C. Bloch, The Song of Songs: A New Translation (UC Press, 1998), pp. 3-4commentary
  • M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20 (Anchor Bible 22; Doubleday, 1983), pp. 277-278commentary
  • M. H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C; Doubleday, 1977), pp. 210-229commentary

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

All attested forms of דּוֹד

m s construct

דּוֹדִי, לְדוֹדִי, דֹּדִי, וְדוֹדִי

Sng 1:13, Sng 1:14, Sng 1:16, Sng 2:3, Sng 2:8, Sng 2:9, Sng 2:10, Sng 2:16

m s construct

דֹּדוֹ, דּוֹדוֹ

Lev 20:20, Lev 25:49, Lev 25:49, 2Ki 24:17, Est 2:7, 1Sa 10:16, Amo 6:10

m s construct

דּוֹד, דֹּד

1Sa 10:14, 1Sa 10:15, 1Sa 14:50, 1Ch 27:32, Lev 10:4, Est 2:15

m p absolute

דֹּדִים, דּוֹדִים

Pro 7:18, Ezk 16:8, Ezk 23:17, Sng 5:1

m s construct

דּוֹדֵךְ

Sng 5:9, Sng 5:9, Sng 6:1, Sng 6:1

m p construct

דֹדַיִךְ

Sng 4:10, Sng 4:10

m p construct

דֹּדֶיךָ

Sng 1:2, Sng 1:4

m s absolute

מִדּוֹד

Sng 5:9, Sng 5:9

m p construct

דֹּדַי

Sng 7:12

m p construct

דֹדֵיהֶן

Num 36:11

m s construct

דֹּדְךָ

Jer 32:7

m s construct

דּוֹדָהּ

Sng 8:5