StrongerBible

david

דָּוִד

HebrewH1732Proper NounDavid

Appears 1075 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rut 4:17Rut 4:221Sa 16:131Sa 16:191Sa 16:201Sa 16:211Sa 16:221Sa 16:231Sa 17:121Sa 17:141Sa 17:151Sa 17:171Ki 3:141Ki 11:41Ki 11:361Ch 2:151Ch 3:11Ch 3:91Ch 4:311Ch 6:31(16)1Ch 7:21Ch 9:221Ch 10:141Ch 11:11Ch 11:3
Word studydah-VEEDproper noun

What david means

David: Israel's second king, son of Jesse, and founder of the royal line God promised would endure forever.

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David is the most-named human being in the Hebrew Bible, appearing over a thousand times. Almost every occurrence points to one person: the shepherd of Bethlehem who killed Goliath, served in Saul's court, and became the second king of Israel, uniting the tribes and making Jerusalem his capital. The books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles tell his story, and roughly half the Psalms are headed with his name.

The name itself is usually connected to a Hebrew word for "beloved" or "darling," so the name reads roughly as "beloved one." That fits the man the text calls "a man after God's own heart," though the name is a label for the person, not a running comment on his character in every verse.

David's lasting weight comes from the promise God made him: that his throne and his house would stand forever. From then on the name carries the whole royal dynasty with it. The prophets can speak of a future "David" long after the king was dead, meaning the promised ruler from his line, and the New Testament picks this up when it calls Jesus the "son of David," using the Greek form of the same name (Δαυίδ).

Rut 4:17Rut 4:221Sa 16:131Sa 16:191Sa 16:201Sa 16:211Sa 16:221Sa 16:231Sa 17:121Sa 17:141Sa 17:151Sa 17:17

What scholars say about david

The name דָּוִד is traditionally derived from the root dwd "to love," yielding a sense "beloved," and the lexica (HALOT, BDB) treat it as a personal name meaning "beloved" or "darling." An older proposal read the name against a supposed Mari term dawidum "leader, chieftain," but that reading of the Mari texts was abandoned once the word was shown to mean "defeat, rout," so the "beloved" derivation stands as the mainstream view. The dynastic use of the name has extrabiblical support: the Tel Dan stele preserves the phrase bytdwd, "House of David," attesting the royal line as a known political entity. Within the Hebrew Bible the name refers overwhelmingly to the historical king, but the prophetic "David" texts (Ezekiel 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Hosea 3:5; Jeremiah 30:9) apply the name to the eschatological Davidic ruler, and the New Testament develops this in the "son of David" messianic title.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. דָּוִדlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. דָּוִדlexicon
  • A. Biran and J. Naveh, "An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan," Israel Exploration Journal 43 (1993): 81-98article

All attested forms of דָּוִד

m

דָּוִד, דָּוִיד, דָויִד

Rut 4:17, Rut 4:22, 1Sa 16:13, 1Sa 16:19, 1Sa 16:20, 1Sa 16:21, 1Sa 16:22, 1Sa 16:23