StrongerBible

dakah

דָּכָא

HebrewH1792“crush, contrite, ...”

Appears 18 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Job 4:19Job 5:4Job 6:9Job 19:2Job 22:9Job 34:25Psa 72:4Psa 89:10(11)Psa 94:5Psa 143:3Pro 22:22Isa 3:15Isa 19:10Isa 53:5Isa 53:10Isa 57:15Jer 44:10Lam 3:34
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradedah-KAHverb

What dakah means

to crush: to pound or grind something to pieces, and so to break a person down, whether by brute force, by unjust oppression, or in the humbling of the spirit

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

At its root this is a picture word. Its plainest sense is physical: to pound something until it breaks into fragments, the way a hill is leveled or grain is ground in a mortar. From that concrete image the word reaches into two further zones of meaning that biblical Hebrew never fully separates.

In the first, it describes people being crushed: the weak trampled by the powerful, the poor denied justice in court, a nation broken in defeat. In the second, which is the Hebrew Bible's own distinctive contribution, it names something inward: a person broken and humbled before God, the crushed spirit that Psalm 51 says God will not despise.

The same verb carries all three. When the psalmist speaks of a crushed heart, he is using the word that elsewhere describes bones being shattered and mountains being flattened. That overlap is the point. In this word, physical ruin, social oppression, and spiritual humbling are one act seen from three angles, and the reader is meant to feel the weight of the image even in its gentlest use.

The family also spreads across a few closely related spellings and a noun for the person left crushed, but there is one idea underneath them all: something, or someone, ground down.

Nuances

1ato crush or shatter by overwhelming force: to pound to pieces, break a body, or strike something down
Job 4:19Job 6:9Job 34:25Psa 44:19Psa 51:8Psa 72:4Psa 89:10(11)Isa 53:5Isa 53:10
Isa 53:10

Whether the traditional Hebrew text, in which the LORD is the one who chose to crush the servant, should stand, or be emended so that sickness is the agent of the crushing.

  • majorityThe traditional text stands: the LORD is the subject who was pleased to crush the servant, and that offense is deliberate.; B. S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL, 2001), 420; J. Goldingay and D. Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55, vol. 2 (ICC, 2006), ad 53:10; J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (NICOT, 1998), 388
  • minorityThe line should be emended, following Bernhard Duhm, so that sickness crushed him, removing God as the direct agent.; B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (HKAT, 1892)
1bto crush people down: to oppress, exploit, and trample the weak, especially the poor robbed of justice
Job 5:4Job 19:2Job 22:9Psa 10:10Psa 94:5Psa 143:3Pro 22:22Isa 3:15Isa 19:10Lam 3:34
1cthe crushed one: the downtrodden and oppressed poor, named as a class of people
Psa 9:9Psa 10:18Psa 74:21Pro 26:28
1dbroken and contrite in spirit: humbled and brought low before God
Psa 38:8Psa 51:17Isa 57:15Jer 44:10

Disputed

Whether in the book of Job this verb ever carries an Aramaic-influenced sense "be pure" or "be innocent" rather than its usual "crush".

  • majorityIt means "crush" throughout Job, as it does elsewhere; the proposed "be pure" sense rests on a confusion with a separate Aramaic root that is not the cognate of this Hebrew word.; C. L. Seow, Job 1–21 (Illuminations, 2013), 406; D. J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17, 1989), 109–135
  • minorityIn certain Job passages the verb reflects an Aramaic cognate meaning "be pure" or "be innocent".; A. C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job (BibOr 22, 1969)
Variants

The same word in another spelling or form.

דָּכָה“to crush”דָּכָה (dakhah) is a byform of דָּכָא (dakha), the standard word for crushing or being crushed, spelled with a final ה instead of א. Hebrew verbs of this shape often show this kind of spelling flexibility, and the two forms cover the identical range of meaning: something physically pounded or broken, people ground down by oppression, and above all a heart or spirit crushed low before God. The Psalms use this very spelling for the broken and crushed spirit that God does not despise. There is no difference in meaning between the two forms, only in which letter closes the root.
דַּךְ“crushed”דַּךְ (dakh) is the adjective built on the same root as דָּכָא (dakha), "to crush." It names a person in the crushed condition, someone ground down and oppressed, rather than the act of crushing itself. The word turns up only a handful of times, always in the Psalms and Proverbs, naming the poor and afflicted alongside other words for the needy and downtrodden. It carries the same core idea as דָּכָא, simply as a description of a person rather than an action done to them.

What scholars say about dakah

The three lexical entries דכא, דכה (a byform of דכא), and the geminate דכך go back to one biconsonantal Semitic base meaning "pound, crush, level"; BDB, HALOT, Gesenius18, and Clines in DCH all handle the family as a single field, and Clines uses it as a showcase example of byforms artificially split by traditional lexicography. The verb has no established Qal (the difficult Ketib at Ps 10:10 aside) and works in the Niphal (be crushed, become contrite), Piel (crush), Pual (be crushed), and Hithpael. TDOT (Fabry, listed as Fuhs in some editions) and NIDOTTE (Wakely) lay out a concrete-to-abstract trajectory: from physical pulverizing (compare Arabic dakka "level a hill," Akkadian dakaku "pulverize," Geez daka "be crushed, humble") through social oppression to the inward "broken and contrite" spirit that is the Hebrew Bible's distinctive development. The Septuagint most often renders the family with tapeinoo "humble," and for the contrite heart of Ps 51:19 pairs syntribo with tapeinoo, abstracting the violent image toward the moral; at Isa 53:10 it goes further and reads God as cleansing rather than crushing the servant. In Job the proposal (Dahood, Blommerde) to read an Aramaic-influenced "be pure" is decisively rejected by Seow and Clines, since the Aramaic "be pure" root is etymologically distinct and corresponds to Hebrew zakah. At Isa 53:10 the major recent commentaries (Childs, Goldingay-Payne, Oswalt, Blenkinsopp, Paul) keep the traditional text against Duhm's emendation, reading God as the agent, and the pairing of the verb with the guilt-offering term in that verse is regarded (Janowski, Hermisson) as the Servant Song's most radical move. The substantive דַּךְ is a settled sociological term for the oppressed poor.

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

  • F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB, 1907), 193–195, s.v. דכא / דכה / דכךlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), I:221–222lexicon
  • W. Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed. (Gesenius18), 252–254lexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines (ed.), Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), II:446–451dictionary
  • D. J. A. Clines, 'Byforms in Classical Hebrew,' in In Honor of David Marcus, JANES (2022): 7–26article
  • H.-J. Fabry, 'דָּכָא,' in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), III:195–208theological-dictionary
  • R. Wakely, 'דכא,' in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), 1:940–953theological-dictionary
  • The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute (CAD), D:34, 35–43, s.v. dakaku, dakudictionary
  • W. Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (1987), 140lexicon
  • C. L. Seow, Job 1–21 (Illuminations, 2013), 406commentary
  • D. J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17, 1989), 109–135commentary
  • B. S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL, 2001), 412–423commentary
  • J. Goldingay and D. Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55, vol. 2 (ICC, 2006)commentary
  • J. N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (NICOT, 1998), 377–410commentary
  • J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66 (AB 19B, 2003), 168, 172commentary
  • B. Janowski, 'He Bore Our Sins,' in B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher (eds.), The Suffering Servant (2004), 48–74article
  • F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger, Psalms 2 (Hermeneia, 2005), 14–29commentary
  • H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1–59 (Continental Commentary, 1988)commentary

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

All attested forms of דָּכָא

hithpael conjunctive-imperfect 3mp

וְיִדַּכְּאוּ, וְיִדַּכָּאוּ

Job 5:4, Job 34:25

piel conjunctive-imperfect 3ms

וִידַכְּאֵ, וִידַכֵּא

Job 6:9, Psa 72:4

piel imperfect 3mp

יְדַכְּאוּ

Job 4:19, Psa 94:5

piel infinitive-construct construct

דַכֵּא, דַּכְּא

Lam 3:34, Isa 53:10

niphal participle m p absolute

נִדְכָּאִים

Isa 57:15

piel conjunctive-imperfect 2mp

וּתְדַכְּאוּ

Job 19:2

piel imperfect 2mp

תְּדַכְּאוּ

Isa 3:15

piel jussive 2ms

תְּדַכֵּא

Pro 22:22

piel perfect 2ms

דִכִּאתָ

Psa 89:10

piel perfect 3ms

דִּכָּא

Psa 143:3

pual imperfect 3ms

יְדֻכָּא

Job 22:9

pual passive-participle m p absolute

מְדֻכָּאִים

Isa 19:10

pual passive-participle m s absolute

מְדֻכָּא

Isa 53:5

pual perfect 3cp

דֻכְּאוּ

Jer 44:10