StrongerBible

da'akh

דָּעַךְ

HebrewH1846put out, quenched, ...

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Job 6:17Job 18:5Job 18:6Job 21:17Psa 118:12Pro 13:9Pro 20:20Pro 24:20Isa 43:17
Word studyda-AKHverb

What da'akh means

to go out or be put out: a lamp, fire, or life snuffed into darkness

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a poetic word for a flame dying. Almost every time it appears, a light or a fire stops burning: a lamp is snuffed out, a fire is quenched, and the darkness closes back in. Outside a handful of poetic books (Job, Proverbs, Psalms, Isaiah) it is not used at all, so it always carries a heightened, image-rich tone rather than plain everyday speech.

Its most fixed use is the picture of "the lamp of the wicked" being put out. In the world of Proverbs and Job, a burning lamp stands for a person's life, prosperity, and continuing family line; when the wicked man's lamp goes dark, it means his success collapses and his line is cut off, suddenly and for good. Six of its nine appearances are exactly this warning.

The same image of a fire dying serves to describe enemies destroyed: an army or a hostile crowd flares up and then is quenched like a dying blaze. A single further use stretches the picture to water rather than fire, where seasonal desert streams shrink and vanish in the heat. The everyday, prose word for putting out a flame is כָּבָה; this rarer word keeps almost entirely to poetry and to the theme of a life or a foe being extinguished.

Nuances

1ato be put out or quenched: of a lamp or fire going dark, most often as the image of the wicked person's life and success ending suddenly
Job 18:5Job 18:6Job 21:17Psa 118:12Pro 13:9Pro 20:20Pro 24:20Isa 43:17
1bto dry up and vanish: of seasonal desert streams that shrink away in the heat
TranslatabilityApproximate
Job 6:17

What scholars say about da'akh

The lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) treat the root uniformly as "to be extinguished, go out" of a lamp or fire, with an extension to water "drying up" at Job 6:17 (the one occurrence in the passive stem). The dominant usage is the wisdom motif of the extinguished lamp of the wicked (Job 18:5-6; 21:17; Prov 13:9; 20:20; 24:20), in which the lamp is a metonym for life, prosperity, and continued posterity; its quenching signals sudden and irreversible ruin. The word also serves in prophetic and psalmic imagery for the destruction of enemies likened to a dying fire (Isa 43:17; Ps 118:12). Ps 118:12 is a recognized textual crux: the Masoretic pual דֹּעֲכוּ ("they were quenched") sits oddly beside the simile of a thorn fire, and a number of commentators and the apparatus propose emending to a form of בָּעַר ("they blazed"); the emendation touches the reading of this verse, not the established sense of the verb.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. דעךlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. דעךlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. דעךlexicon

All attested forms of דָּעַךְ

qal imperfect 3ms

יִדְעָךְ, יִדְעַךְ

Job 18:5, Job 18:6, Job 21:17, Pro 13:9, Pro 24:20, Pro 20:20

niphal perfect 3cp

נִדְעֲכוּ

Job 6:17

pual perfect 3cp

דֹּעֲכוּ

Psa 118:12

qal perfect 3cp

דָּעֲכוּ

Isa 43:17