StrongerBible

dashen

דָּשֵׁן

HebrewH1878“anoint, prosper, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Exo 27:3Num 4:13Deu 31:20Psa 20:3(4)Psa 23:5Pro 11:25Pro 13:4Pro 15:30Pro 28:25Isa 34:6Isa 34:7
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradedah-SHENverb

What dashen means

1

to be or grow fat, or to make fat: to flourish with rich, God-given abundance, or to enrich, satisfy, and honor another with it.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

Behind every use of this word stands fat itself, which in the ancient world was the richest and most prized part of an animal and a ready sign of health, wealth, and God's favor. So the word runs from a body growing sleek and well-fed to a whole life made to thrive.

Because fatness meant blessing, the word came to describe God enriching those who are generous, trusting, and hardworking, and even good news putting new life into a person, an image of news that revives the whole body. At a feast it is the host pouring perfumed oil over an honored guest's head, and at the altar it becomes a set phrase for God counting an offering as fat, that is, receiving it gladly.

The same richness can be turned to horror. Isaiah pictures God's sword and the land of Edom soaked and gorged with fat and blood, borrowing the language of blessing to describe slaughter. And Deuteronomy warns that a people who grow fat can forget the God who fed them, so that the gift itself becomes a trap.

Nuances

1ato grow fat and well-fed, a body thriving on plenty.
Deu 31:20
1bto be made to prosper and thrive, said of the person God rewards for generosity, trust, or hard work.
Pro 11:25Pro 13:4Pro 28:25
1cto refresh and revive, said of good news that puts new life into a person.
Pro 15:30
1dto drench the head with oil, as a host lavishly welcomes an honored guest at a feast.
Psa 23:5
1eto regard an offering as fat, a way of saying God accepts a sacrifice and is pleased with it.
Psa 20:3(4)
Psa 20:3

Whether the verb here means that God regards the burnt offering as fat and so accepts it, or that he reduces it to ashes as a token of acceptance.

  • majorityGod regards the burnt offering as fat and so receives it; the verb is a set liturgical way of saying an offering is accepted.; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. דשׁן; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. דשׁן; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Continental Commentary (1988); Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, Word Biblical Commentary 19 (1983); John Goldingay, Psalms, vol. 1 (2006)
  • minorityGod reduces the offering to ashes, consuming it by fire as a sign of acceptance.; David Kimchi (Radak), commentary on Psalms
1fto be soaked and gorged with fat and blood, said of a sword or a land glutted in slaughter.
Isa 34:6Isa 34:7
2

to clear away the fat-ashes: to remove from the altar the greasy ash left when the fat of the sacrifices has burned.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The altar fire burned up the fat of every sacrifice, so the ash left on it each morning was not dry powder but greasy, soaked with what had been the choicest, God-given portion. This word names the priest's task of scooping that residue off the altar and carrying it away to a clean place.

It looks like the exact opposite of the make-fat meaning, but it grows from the same idea. The ash is called fat-ash because it is what remains of the fat, and clearing it from the altar was treated not as taking out the trash but as a sacred duty, a last handling of something that had belonged to God.

Exo 27:3Num 4:13

What scholars say about dashen

The major critical lexica and dictionaries (BDB, HALOT, DCH, Gesenius18, and Muenderlein in TDOT) agree that this is a single root built around the idea of saturated fat, not two unrelated homonyms. It appears as a Qal to be or grow fat (Deut 31:20 only), a factitive Piel to make fat, to anoint with oil, or to regard as fat (accept), a Pual passive to be made fat or sated, and a single Hothpael at Isa 34:6 to be saturated with fat. The notorious puzzle is the so-called contronymic Piel, which can mean both to make fat (Ps 23:5; Prov 15:30) and to clear away the fat-ashes (Exod 27:3; Num 4:13). Since Ernst Jenni (Das hebraeische Piel, 1968), codified in Waltke-O'Connor and Joue-Muraoka, the standard resolution is that these are two parallel denominative formations from the polysemous noun deshen (fat / fat-ashes): where the noun means fat, the Piel makes the object fat; where it means fat-ashes, the Piel is privative, to remove the ashes. E. A. Speiser (The Pitfalls of Polarity, 1938) and Jonathan Paradise (1997) treat this as a paradigm case, against the older view of primitive polarity. Milgrom's work on Leviticus ties the cultic sense together: the fat was God's exclusive portion, the fat-ashes are its sanctified residue, and the metaphorical to regard as fat (Ps 20:4 Heb) is a liturgical idiom for divine acceptance. Comparatively the root is fairly isolated; Arabic dasima (to be greasy) is the nearest parallel but is not a strict match, Akkadian dashnu means strong rather than fat, and Ugaritic has no secure cognate, so no confident Proto-Semitic reconstruction is assigned. At Ps 20:4 (Heb) a minority medieval reading (Radak) took the verb as reduce to ashes, rejected by BDB, HALOT, and the modern Psalms commentators.

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

  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. דשׁןlexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. דשׁןlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. II, s.v. דשׁןlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebraeisches und aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch, 18th ed. (Donner/Rueterswoerden), s.v. דשׁןlexicon
  • G. Muenderlein, "דשׁן dashen," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 3:310-315dictionary
  • Ernst Jenni, Das hebraeische Piel (1968), 273-275monograph
  • Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (1990), 24.4monograph
  • E. A. Speiser, "The Pitfalls of Polarity," Language 14 (1938): 187-202article
  • Jonathan Paradise, "On the Privative Use of the Piel," in Tehillah le-Moshe (Greenberg Festschrift, 1997), 195-203article
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible 3 (1991)commentary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, Hermeneia (1989)commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, Anchor Bible 21B (2004)commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39, Anchor Bible 19 (2000)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31, Anchor Bible 18B (2009)commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, NICOT (2004-2005)commentary
  • Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Continental Commentary (1988)commentary

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

All attested forms of דָּשֵׁן

pual imperfect 3fs

תְּדֻשָּׁן

Pro 11:25, Pro 13:4

pual imperfect 3ms

יְדֻשָּׁן

Pro 28:25, Isa 34:7

hothpaal perfect 3fs

הֻדַּשְׁנָה

Isa 34:6

piel consecutive-perfect 3cp

וְדִשְּׁנוּ

Num 4:13

piel imperfect 3fs

תְּדַשֶּׁן

Pro 15:30

piel imperfect 3ms

יְדַשְּׁנֶ

Psa 20:3

piel infinitive-construct construct

דַשְּׁנ

Exo 27:3

piel perfect 2ms

דִּשַּׁנְתָּ

Psa 23:5

qal consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְדָשֵׁן

Deu 31:20