StrongerBible

higgavon

הִגָּיוֹן

HebrewH1902“meditation, solemn sound, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 9:16(17)Psa 19:14(15)Psa 92:3(4)Lam 3:62
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradehig-gah-YOHNnoun

What higgavon means

a low murmuring sound made just under the voice: strings humming, a heart musing, enemies muttering.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This word comes from a verb that names a sound down in the throat: the growl of a lion over its kill, the moan of a dove, the low mutter of someone talking to himself. The noun names that sound as a thing. It is neither a shout nor silence, but the steady hum a person makes when something is going on inside and part of it comes out.

Because the word names a sound rather than a topic, it can attach to very different situations, and its four appearances in the Bible show the whole spread:

  • strings resonating under the hand of a player (Psalm 92:3)
  • a worshiper's inner words laid before God alongside the words of his mouth (Psalm 19:14)
  • the low, all-day muttering of enemies working out how to do harm (Lamentations 3:62)
  • a single word left standing at the end of a line in Psalm 9, right beside סֶלָה, where it seems to direct the music or the moment (Psalm 9:16)

The most valuable thing the word teaches is that meditation, in the Bible, was something you could hear. Psalm 19:14 pairs "the words of my mouth" with the murmuring of the heart, one offering with an outer half and an inner half, and the inner half is still speech. The verb behind this noun (הָגָה) is what the faithful person does over God's instruction day and night: saying it over in a low voice, not turning it over wordlessly.

The same low murmur can be prayer or malice. In Lamentations it is the sound of people whispering against a man all day long, the dark twin of what the psalmist offers to God. In Psalm 92 it is neither one: it is what a lyre does, a resonance that is itself a kind of sounded devotion. One word holds all three because what it names is a sound, not a mood.

Nuances

1athe resonant, murmuring tone of stringed instruments: the humming a lyre gives off under the player's hand.
Psa 92:3(4)
Psa 92:3

What the word denotes in the list of instruments at Psalm 92:3 (Hebrew 92:4).

  • majorityThe resonant, murmuring sound of the strings themselves, so the phrase describes how the lyre sounds.; BDB, s.v. הִגָּיוֹן (sense 1, "resounding music," following T. K. Cheyne); W. Gesenius and J. Fürst, as reported in McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, s.v. "Higgaion"
  • minorityThe melody or tune played on the harp rather than the quality of its sound.; Abraham Ibn Ezra, Commentary on Psalms, at Psalm 92:4; David Kimhi (Radak), Commentary on Psalms, at Psalm 92:4
  • minorityThe name of a specific instrument.; Alfred Sendrey, Music in Ancient Israel; A. Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music in Its Historical Development
1bthe murmured musing of the heart: half-voiced inner speech, offered up to God.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Psa 19:14(15)
1cthe low muttering of enemies: talk kept under the breath and aimed at someone's harm.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Lam 3:62
1dthe word standing on its own as a direction in a psalm, next to "Selah."
TranslatabilityUntranslatable
Psa 9:16(17)
Psa 9:16

What the isolated word beside Selah at Psalm 9:16 (Hebrew 9:17) directs.

  • majorityA musical or performance direction, an interlude or instrumental flourish reinforcing Selah.; Septuagint, Psalm 9:17 (ᾠδὴ διαψάλματος), followed broadly by Symmachus, Aquila and the Gallican Psalter; Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship
  • minorityA call to pause and reflect on what has just been said, taking the word in its musing sense.; F. A. G. Tholuck, Übersetzung und Auslegung der Psalmen; E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Psalms
  • minorityAn instruction about the strings: a soft, murmuring or rustling plucking of the lyre.; W. Gesenius, as reported in McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, s.v. "Higgaion"; O. Glaser, on the musical terminology of the Psalter

What scholars say about higgavon

The standard lexicons treat higgayon as a single noun from the onomatopoetic root הגה (H1897), whose base value is a low, sub-vocal sound. BDB gives one entry, "resounding music, meditation, musing," assigning Psalm 92:4 (Hebrew numbering) to the musical sense, following Cheyne, and Psalm 19:15 to "meditation, musing," with Lamentations 3:62 as the same sense in a bad sense, "plotting," parallel to מַחְשְׁבֹתָם in 3:61; it compares Psalm 9:17 with סֶלָה as a musical direction. HALOT, DCH and Gesenius (18th ed.) place the word in the same murmur, music and meditation range. Strong's glosses it "a murmuring sound, i.e. a musical notation ... by implication, a machination." Morphologically the absolute form follows an -on abstract or action pattern (compare שִׁגָּעוֹן, בִּזָּיוֹן, נִצָּחוֹן), which favors the value "a murmuring" over the name of a concrete instrument and so weighs against the conjectures of Sendrey (a small, high nevel) and Idelsohn (a kind of bagpipe). The versions preserve the interpretive fault line: LXX has ᾠδὴ διαψάλματος at Psalm 9:17, μετ᾽ ᾠδῆς ἐν κιθάρᾳ at 91:4, and ἡ μελέτη τῆς καρδίας μου at 18:15, while Jerome's iuxta Hebraeos renders 9:17 "sonitu sempiterno" against the Gallican "canticum diapsalmatis." Mowinckel took the word as the name of the interlude itself; Gesenius, Fürst and Glaser as a murmuring or soft plucking of the strings; Tholuck and Hengstenberg as a summons to a meditative pause; Ibn Ezra and Kimhi as the melody. Modern Psalms commentators (Craigie, Kraus, Hossfeld and Zenger, Tate, Goldingay, Weiser) generally class it with סֶלָה among musical and liturgical notations of uncertain precise force. The decisive evidence for one unified lexeme is the audibility of the root: the lion growling over its prey (Isaiah 31:4), the dove moaning (Isaiah 38:14; 59:11), and the muttering of mediums (Isaiah 8:19) establish a physical, throaty, low sound, so that murmured recitation (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2), string resonance and hostile muttering are species of one genus. Post-biblical usage drifted: Talmudic Hebrew moves toward recitation (b. Berakhot 28b, with Jastrow), and the Ibn Tibbon circle adopted the word to render Arabic mantiq, "logic," whence Maimonides' Millot ha-Higgayon and the modern Hebrew sense. The wording of the HALOT, DCH, Gesenius-18 and Dahood entries rests on secondary attestation and their known method rather than on quoted print text.

Where scholars disagree about higgavon

Whether this is one word with a wide range or several unrelated words that share a spelling.

  • majorityOne word from the root הגה, with a base value of a low audible sound, from which the instrumental, meditative and hostile-muttering uses all derive.; BDB, s.v. הִגָּיוֹן (a single entry covering "resounding music, meditation, musing"); HALOT, s.v. הִגָּיוֹן; D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2, s.v. הִגָּיוֹן
  • minorityThe occurrences carry two or more unrelated senses and should be distinguished verse by verse, with Psalm 9:17 in particular derived separately.; David Kimhi (Radak), Commentary on Psalms, at Psalm 9:17 and Psalm 92:4; G. C. Knapp, Die Psalmen, as reported in McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, s.v. "Higgaion"
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

  • Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB), s.v. הָגָה, הִגָּיוֹןlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), s.v. הגה I, הִגָּיוֹןlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2, s.v. הִגָּיוֹןlexicon
  • W. Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (ed. Meyer and Donner), s.v. הִגָּיוֹןlexicon
  • Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, eds. Botterweck, Ringgren, Fabry, entry on הָגָהtheological-dictionary
  • Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worshipmonograph
  • Peter C. Craigie, rev. Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 1-50, Word Biblical Commentary 19commentary
  • Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100, Word Biblical Commentary 20commentary
  • Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59, Continental Commentarycommentary
  • Mitchell Dahood, Psalms II (51-100), Anchor Biblecommentary
  • John Goldingay, Psalms, Baker Commentary on the Old Testamentcommentary
  • Yelena Kolyada, "Generic and Unclear Musical Terms," in A Compendium of Musical Instruments and Instrumental Terminology in the Biblemonograph
  • McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, s.v. "Higgaion"reference-work
  • Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, s.v. הִגָּיוֹןdictionary

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

All attested forms of הִגָּיוֹן

m s absolute

הִגָּיוֹן

Psa 9:16, Psa 92:3

m s construct

הֶגְיוֹן

Psa 19:14

m s construct

הֶגְיוֹנָם

Lam 3:62