StrongerBible

hadar

הָדַר

HebrewH1921“honor, show partiality, ...”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Exo 23:3Lev 19:15Lev 19:32Pro 25:6Isa 45:2Isa 63:1Lam 5:12
Root family
Word studyhah-DARverb

What hadar means

1

to treat someone as great, and show it: to honor a person by what you visibly do in their presence, or to be arrayed in splendor yourself.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Behind every use of this verb stands one picture: greatness that can be seen. It is not a quiet inward esteem but the visible act that puts a person's weight on display, and in Hebrew it usually attaches to someone's face, meaning the way you carry yourself in front of them. You stand up when an old man walks in. You dress so that anyone can tell who you are. You either give a person their due in public or you withhold it.

That is why the same act can be commanded and forbidden within one chapter of Leviticus. Verse 15 warns a judge not to honor the face of the great man, because a powerful person's standing must never bend a verdict. Verse 32 commands the very same act toward the elderly. The word itself carries no verdict: who is receiving the honor, and why, is what makes the act right or wrong.

Two uses stretch the picture in opposite directions. In Isaiah the figure who comes from Edom is himself splendid in his clothing, so here the honor is worn rather than given. In Proverbs the warning is against doing it to yourself, pressing forward into the king's presence as though you were the important person in the room.

The noun built on this same root (הָדָר) is the splendor itself, the dignity a great person displays. This verb is what people do about it.

Nuances

1ato show honor to a person: to treat someone as weighty by what you visibly do in their presence.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Lev 19:32Lam 5:12
1bto let a person's standing sway a decision: to show favoritism, which the law forbids to a judge.
Exo 23:3Lev 19:15
1cto be arrayed in splendor: to look magnificent.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Isa 63:1
1dto claim honor for yourself: to push forward as though you were the important person present.
TranslatabilityApproximate
Pro 25:6
2

swollen ground: the humps and ridges of rough terrain that have to be flattened before anyone can pass.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyObscure

This is the odd one out, and it rests on a single verse. In Isaiah 45:2 God promises Cyrus that he will go ahead of him and level whatever stands in the way, and the word for what gets levelled looks like a form of the honor verb. Read that way it would mean the swellings: ground that bulges up and has to be flattened before an army can march through.

Older reference works took this as evidence that the whole family began with a physical idea, to swell or bulge, out of which honoring a person grew as a figure of speech. Most scholars today do not, for two reasons. The entire case rests on this one word in one verse, and the ancient Greek translation read it instead as "mountains," a Hebrew word spelled almost identically, since the two letters involved look alike and are confused elsewhere.

The sense of the line is not in doubt either way: God is clearing the road ahead of his chosen king. What is in doubt is which Hebrew word is doing the clearing.

Isa 45:2
Isa 45:2

Whether the MT הֲדוּרִים of Isaiah 45:2 is a form of this verb or a corruption of הררים, "mountains."

  • contestedThe consonantal text stands, and the word is a rare concrete use of this root: the swellings or rough ground that God levels before Cyrus.; BDB, pp. 213-214, s.v. הָדַר
  • contestedThe original read הררים, "mountains": the Septuagint has ὄρη, the confusion of ד and ר is graphically trivial, and no Hebrew root meaning "to swell" then needs to be posited at all.; HALOT, s.v. הדר; G. Warmuth, "הָדָר hādār," TDOT III, cols. 357-363

What scholars say about hadar

The verb is rare. Warmuth's TDOT article (III, cols. 357-363) treats six occurrences (Exodus 23:3; Leviticus 19:15, 32; Proverbs 25:6; Isaiah 45:2; Lamentations 5:12) alongside the far commoner noun הָדָר, the biform הֶדֶר of Daniel 11:20, and the feminine הֲדָרָה, and locates the semantic core in honor that is recognized and openly acknowledged, that is, honor made visible. That framework accounts for the positive command of Leviticus 19:32, the negated legal uses of Exodus 23:3 and Leviticus 19:15, the passive of Lamentations 5:12, the reflexive of Proverbs 25:6, and the passive participle הָדוּר of Isaiah 63:1. Hill (NIDOTTE 1:1015-17) tilts the family further toward visible radiance of majesty; TWOT #477 instead derives the whole range from a base sense "to swell" and treats the honorific sense as secondary. BDB heads the entry "swell (?), honour, adorn" with a question mark over the first gloss and reserves a possible separate root both for הָדוּר in Isaiah 63:1 (glossed "swelling, striding") and for the disputed הֲדוּרִים of Isaiah 45:2; HALOT registers a marginal הדר II for Isaiah 45:2 alone, noting that the Septuagint's ὄρη presupposes הררים, "mountains." Warmuth, Gesenius18 and Klein treat the Hebrew data as a single root, so the case for a Hebrew root meaning "to swell" now rests on one text-critically unstable verse. Comparative evidence is thin but consistent: the root is securely attested in Jewish Babylonian, Jewish Palestinian and Targumic Aramaic and in Syriac (haddar), and Biblical Aramaic uses the cognate verb exclusively of glorifying God in Daniel. The older Akkadian link to adaru ("to be afraid," "to be dark") is rejected by Assyriologists, and the Ugaritic hdrt once cited as a cognate has been reassigned to dhrt, "dream, vision," by Greenfield and Tropper and is glossed that way in DULAT.

Where scholars disagree about hadar

Whether the Hebrew data reflect a single root meaning "to honor, adorn" or a second homonymous root meaning "to swell," surfacing in Isaiah 45:2 and possibly in the participle of Isaiah 63:1.

  • majorityOne Northwest Semitic root, "to honor, adorn, make splendid." The Isaiah 45:2 form is text-critically unstable and the Septuagint presupposes הררים, "mountains," so no separate Hebrew root meaning "to swell" needs to be posited.; G. Warmuth, "הָדָר hādār," TDOT III, cols. 357-363; Gesenius18 (Donner et al.), Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, s.v. הדר; E. Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, s.v. הדר
  • minorityA second root meaning "to swell" underlies the Isaiah 45:2 form. BDB hedges its headword "swell (?), honour, adorn" and reserves the possibility for Isaiah 63:1 as well, HALOT registers a marginal הדר II for Isaiah 45:2 alone, and TWOT derives the family's honorific range from a base sense "to swell."; BDB, pp. 213-214, s.v. הָדַר; HALOT, s.v. הדר; TWOT #477 (Harris, Archer, Waltke, 1980)

Sources

  • G. Warmuth, "הָדָר hādār," TDOT III, cols. 357-363theological-dictionary
  • HALOT, s.v. הדרlexicon
  • BDB, pp. 213-214, s.v. הָדַרlexicon
  • Gesenius18 (Donner et al.), Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, s.v. הדרlexicon
  • A. E. Hill, "הדר," NIDOTTE 1:1015-17theological-dictionary
  • TWOT #477 (Harris, Archer, Waltke, 1980)theological-dictionary
  • E. Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, s.v. הדרdictionary
  • M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Bar-Ilan, 2002), p. 367adictionary
  • J. C. Greenfield, "Keret's Dream: dhrt and hdrt," BSOAS 57 (1994): 87-92article

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

All attested forms of הָדַר

qal imperfect 2ms

תֶהְדַּר

Exo 23:3, Lev 19:15

hithpael jussive 2ms

תִּתְהַדַּר

Pro 25:6

m p absolute

הֲדוּרִים

Isa 45:2

niphal perfect 3cp

נֶהְדָּרוּ

Lam 5:12

qal consecutive-perfect 2ms

וְהָדַרְתָּ

Lev 19:32

qal passive-participle m s absolute

הָדוּר

Isa 63:1