StrongerBible

kokhav

כּוֹכָב

HebrewH3556star

Appears 37 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 1:16Gen 15:5Gen 22:17Gen 26:4Gen 37:9Exo 32:13Num 24:17Deu 1:10Deu 4:19Deu 10:22Deu 28:62Jdg 5:201Ch 27:23Neh 4:21(15)Neh 9:23Job 3:9Job 9:7Job 22:12Job 25:5Job 38:7Psa 8:3(4)Psa 136:9Psa 147:4Psa 148:3Ecc 12:2Isa 13:10Isa 14:13Isa 47:13Jer 31:35Ezk 32:7Dan 8:10Dan 12:3Jol 2:10Jol 3:15(4:15)Amo 5:26Oba 1:4Nam 3:16
Compound of
Word studyResearch-gradeko-KHAHVnoun

What kokhav means

a star: one of the lights of the night sky, and by extension the heavenly bodies as a group.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Across the whole Hebrew Bible this word means one thing: a star. Every appearance can be carried by the plain English word, which is why the lexicons agree on a single gloss. What changes from place to place is not the meaning but the use the writer makes of it, and the range of those uses is unusually wide.

Stars in the Bible are first of all real lights that God made, hung in the sky, and counts and names one by one. From that bedrock the picture branches in several directions. Because they are countless, they become the standard image for descendants too many to number, the heart of the promise to Abraham. Because the ancient world treated them as living powers, the older poetry can still show them as members of God's heavenly court, fighting in his battles or singing at creation, even as other parts of the Bible flatly forbid worshiping them. And because a single bright star rising in the east is an image of glory and royal arrival, one famous line speaks of a star coming out of Jacob, a king on the horizon.

The same brightness runs the other way too. When God judges, the lights go out: sun, moon, and stars go dark, and the world seems to slide back toward the formless dark before creation. At the far end, the book of Daniel turns the image into hope, promising that the wise who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever.

So this is one word with one sense, stretched across creation, family, worship, kingship, and the end of days. The senses below sort those uses; they are facets of a single shining thing, not different words.

Nuances

1athe literal lights of the night sky: created bodies that God set in place, counts, and names, and a measure of his power and the world's order.
Gen 1:16Gen 37:9Neh 4:21(15)Job 3:9Job 9:7Job 22:12Job 25:5Psa 8:3(4)Psa 136:9Psa 147:4Ecc 12:2Jer 31:35
1ba picture of descendants too many to count: the promise of offspring as numerous as the stars.
Gen 15:5Gen 22:17Gen 26:4Exo 32:13Deu 1:10Deu 10:22Deu 28:621Ch 27:23Neh 9:23Nam 3:16
1cliving members of God's heavenly court: stars pictured as personal beings who fight, sing, or are called to praise alongside the angels.
Jdg 5:20Job 38:7Psa 148:3Isa 14:13Dan 8:10
1dforbidden objects of worship: stars treated as gods to bow to or read for omens, which the Bible repeatedly condemns.
Deu 4:19Isa 47:13Amo 5:26
1ea rising king: a single star coming out of Jacob, an image of a coming royal ruler.
Num 24:17
1fstars going dark in judgment: the heavenly lights failing on the day the LORD acts against the nations.
Isa 13:10Ezk 32:7Jol 2:10Jol 3:15(4:15)
1gthe shining glory of the wise: the raised righteous pictured as stars that shine forever.
Dan 12:3

What scholars say about kokhav

The standard lexicons (BDB, HALOT, Gesenius 18, DCH) agree on the single gloss "star," and the major treatment in TDOT (Clements) lays out a sevenfold classification of biblical uses: stars in creation; the multitude image of progeny; members of the heavenly host; forbidden cult objects; eschatological darkening; the ruler/messianic figure; and the shining wise. The noun is Common Semitic, reconstructed as Proto-Semitic *kabkab- (a reduplicated noun) and richly attested across Akkadian kakkabu, Ugaritic kbkb, Arabic kawkab, Aramaic, and Ge'ez, though the underlying verbal root (proposed as "burn/shine" by Moscati, "be round" by Militarev) remains conjectural. Two passages dominate the secondary literature. Most historical-critical commentators (Levine, Noth, Gray, Budd; with Ashley and Olson more cautious) read the "star out of Jacob" of Num 24:17 as a royal figure realized in David, a reading later developed messianically at Qumran (CD 7:18-21; the War Scroll), applied to Bar Kokhba, and taken up in Matthew and Revelation (Collins, Horbury, Novenson). The "Day Star, son of Dawn" of Isa 14:12 (which does not itself use this word but is its astral counterpoint) is read as a taunt against a historical Babylonian king; positions on its mythological background range from a specific Ugaritic Athtar myth (Craigie, Day, Gunkel) through generic celestial-revolt language (Wildberger, Blenkinsopp, Williamson) to a minimalist reading of a poetic title with no proper-name deity (Spronk, Heiser). Scholarship is unanimous that the patristic Satan/Lucifer identification (Origen, Tertullian, Jerome) is post-biblical. For the divine-council readings of Judg 5:20, Job 38:7, and Dan 8:10/12:3, the framework of Mark S. Smith (the stars as a subordinated heavenly host) and the commentaries of Pope, Clines, Habel, Collins, and Newsom now dominate. The astral-worship polemic (Deut 4:19; Amos 5:26; cf. 2 Kgs 17, 21, 23) is debated between an Assyrian-imposition thesis (Spieckermann) and an indigenous-syncretism thesis (Cogan, McKay), with the iconographic data of Keel and Uehlinger anchoring a current consensus of "real practice, theological framing"; Paul's identification of the Amos 5:26 names with the Akkadian astral deities Sakkut and Kaiwan (Saturn) is widely followed.

Where scholars disagree about kokhav

Who or what the "star out of Jacob" in Numbers 24:17 refers to.

  • majorityA royal figure first realized in King David, whose conquests match the peoples the oracle names; the language is hyperbolic but historically anchored, not originally messianic.; Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21-36, Anchor Bible 4A (2000), 225-75; Martin Noth, Numbers, OTL (1968), 192-94; George Buchanan Gray, Numbers, ICC (1903), 366-71
  • minorityGenerically royal imagery that was historically realized in David yet already carries the first indirect glints of messianic hope, open to the later anointed-deliverer reading.; Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers, NICOT (1993), 498-504; Jacob Milgrom, Numbers, JPS Torah Commentary (1990), Excursus 60

The mythological background of the falling "Day Star, son of Dawn" in Isaiah 14:12, the astral counterpoint to this word (the original taunt is aimed at a human king of Babylon, not, in its first sense, at a fallen angel).

  • contestedIt draws on a specific Canaanite myth of the morning-star god Athtar, who tries and fails to take the high god's throne.; John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, JSOTSup 265 (2000), 166-79; Peter C. Craigie, "Helel, Athtar and Phaethon (Jes 14:12-15)," ZAW 85 (1973): 223-25
  • contestedIt uses traditional language of a celestial revolt but cannot be tied to any single recoverable myth; the imagery is mythic in vocabulary yet generic in source.; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27, Continental Commentary (1997), 41-73; H. G. M. Williamson, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 1-27, vol. 2, ICC (2018)
  • contestedThere is no proper-name deity behind it; the shining one is simply a poetic title for the morning star (Venus), with no specific god-myth.; Michael S. Heiser, "The Mythological Provenance of Isaiah 14:12-15," Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 354-69; Klaas Spronk, "Down with Helel," in The Fall of the Angels (2004)
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, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), s.v. כּוֹכָבlexicon
  • Koehler-Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), 463lexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH) 4:166-67lexicon
  • R. E. Clements, "כּוֹכָב kôḵāḇ," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 7dictionary
  • Baruch A. Levine, Numbers 21-36, Anchor Bible 4A (2000), 225-75commentary
  • Timothy R. Ashley, The Book of Numbers, NICOT (1993), 498-504commentary
  • John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd ed. (2010)monograph
  • William Horbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (1998)monograph
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27, Continental Commentary (1997), 41-73commentary
  • Michael S. Heiser, "The Mythological Provenance of Isaiah 14:12-15," Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 354-69article
  • Henry Ansgar Kelly, Satan: A Biography (2006)monograph
  • Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (2001)monograph
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 38-42, WBC 18B (2011), 1098-1102commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (1993), 331-34, 393-94commentary
  • Shalom M. Paul, Amos, Hermeneia (1991), on 5:26commentary
  • Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel (1998)monograph
  • Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture (2004)monograph

All attested forms of כּוֹכָב

m p absolute

הַכּוֹכָבִים, וְכוֹכָבִים, כּוֹכָבִים, בַּכּוֹכָבִים, וְהַכּוֹכָבִים, כַּכּוֹכָבִים, לַכּוֹכָבִים

Gen 1:16, Gen 15:5, Deu 4:19, Jdg 5:20, Neh 4:21, Dan 8:10, Job 25:5, Psa 8:3

m p construct

כְּכוֹכְבֵי, כּוֹכְבֵי, כֹכְבֵי, לְכוֹכְבֵי, מִכּוֹכְבֵי

Gen 22:17, Gen 26:4, Exo 32:13, Deu 1:10, Deu 10:22, Deu 28:62, 1Ch 27:23, Job 3:9

m p construct

כֹּכְבֵיהֶם

Ezk 32:7

m s absolute

כּוֹכָב

Num 24:17

m s construct

כּוֹכַב

Amo 5:26