StrongerBible

naḥash

נָחַשׁ

HebrewH5172“practice divination, interpret omens, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 30:27Gen 44:5 (2×)Gen 44:15 (2×)Lev 19:26Deu 18:101Ki 20:332Ki 17:172Ki 21:62Ch 33:6
Word studyResearch-gradenaw-KHASHverb

What naḥash means

to practice divination: to look for a sign, or take something as a sign, that tells what is hidden or what is coming

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word does not name one particular method of fortune-telling. It is the general Hebrew verb for going after a sign, for treating something in the world as a message about what is hidden or what lies ahead. What the sign actually is has to be filled in from the story around it:

  • a silver cup that Joseph is said to read for answers
  • whatever Laban did to find out that God was blessing him because of Jacob
  • a stray word an Israelite king let slip in front of enemy envoys
  • the whole bundle of banned practices that the law sweeps together

Because the word is that broad, it stretches from a deliberate ritual at one end to plain watchfulness at the other. At the deliberate end stands Joseph's cup, an object kept for the purpose. At the far end stand the envoys of Ben-Hadad, who have no equipment at all: they hear Ahab call their master his brother, decide the word is a good sign, and pounce on it. Both are this same verb.

In the lists of forbidden arts the word loses whatever technical edge it had and works as a blanket term, stacked beside other words for fortune-telling (עָנַן) and sorcery (כָּשַׁף) so that the whole field is condemned at once.

The Bible's two ways of speaking about the practice look like a contradiction and are not. In the stories it is described without comment, and everyone who does it is a foreigner or is passing as one: Laban the Aramean, Joseph dressed as an Egyptian, the envoys of an Aramean king. In the law it is flatly forbidden, and in the histories it is one of the crimes that bring the kingdom down. Deuteronomy 18:14 states the logic plainly: the nations do this, and Israel is not to. The practice is not harmless in one place and wicked in another. It is being marked out as something that belongs to everyone except Israel, who is given prophets instead.

Nuances

1ato seek an answer deliberately, through a practice or an object kept for that purpose
Gen 30:27Gen 44:5 (2×)Gen 44:15 (2×)
Gen 30:27

Whether Laban is describing an act of divination or only saying that he came to realize it.

  • majorityLaban means real divination. He is an Aramean who keeps household oracle figures, and the scene shows a pagan diviner forced to admit that the God of Jacob is behind his own prosperity.; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary 2), on 30:27; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary), on 30:27; Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (NICOT), on 30:27; John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (ICC), on 30:27
  • minorityLaban means something looser, that he has found out or come to know it, which is how the older lexicography and the King James rendering "I have learned by experience" take the verse.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. II נחשׁ
1bto treat something that simply happens, a chance word or a turn of events, as a sign worth acting on
1Ki 20:33
1cdivination as a whole, named in the lists of banned practices as a blanket term rather than one particular act
TranslatabilityApproximate
Lev 19:26Deu 18:102Ki 17:172Ki 21:62Ch 33:6

What scholars say about naḥash

Lexicography on this root has moved steadily away from the nineteenth-century derivation from נָחָשׁ "serpent". BDB still files the divination verb as a separate homograph (II נחשׁ) while reporting the denominative view of Noeldeke, Baudissin, Lagarde and Gerber, and it registers the objection that later proved decisive: Aramaic has the divinatory root but not the serpent noun. HALOT lists the divination verb, the serpent noun and the bronze noun as three unrelated homographs and prefers Arabic naḥisa / naḥs "be ill-omened, misfortune" as the external cognate; the eighteenth edition of Gesenius abandons the older onomatopoeic derivation and follows suit; DCH declines etymology altogether and inventories the piel occurrences and their collocations (קסם, ענן, כשׁף, אוב, ידעני); TDOT states flatly that there is no discernible connection with the serpent noun, since serpents have no mantic associations in Israel. Akkadian naḫāšu means "to prosper", and Ugaritic nḥš is the serpent, both telling against a proto-Semitic root meaning "to divine". On semantics the specialist literature converges independently of etymology: Cryer, Jeffers (whose section heading is "Měnaḥeš: One Who Observes Omens") and Schmitt all treat the piel as a generic term for omen-observation rather than any single -mancy, its referent supplied by context: lecanomancy or hydromancy with the cup in Genesis 44 (Sarna, Hamilton), sacrificial omens in the Balaam cycle, and cledonomancy in 1 Kings 20:33, where Cogan compares Mesopotamian egerrû and Greek κληδών. Milgrom, Levine, Hartley and Tigay read the prohibition lists as stereotyped merisms flattening real technical distinctions, with Deuteronomy 18:14 supplying the theological logic that the nations divine and Israel has prophecy; Cogan and Tadmor show that Manasseh's crimes in 2 Kings 21:6 are scripted to echo Deuteronomy 18:10-11 nearly point for point, and the Chronicler adds כשׁף to intensify the indictment. The Septuagint's regular οἰωνίζομαι technicalizes as bird-augury a Hebrew term that was already semantically diffuse.

Where scholars disagree about naḥash

Whether the divining verb and the common Hebrew word for a snake are one root or two unrelated words that happen to be spelled alike.

  • majorityThey are separate words. The resemblance is an accident of spelling that Hebrew writers could play on, and the divining verb is best linked to an Arabic word for being ill-omened. Snakes carried no fortune-telling role in Israel, and Aramaic kept this verb while using an entirely different word for serpent.; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. נחשׁ I; TDOT, vol. 9, s.v. נָחַשׁ (niḥēš), 356ff.; Frederick H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment (JSOTSup 142; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994); Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 74-78; Ruediger Schmitt, Mantik im Alten Testament (AOAT 411; Muenster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014)
  • minorityThe verb derives from the word for serpent, so the practice it names began as watching or listening to snakes.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. II נחשׁ (reporting Noeldeke, Baudissin, Lagarde, Gerber); Samuel Bochart, Hierozoicon (1663); W. Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889)
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, s.v. II נחשׁlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. נחשׁ Ilexicon
  • David J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 5, s.v. נחשׁlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebraeisches und Aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch ueber das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (Meyer, Donner, Rueterswoerden), s.v. נחשׁlexicon
  • TDOT, vol. 9, s.v. נָחַשׁ (niḥēš), 356ff.theological-dictionary
  • Frederick H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment (JSOTSup 142; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994)monograph
  • Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 74-78monograph
  • Ruediger Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament (AOAT 313; Muenster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2004), 107-122monograph
  • Ruediger Schmitt, Mantik im Alten Testament (AOAT 411; Muenster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014)monograph
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary), on 18:9-14commentary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A), on 19:26commentary
  • Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary), on 44:5commentary
  • Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (NICOT), on 44:5commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary 2), on 30:27 and 44:5commentary
  • Mordechai Cogan, 1 Kings (Anchor Bible 10), on 20:33commentary
  • Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings (Anchor Bible 11), on 21:6commentary
  • Sara Japhet, I and II Chronicles (Old Testament Library), on 33:6commentary
  • Duane E. Smith, "The Divining Snake," Journal of Biblical Literature 134/1 (2015): 31-49journal-article

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

All attested forms of נָחַשׁ

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְנִחֵשׁ

2Ki 21:6, 2Ch 33:6

piel imperfect 3ms

יְנַחֵשׁ

Gen 44:5, Gen 44:15

piel infinitive-construct construct

נַחֵשׁ

Gen 44:5, Gen 44:15

niphal perfect 1cs

נִחַשְׁתִּי

Gen 30:27

piel consecutive-imperfect 3mp

וַיְנַחֵשׁוּ

2Ki 17:17

piel imperfect 2mp

תְנַחֲשׁוּ

Lev 19:26

piel imperfect 3mp

יְנַחֲשׁוּ

1Ki 20:33

piel participle m s absolute

מְנַחֵשׁ

Deu 18:10