StrongerBible

sadin

סָדִין

HebrewH5466“sheets, linen garments, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jdg 14:12Jdg 14:13Pro 31:24Isa 3:23
Word studyResearch-gradesah-DEENnoun

What sadin means

a linen wrap: a large rectangle of fine linen worn draped around the body, and traded as a costly cloth

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word names an object, not a quality of fabric. It is a single large rectangle of fine linen with no tailoring: no sleeves to fit, no seams to shape. You draped it around yourself. Because it was one plain shape, it could do several jobs, and that flexibility is why English translators have never settled on a single word for it. Worn by day it was an outer covering; at night it could be the only thing a person slept in; in later centuries the same rectangle served as a bedsheet, a screen, or a burial cloth.

All four appearances put it among expensive things:

  • Samson stakes thirty of them, along with thirty changes of clothing, on his wedding riddle
  • the capable woman of Proverbs makes them and sells them to the Phoenician trader
  • Isaiah lists them among the finery God will strip from the well dressed women of Jerusalem

Records from outside the Bible fill in the picture. Assyrian palace inventories list the same item among luxury goods, and one was carried off from an Egyptian royal treasury as war spoil. Linen cost far more than wool, which was the everyday fabric, so this was a genuine luxury, though not the very top of the range. Proverbs 31 makes that clear in two lines: the woman dresses her own household in the finest imported linen (שֵׁשׁ) while the linen wraps she weaves are the goods she sells.

Its afterlife runs far longer than its four verses. The old Greek translators used a word (σινδών) for it that the Gospels later use for the cloth Jesus was buried in, and Jewish teachers from the rabbis onward use the Hebrew word for everything from a bedsheet to a prayer shawl to a shroud.

Jdg 14:12Jdg 14:13Pro 31:24Isa 3:23

Disputed

Whether the word names a fitted linen undergarment worn next to the bare body, or a large rectangular linen wrap flexible enough to be worn over other clothing, slept in, or spread as a sheet.

  • majorityA large rectangular piece of fine linen of flexible use, worn as an outer garment or, at night, as the sole garment. The rabbinic evidence and the Neo-Assyrian palace material both support this.; BDB, s.v. סָדִין, p. 690, citing G. F. Moore, Judges (ICC, 1895), on 14:12; HALOT, vol. 2, s.v. סָדִין; DCH, vol. 6, s.v. סָדִין; R. Meyer, H. Donner & U. Rüterswörden (eds.), Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed., s.v. סָדִין
  • minoritySpecifically an undergarment of fine linen worn on the bare body beneath the other clothes.; W. Gesenius, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. S. P. Tregelles, s.v. סָדִין; Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12: A Continental Commentary, trans. T. H. Trapp (Fortress, 1991), on 3:18 to 24

What scholars say about sadin

The four attestations (Judges 14:12, 13; Proverbs 31:24; Isaiah 3:23) are read by the modern commentary tradition as one referent. Boling, Butler, and Block take the Judges pairing with חֲלִיפוֹת בְּגָדִים as a complete outfit, the finer linen piece plus a heavier festal overgarment, a standard Near Eastern gift category (compare Naaman's changes of garments in 2 Kings 5); Butler notes the Septuagint A-text σινδόνας against B-text ὀθόνια, both pointing to fine linen. Waltke and Fox read Proverbs 31:24 as wholesale production for the Phoenician trade, Fox observing that Proverbs distinguishes סָדִין from the שֵׁשׁ of v. 22, a distinction the Septuagint obscures by using σινδών for both. Blenkinsopp, Wildberger, Roberts, Watts, and Kaiser identify the Isaiah 3:23 plural as an upper class Judahite woman's fine linen wrap, while the Septuagint there renders τὰ διαφανῆ Λακωνικά, evidence that the Alexandrian translator took it for a sheer status garment. The Vulgate (sindones), Targum, and Peshitta (סְדִינָא, ܣܕܘܢܐ) converge on a specific piece of fine linen. Comparative evidence is unusually full: Akkadian saddinnu / šaddinnu from the Middle Assyrian period onward (CAD S; von Soden, AHw), Ugaritic sdn (Watson), and Jewish Aramaic, Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic cognates. Gaspa's Neo-Assyrian textile work documents šaddīnu as an elite linen upper garment for men and women in palace inventories, and among Esarhaddon's booty from Taharqa's treasury at Memphis, where one list qualifies it as a šaddīnu of byssus. On the Greek side, Lewy, Masson, Frisk, Chantraine (who calls σινδών a certain Semitic loan), Mankowski, and Kaufman derive the Greek from Semitic, while Beekes, Furnée, Watson, and Gaspa prefer a shared Near Eastern culture word of probably Anatolian or Hurrian origin that reached Akkadian, West Semitic, and Greek along textile trade routes; the Sanskrit síndhu derivation is rejected by Mayrhofer, Chantraine, and Beekes. Rabbinic usage (Kelim 24:13 to 14; Kilayim 9:3 with b. Menaḥot 40a to 41a; Yoma 3:4; b. Moed Katan 27b) attests the same object as bedsheet, tallit sized wrap, curtain, and shroud, and supports the flexible wrap reading over the older Gesenius gloss. TDOT carries no article on the term.

Where scholars disagree about sadin

How the Hebrew word and the Greek σινδών are related: whether Greek borrowed the word from a Semitic language, or whether both go back to a shared non-Semitic Near Eastern source.

  • contestedGreek σινδών is a borrowing from Semitic, the Hebrew word itself deriving from Akkadian saddinnu. This has been the standard account since the late nineteenth century.; Heinrich Lewy, Die semitischen Fremdwörter im Griechischen (Berlin, 1895), pp. 84-85; Émilia Masson, Recherches sur les plus anciens emprunts sémitiques en grec (Klincksieck, 1967), pp. 25-26; Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Klincksieck, 1968), s.v. σινδών; Paul V. Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (Harvard Semitic Studies 47; Eisenbrauns, 2000), pp. 109-10
  • contestedA culture word from a third source, probably Anatolian or Hurrian, which spread independently into Akkadian, West Semitic, and Greek. This better explains the Greek vowel and the extra nasal that a direct borrowing leaves unaccounted for.; Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Brill, 2010), s.v. σινδών, pp. 1333-34; Edmond Furnée, Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen (Mouton, 1972), p. 273; Wilfred G. E. Watson, "Semitic and Non-Semitic Terms for Horse-Trappings in Ugaritic," Aula Orientalis 29 (2011): 155-176; Salvatore Gaspa, "Garments, Parts of Garments, and Textile Techniques in the Assyrian Terminology" (Zea Books, 2017), pp. 59-60
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. סָדִין, p. 690lexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), vol. 2, s.v. סָדִיןlexicon
  • DCH (D. J. A. Clines, ed.), Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 6, s.v. סָדִיןlexicon
  • R. Meyer, H. Donner & U. Rüterswörden (eds.), Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (Springer, 1987ff.), s.v. סָדִיןlexicon
  • R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer & B. K. Waltke (eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, no. 1466theological-dictionary
  • W. A. VanGemeren (ed.), New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 3, s.v. סָדִיןtheological-dictionary
  • Robert G. Boling, Judges (Anchor Bible 6A; Doubleday, 1975), on 14:12commentary
  • Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth (New American Commentary 6; Broadman & Holman, 1999), on 14:12 to 13commentary
  • Trent C. Butler, Judges (Word Biblical Commentary 8; Nelson, 2009), on 14:12commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 15-31 (NICOT; Eerdmans, 2005), on 31:24, pp. 528-29commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Yale Bible 18B; Yale, 2009), on 31:24commentary
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 1-12: A Continental Commentary, trans. T. H. Trapp (Fortress, 1991), on 3:18 to 24commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39 (Anchor Bible 19; Doubleday, 2000), on 3:23commentary
  • Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque (Klincksieck, 1968), s.v. σινδών, p. 1005blexicon
  • Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Brill, 2010), s.v. σινδών, pp. 1333-34lexicon
  • Émilia Masson, Recherches sur les plus anciens emprunts sémitiques en grec (Klincksieck, 1967), pp. 25-26monograph
  • Heinrich Lewy, Die semitischen Fremdwörter im Griechischen (Berlin, 1895), pp. 84-85monograph
  • Paul V. Mankowski, Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew (Harvard Semitic Studies 47; Eisenbrauns, 2000), pp. 109-10monograph
  • Stephen A. Kaufman, The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Assyriological Studies 19; University of Chicago, 1974)monograph
  • Salvatore Gaspa, "Garments, Parts of Garments, and Textile Techniques in the Assyrian Terminology," in S. Gaspa, C. Michel & M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD (Zea Books, 2017), pp. 47-90, esp. 59-60essay
  • Wilfred G. E. Watson, "Semitic and Non-Semitic Terms for Horse-Trappings in Ugaritic," Aula Orientalis 29 (2011): 155-176journal-article
  • Christine Roy Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1-9 and 31:10-31 (BZAW 304; De Gruyter, 2001)monograph
  • Carol Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (Oxford, 2013)monograph
  • Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, pp. 956-57, s.v. סָדִיןdictionary
  • Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic and A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, s.v. סדינאdictionary

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

All attested forms of סָדִין

m p absolute

סְדִינִים, סְּדִינִים

Jdg 14:12, Jdg 14:13, Isa 3:23

m s absolute

סָדִין

Pro 31:24