StrongerBible

sukh

סוּךְ

HebrewH5480anoint, put on lotions, ...

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 28:40Rut 3:32Sa 12:202Sa 14:22Ch 28:15Ezk 16:9Dan 10:3 (2×)Mic 6:15
Root family
Word studySOOKHverb

What sukh means

to rub oil on skin: the everyday oiling of a body, not a ceremony.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This is the plain word for putting oil on skin. In a hot, dry country oil kept a body from cracking and left it looking and smelling cared for, so oiling yourself belonged with bathing and getting dressed. That fixed order shows up whenever someone steps back into ordinary life: David gets up off the ground, washes, oils himself, and changes his clothes. Naomi tells Ruth to do the same three things before she goes down to the threshing floor.

Because the oil was that ordinary, going without it said something. A person in mourning left it alone, which is why Joab tells the woman from Tekoa to put on mourning clothes and skip the oil, and why Daniel records that he used none for three weeks. The prophets turn the same habit into a threat: Deuteronomy promises olive trees across the whole land and still no oil to rub on, because the fruit will drop before it can be used, and Micah says much the same of a people who will tread out their olives and go without anyway.

The oiling can also be done to someone else, and there it is an act of care for a body that has been neglected. God bathes the abandoned child of Ezekiel's parable and then oils her. The northern leaders who send their Judean captives home clothe them, feed them, and oil them. In neither place does the oil give anyone a rank; it simply tends a body.

Keep this word apart from מָשַׁח, the verb for the anointing that sets a king, a priest, or a holy object apart for God. That one makes a person "an anointed one." This one just gets oil on skin.

Nuances

1ato oil your own body, as part of washing and dressing
Deu 28:40Rut 3:32Sa 12:202Sa 14:2Dan 10:3 (2×)Mic 6:15
1bto oil someone else's body, as care given to them
2Ch 28:15Ezk 16:9

What scholars say about sukh

The standard lexica treat סוּךְ as the verb of ordinary, non-cultic anointing of the body with oil, over against מָשַׁח, which carries the consecratory anointing of kings, priests, and cultic objects (BDB, HALOT, DCH, s.v.). The nine occurrences are semantically uniform: every one describes oil applied to human skin, six of them reflexively without an object and two with a personal object suffix (Ezekiel 16:9; 2 Chronicles 28:15). The Hiphil וַיָּסֶךְ of 2 Samuel 12:20 is read by BDB and HALOT as equivalent in force to the Qal rather than as a true causative, and the Septuagint renders both stems with ἀλείφω, the verb it reserves for non-cultic anointing while using χρίω for מָשַׁח.

The reflexive uses divide by context, not by sense. Four are negated. Two stand in the futility curses of Deuteronomy 28:40 and Micah 6:15, where the olive harvest fails to yield usable oil; two belong to recognized rites of grief and self-denial, Joab's instruction to the woman of Tekoa (2 Samuel 14:2) and Daniel's three-week abstinence (Daniel 10:3). Seybold's TDOT article on מָשַׁח lays out the division of labor between the two verbs, and Kutsch's monograph treats מָשַׁח as a legal and installatory act, which is precisely the function סוּךְ never carries. Zimmerli reads the washing and oiling of Ezekiel 16:9 within the imagery of a foundling raised and then taken as a bride, so the anointing there remains bodily care rather than investiture.

One textual question sits at the edge of the entry. The Hophal form יִיסָךְ of Exodus 30:32 is catalogued as a separate lexeme (H3251, יָסַךְ, "to pour"), but BDB proposes reading it as יוּסַךְ from סוּךְ, while others assign it to נָסַךְ. Because the assignment is disputed, that verse is not counted among the occurrences here.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. סוּךְlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. סוּךְlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. סוּךְlexicon
  • K. Seybold, "māšaḥ," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 9theological-dictionary
  • Ernst Kutsch, Salbung als Rechtsakt im Alten Testament und im Alten Orient, BZAW 87 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1963)monograph
  • Edward F. Campbell Jr., Ruth, Anchor Bible 7 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975)commentary
  • P. Kyle McCarter Jr., II Samuel, Anchor Bible 9 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984)commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979)commentary
  • Delbert R. Hillers, Micah, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993)commentary

All attested forms of סוּךְ

qal imperfect 2ms

תָסוּךְ

Deu 28:40, Mic 6:15

hiphil consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיָּסֶךְ

2Sa 12:20

qal consecutive-imperfect 1cs

וָאֲסֻכֵ

Ezk 16:9

qal consecutive-imperfect 3mp

וַיְסֻכוּ

2Ch 28:15

qal consecutive-perfect 2fs

וָסַכְתְּ

Rut 3:3

qal infinitive-construct construct

וְסוֹךְ

Dan 10:3

qal jussive 2fs

תָּסוּכִי

2Sa 14:2

qal perfect 1cs

סָכְתִּי

Dan 10:3