to be of benefit: to be worth something to the one who stands to gain
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Every appearance of this sense sits inside the arguments of the book of Job, and every one of them is an accounting question: does this actually pay? Eliphaz asks whether a human being can be of any benefit to God at all. Elihu quotes Job as claiming that a man gains nothing by keeping company with God. It is the verb you reach for when you want to know whether an action is worth the doing.
The parallel that pins the sense down is a second verb of gain (יָעַל), which stands right beside it in Job 15:3 and again in Job 35:3, saying the same thing a second way. Words that "do no good" and words that "bring no profit" are one complaint, not two.
What makes the sense pointed is who is on the receiving end. The question these speakers keep pressing is whether God gets anything out of human goodness, and the answer they expect is no. Read the lines as moves in a debate rather than as settled teaching, since they belong to Job's friends, whose speeches the book itself does not finally endorse.
Job 15:3Job 22:2 (2×)*Job 34:9Job 35:3
2
an attendant: a person kept close to a superior to look after him personally
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
This is the same idea turned into a person: the one who is of use. It names someone stationed beside a superior and trusted with what is private rather than public.
Two very different people carry the title. In 1 Kings a young woman named Abishag is brought to the aged David to lie beside him, keep him warm, and wait on him; the text calls her his attendant and then says plainly that she served him (שָׁרַת). In Isaiah the same word describes Shebna, the man in charge of the palace, whom the prophet confronts for carving himself a grand tomb in the rock. One looks after a body, the other runs a household, and Hebrew uses one word for both because both are personal servants of the king.
That range is why English versions scatter. Translators reach for "nurse," "attendant," "caretaker," "steward," and "treasurer," and no single English office covers both people.
Nuances
2aa personal attendant who cares for someone's body and daily comfort
1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4
2bthe officer who runs a royal household
TranslatabilityApproximate
Isa 22:15*
3
to be long familiar with: to know something by living with it rather than by hearing of it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
Where the other uses ask what a thing is worth, this one asks how long you have lived with it. The knowledge in view comes from repetition, not from report.
Balaam's donkey uses the word to defend herself: after all these years of carrying him, has she ever been in the habit of behaving this way? The psalmist uses it of God: every road he walks, God has kept pace with long enough to know it by heart. That is a warmer claim than saying God merely has the facts about him (יָדַע).
Job 22:21 turns the word into a command. Eliphaz tells Job to get on familiar terms with God and find peace, and this is the one occurrence readers have argued over for centuries.
Nuances
3ato be in the habit of doing something
Num 22:30 (2×)
3bto know a person or a life closely, through long acquaintance
It can name a person's standing job rather than a result: the young woman kept at the aged king's side to look after him, and the official put in charge of the palace household.1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4Isa 22:15
It reaches into being used to something by long habit, as when the donkey asks Balaam whether she has ever been in the habit of treating him this way.Num 22:30
It also covers close personal acquaintance: God knows the psalmist's paths the way one knows a person lived with, and Job is urged to get on familiar terms with God.Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Where it does mean benefit, the one who might gain is often God himself, and the point is that even a blameless life adds nothing to him.Job 22:2Job 34:9
Both
Both are used of words that get nowhere, standing side by side in one line where Eliphaz asks whether Job's arguing accomplishes anything at all.Job 15:3
Both name the payoff a person hopes to get from staying clean before God, paired in the complaint Elihu quotes back at Job.Job 35:3
Both live mostly inside questions and denials rather than in claims that something did any good, so each is a way of saying that the expected return never arrives.Job 21:15Job 22:2
Its subject is typically the thing people are counting on, and the verb is what exposes it as delivering nothing: a carved image, a hoard of ill-gotten money, a comforting message that is false.Hab 2:18Pro 10:2Jer 7:8
It is the prophets' standing verdict on false worship, repeated against the gods Israel ran after and against the foreign alliances they leaned on, always with the same answer that nothing came back.Jer 2:8Jer 2:11Isa 30:5Isa 44:9
It can also be said of God in the positive, as the one who teaches his people what will actually do them good, so the word is not locked into denial.Isa 48:17
שָׁרַתthe act of waiting on someone, naming what a servant does rather than the standing position he holds.
Only H5532 asks whether a person is of any actual profit or advantage to someone else. Job and his friends use it to argue over what, if anything, a human life gains for God or for the man himself.Job 15:3Job 22:2Job 34:9Job 35:3
Only H5532 covers long familiarity, the settled habit of a creature or a life someone knows through and through. Balaam's donkey has never been in the habit of throwing him, and God is intimately acquainted with every path the psalmist takes.Num 22:30Psa 139:3
H5532 can name the senior official who manages a royal household, a post of authority over an estate rather than personal waiting on someone. Shebna is called the "steward" who is over the palace.Isa 22:15
Both
Both words describe waiting personally on a king, and one verse uses them of the same woman: Abishag is brought to be the king's attendant and then she waits on him. The overlap is close enough that either word can carry that scene.1Ki 1:41Ki 1:21Ki 1:15
H8334 is the standard word for worship service at the sanctuary. Priests wear their vestments to minister in the holy place, and a whole tribe is set apart to stand before the LORD and do this work.Exo 28:35Num 3:6Deu 10:8Deu 18:5
H8334 names the trusted personal aide of a named leader, the man who attends his master over years, runs his affairs and often succeeds him. Joshua is this to Moses, Elisha to Elijah, Joseph to Potiphar.Exo 24:13Jos 1:11Ki 19:21Gen 39:4
H8334 became a fixed label for the equipment of worship itself, so vessels and garments are identified by the service they are used for rather than by what they look like.Exo 35:19Num 4:12Num 4:142Ki 25:14
יָדַעthe broad verb for knowing anything at all, without the added idea of knowledge built up by long habit.
Names being of use, doing somebody actual good, which is the point Job's friends press when they ask what profit a man's righteousness brings God.Job 22:2Job 34:9Job 35:3Job 15:3
Describes the standing role of a personal attendant or household steward, someone assigned to wait on another and manage his affairs.1Ki 1:2Isa 22:15
Points to a settled habit of behaving a certain way over years, as when Balaam's donkey asks whether it has ever been in the habit of treating him like this.Num 22:30
Both
Both can name a deep familiarity with a person and his ways, the kind built up by long closeness rather than picked up at once. Psalm 139 puts them side by side for God's intimate knowledge of one man.Psa 139:1Psa 139:2Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Covers knowing of every kind: facts and skills, knowing God, and God's own choosing knowledge of a person or a nation.Jer 1:5Amo 3:2Exo 33:17
Serves as the Bible's quiet way of speaking about sexual intimacy between a man and a woman, both when it happens and when it pointedly does not.Gen 4:11Ki 1:4
Can name knowledge that arrives in a single moment of discovery, whether an eye-opening realization or a hard lesson taught by experience.Gen 3:7Hos 13:5
sakhan in the other biblical languages
ὠφελέωGreek“to help”the Greek verb for doing someone good or being of profit, the closest counterpart to the benefit sense.
Names a person whose actual job is looking after someone: the official set over a royal household, or an attendant assigned to care for an aging king.Isa 22:151Ki 1:21Ki 1:4
Covers long familiarity rather than benefit: knowing a road, an animal, or a person so well through habit that nothing about them is a surprise.Num 22:30Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Both
Both ask the plain practical question of whether something does anyone any good, with a person named as the one who gains or fails to gain.Job 22:21Co 14:6
Both turn up mostly in the negative, stripping away a value people had assumed was there, whether in words spoken or in practices carefully kept.Job 15:3Heb 13:9
Both weigh a whole life before God on this scale, asking what a person finally gains by the way he lives.Job 34:9Mat 16:26
Covers bodily improvement: it is the word for whether a sick person actually got better under treatment.Mrk 5:26
Can turn the sentence around and put the person helped in the spotlight, so the question becomes what someone got out of a gift or a practice rather than what the gift or practice is worth.Mat 15:5Mrk 7:11Heb 13:9
Measures whether an effort already underway is getting anywhere, used of a tactic that is producing no result at all.Mat 27:24Jhn 12:19
οἰκονόμοςGreek“manager”the Greek term for the manager of a household, close to the palace officer sense.
Its most common use is not about managing anything at all but about being worth something, asking whether an action actually pays and whether God gains any profit from a person's good conduct.Job 15:3Job 22:2Job 34:9Job 35:3
Can mean being long familiar with something, knowing it from years of living with it: a donkey's lifelong habit with her rider, and God's close acquaintance with every road a person walks.Num 22:30Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Covers bodily care given to a person rather than charge of his goods, as with the young woman brought to lie beside the aged king and keep him warm.1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4
Both
Both can name the trusted official set over a great household: Shebna, the man in charge of the palace, and the manager put over the master's servants to give them their food at the proper time.Isa 22:15Luk 12:42
Always names a person holding a post of delegated authority over a master's property and over the other servants, with power to hand out the household rations, settle the debts owed to the owner, and be dismissed from the job.Luk 12:42Luk 16:1Luk 16:3
Carries a built in reckoning: the man handles what is not his and will answer to the owner for it, so the one thing asked of him is that he be found trustworthy.1Co 4:2Luk 16:8Tit 1:7
Reaches beyond a private household into public and legal office, naming the city's own money manager and the trustees who run a young heir's estate until the day his father set.Rom 16:23Gal 4:2
Becomes a picture of the Christian life, where believers and leaders are managers of what God has put in their hands, whether his revealed secrets or the varied gifts given to each person.1Co 4:11Pe 4:10
οἰκονομίαGreek“management”the Greek word for the running of a household as a task or an office, where the Hebrew names the person who holds the post.
Carries the plain idea of being useful or doing someone good, as in the repeated question in Job of whether a person can be of any profit to God.Job 22:2Job 34:9Job 35:3
Describes being long familiar or in the habit of something, knowing it from close acquaintance rather than managing it.Num 22:30Psa 139:3
Can mean personal attendance and care given to someone, waiting on a person and keeping him warm rather than running his estate.1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4
Both
Both can name the trusted official set over a great household: the Hebrew word marks Shebna the palace steward put in charge of the house, and the Greek word names that very office and the work it involves.Isa 22:15Luk 16:2
Reaches beyond a single household to name how God himself runs and arranges his whole saving purpose across history, a grand sense the Hebrew word never developed.Eph 1:10Eph 3:9Col 1:25
Names a formal commission or office handed to a person who must answer to the owner for it, the entrusted job of managing affairs.Luk 16:21Co 9:17
ἔθωGreek“to have a custom”the Greek verb for having a settled custom, matching the habit sense.
Carries a sense of being useful or bringing profit to someone, which drives the argument in Job over whether any human being can actually benefit God.Job 22:2Job 34:9Job 35:3
Describes the person who serves close at hand, whether the young woman appointed to attend the aged king or the official set over the royal household.1Ki 1:21Ki 1:4Isa 22:15
Extends from habit to intimate knowledge of someone: God is said to know a person's ways through long, close familiarity, and Job is urged to become familiar with God in the same way.Psa 139:3Job 22:21
Both
Both describe what someone has done often enough that it is now expected of them, a settled practice rather than a one time act, and both appeal to that track record to make sense of present behavior.Num 22:30Mrk 10:1Luk 4:16
Names the settled custom of a particular person or office, cited as the background that explains a specific action: the governor's practice of releasing a prisoner at the feast, or the teaching Jesus took up again as he always had.Mat 27:15Mrk 10:1
Marks a regular religious habit as something publicly known and repeated week by week, so a reader can expect the same behavior the next time: sabbath attendance at the synagogue by Jesus and later by Paul.Luk 4:16Act 17:2
What scholars say about sakhan
The lexica divide over whether this is one root or several. BDB treats a single סָכַן I "be of use, service, benefit," with the Qal participle yielding "steward" at Isa 22:15 and "stewardess, nurse" at 1 Kgs 1:2, 4, and the Hiphil yielding "be used, wont, accustomed"; a separate סָכַן II covers the "be poor, be endangered" material at Isa 40:20 and Eccl 10:9, which lies outside the twelve occurrences catalogued here. HALOT and DCH instead set out homonymous roots, keeping the verb of profit, the officeholder term, and the Hiphil of habituation apart. The officeholder term has long been compared with a widely attested title for a high official in the Amarna correspondence and in Ugaritic administrative texts, which would make Isa 22:15 a borrowed office name rather than a native participle; the comparison itself is well established even where the derivation is not agreed. On the Qal, the four Job occurrences are secured by their parallelism with יָעַל (Job 15:3; 35:3), and Clines treats the usage as belonging to the disputational arithmetic of the friends' speeches. Wildberger discusses the rank implied by הַסֹּכֵן at Isa 22:15 in relation to the parallel title אֲשֶׁר עַל הַבָּיִת, and Cogan reviews the function of the סֹכֶנֶת in the succession narrative of 1 Kgs 1. Job 22:21 remains the most disputed occurrence: the Hiphil imperative with עִם has been read both as "become familiar with him" and as "come to terms with, submit to him," the latter reading strengthened for some by Eliphaz's use of the Qal profit verb earlier in the same speech at 22:2.
Where scholars disagree about sakhan
Whether the verb of profit, the term for a personal attendant, and the verb of habitual familiarity are one Hebrew root or two or three separate words that happen to be spelled alike.
contestedOne root. The basic sense is being of use, from which both the participle naming a personal servant and the causative sense of being accustomed follow.; BDB, s.v. סָכַן
contestedSeparate homonymous roots, with the officeholder term in particular treated as a borrowed administrative title rather than a participle of the verb of profit.; HALOT, s.v. סכן; DCH, s.v. סכן
Sources
BDB, s.v. סָכַןlexicon
HALOT, s.v. סכןlexicon
DCH, s.v. סכןlexicon
David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37, Word Biblical Commentary 18A (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006)commentary
Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 13-27, Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997)commentary
Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Bible 10 (New York: Doubleday, 2001)commentary