StrongerBible

anan

עָנַן

HebrewH6049“soothsayer, fortune-teller, ...”

Appears 11 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 9:14Lev 19:26Deu 18:10Deu 18:14Jdg 9:372Ki 21:62Ch 33:6Isa 2:6Isa 57:3Jer 27:9Mic 5:12(11)
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Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradeaw-NANverb

What anan means

1

to bring clouds over the earth: to gather cloud cover across the sky

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Hebrew has a verb built straight out of its noun for "cloud" (עָנָן), and this is it: to bring cloud over a place. It appears exactly once, in God's promise to Noah after the flood, and there the verb and the noun stand right next to each other, something like "when I cloud a cloud over the earth."

The doubling is the point. Gathering clouds had just meant the end of the world; in the promise, the very same gathering becomes the setting where the rainbow shows up. English translations smooth the repetition into "when I bring clouds over the earth," which says the same thing but loses a small piece of deliberate craft.

This verb has nothing to do with the much more common word spelled exactly the same way, which means to practice soothsaying. Standard reference works treat them as two separate words that happen to look alike.

Gen 9:14
2

to practice soothsaying: to work as one particular kind of banned diviner, whose technique the Bible never describes

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This is one of several Hebrew words for the forbidden arts of telling the future, and it almost never appears on its own. It travels in fixed company: the omen reader (נָחַשׁ), the lot caster and general diviner (קָסַם), the sorcerer (כָּשַׁף), and the people who consult the dead. Every one of its ten uses sits inside such a list or such an accusation.

Those uses fall three ways, though they all describe one thing seen from different angles:

  • three times the word names the act itself, banned in Israel's law and charged against her worst kings
  • six times it names the person, a soothsayer among the specialists Israel was to drive out or the neighbors she was not to copy
  • once it survives inside a place name, the Diviners' Oak near Shechem

One detail worth noticing: at Isaiah 57:3 the word is feminine, so a woman could evidently hold the job, or at least be insulted with the title.

What the Bible never does is describe the technique. The writers name these people in order to forbid them, not to explain them, and by the time the Hebrew was translated into Greek a few centuries later the specific meaning had already gone: the ancient translators reached for whatever general word for divination came to hand, and no two passages came out alike. The strongest modern proposal is that the word originally meant to hum or drone, so that this diviner was a mutterer who delivered oracles in a low chant. It fits the company the word keeps and the way the Bible elsewhere describes spirit mediums as chirping and muttering, but it remains a proposal rather than a finding, and the standard lexicons decline to choose among four rival explanations.

Nuances

2ato practice this soothsaying, forbidden in Israel's law and charged against kings who took it up
Lev 19:262Ki 21:62Ch 33:6
2ba soothsayer: the practitioner, named among the banned specialists of Canaan and of Israel's neighbors
Deu 18:10Deu 18:14Isa 2:6Isa 57:3Jer 27:9Mic 5:12(11)
Isa 57:3

Whether the feminine form at Isaiah 57:3 preserves a genuine title for a woman soothsayer, or is only abuse aimed at the prophet's opponents.

  • contestedA real professional title, comparable to the Akkadian title for a woman consulted for oracles, and evidence that women were prominent in popular Judahite divination.; Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66 (Eerdmans Critical Commentary, 2012), on 57:3
  • contestedA term of abuse, grouping the addressees with adulterers and prostitutes rather than pointing to an actual office.
2cin the place name Diviners' Oak, a landmark on the road near Shechem
TranslatabilityUntranslatable
Jdg 9:37
Jdg 9:37

Whether the Diviners' Oak at Shechem attests divination practiced at a sacred tree, or is a fossilized place name with no live cultic referent.

  • contestedA real cult site: tree divination was practiced there, in line with the other sacred trees remembered around Shechem.; Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Brill, 1996), 78-81; Robert G. Boling, Judges (Anchor Bible 6A, 1975), 178; J. Alberto Soggin, Judges (Old Testament Library, 1981), 190-191
  • contestedA place name only, preserving no living practice at the time of the narrative.; Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996), Excursus 18

Disputed

What practice the word actually names, given that the Hebrew Bible forbids it without ever describing it.

  • majorityA low humming or muttering of oracular formulae, so that the practitioner was in effect a chanter or crooner; compared with the chirping and muttering necromancers of Isaiah 8:19 and supported by the Greek rendering at Micah 5:11 [ET 5:12].; W. Robertson Smith, On the Forms of Divination and Magic Enumerated in Deut. XVIII 10, 11, Journal of Philology 13 (1885): 273-287; 14 (1885): 113-128; Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996), 172-173 and Excursus 18; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A, 2000), 1685-1686; Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Brill, 1996), 78-81; Rudiger Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament (AOAT 313, 2004), 91-99
  • minorityThe interpretation of sudden ominous appearances, from an Arabic verb meaning to appear or present oneself; the practitioner is a dealer in phenomena.; Lothar Kopf, Arabische Etymologien und Parallelen zum Bibelworterbuch, Vetus Testamentum 8 (1958): 190; Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (1987), s.v.; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. ענן II (option 2)
  • minorityObservation of clouds or of atmospheric and celestial signs, keeping the connection with the noun for cloud, understood broadly rather than as strict cloud reading.; Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), 133
  • minorityNo distinct technique at all: the term is one label inside a sweeping polemical catalogue whose purpose is to ban every form of divination, so the individual titles should not be reified into separate professional guilds.; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972); Frederick H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment (JSOTSup 142, 1994)

What scholars say about anan

The lexicons unanimously separate two roots: ענן I, denominative from עָנָן "cloud" and attested only at Genesis 9:14, and ענן II "practise soothsaying, conjure" in ten Poel forms. BDB (1906, 778) reports the old derivation of the divination verb from "cloud" as "now generally abandoned", crediting Delitzsch on Isaiah 2:6; DCH VI (2007, 501-502) and Gesenius 18 (2013) list the two as distinct lemmata; NIDOTTE and TWOT 1655 concur while admitting that "the exact nature of this soothsayer's practice is unknown". HALOT sets out four etymological options without choosing: denominative cloud interpretation (Dalman, Reymond); Arabic ʿanna "to appear" (Kopf, VT 8: 190, adopted by Klein); Arabic ghanna "to hum, buzz", hence fortune-telling in a quiet droning voice (Robertson Smith 1885); and Ugaritic ʿnn "to recite spells" (Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan, 107). Freedman, Willoughby and Fabry in TDOT 11:253-274 follow the same typology, note that ancient tradents themselves associated the verb with עוֹנָה "season" (whence the KJV "observer of times"), and, with G. Andre, flag the imperfect ghayin/ayin correspondence between Arabic and Hebrew as leaving the etymology unresolved. Among commentators the Robertson Smith "muttering enchanter" reading now has the widest support (Tigay, Milgrom, Jeffers, Schmitt, Paul), buttressed by the fixed pairing with נחשׁ, the parallel of Isaiah 8:19 (הַמְצַפְצְפִים וְהַמַּהְגִּים), and LXX Micah 5:11 ἀποφθεγγόμενοι; Levine (JPS Leviticus, 133) is the notable recent holdout for an atmospheric-sign reading, and Cryer (JSOTSup 142) cautions against reifying the polemical vocabulary into distinct guilds at all. The versional evidence is itself a datum: LXX renders variously κληδονιζόμενος, ὀρνιθοσκοπήσεσθε, ἀποφθεγγόμενοι, and at Judges 9:37 splits between δρυὸς ἀποβλεπόντων (A) and a transliterated Μαωνενιμ (B), while Jerome standardizes on augur and the Peshitta collapses ענן into קסם, showing the technical sense had already lapsed by the Hellenistic and Roman periods. None of the ancient versions supports the cloud-diviner reading. Sociologically the practitioner belongs to a West Semitic guild of mantic specialists attested from Philistia to Transjordan (Isaiah 2:6; Jeremiah 27:9; Blenkinsopp, Wildberger, Holladay, Lundbom), stereotyped in the Deuteronomistic regnal notices of Manasseh (Cogan and Tadmor, II Kings, 266-267), and plausibly localized at the Shechem sanctuary complex by the אֵלוֹן מְעוֹנְנִים of Judges 9:37.

Where scholars disagree about anan

Whether the soothsaying verb is a separate word from the verb meaning to bring clouds, or one word whose divination sense grew out of the cloud sense.

  • majorityTwo distinct roots that happen to be spelled alike; the soothsaying verb has no connection with the word for cloud, and the old link is abandoned.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), 778, s.v. II. עָנַן; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. ענן II; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew VI (2007), 501-502; Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed. (2013), s.v. ענן
  • minorityOne word, with the divination sense developing from the cloud sense, whether by metaphor (to becloud, hence to act covertly) or by taking the practice to be observation of clouds and other signs in the sky.; Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), 133; Wilhelm Gesenius, Thesaurus philologicus criticus linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae Veteris Testamenti (1829-1858), s.v. ענן
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), 778, s.v. II. עָנַןlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. ענן I and ענן IIlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew VI (2007), 501-502, s.v. ענן I, ענן IIlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch uber das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (2013), s.v. ענןlexicon
  • D. N. Freedman, B. E. Willoughby, and H.-J. Fabry, anan / nn, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament 11 (2001): 253-274theological-dictionary
  • Willem VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis 3 (1997), s.v. ענןtheological-dictionary
  • R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (1980), 1655theological-dictionary
  • W. Robertson Smith, On the Forms of Divination and Magic Enumerated in Deut. XVIII 10, 11, Journal of Philology 13 (1885): 273-287; 14 (1885): 113-128article
  • Lothar Kopf, Arabische Etymologien und Parallelen zum Bibelworterbuch, Vetus Testamentum 8 (1958): 190article
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996), 172-173 and Excursus 18commentary
  • Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22 (Anchor Bible 3A, 2000), 1685-1686commentary
  • Baruch A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), 133commentary
  • Ann Jeffers, Magic and Divination in Ancient Palestine and Syria (Brill, 1996), 78-81monograph
  • Rudiger Schmitt, Magie im Alten Testament (AOAT 313, 2004), 91-99monograph
  • Rudiger Schmitt, Mantik im Alten Testament (AOAT 411, 2014), 67-70monograph
  • Frederick H. Cryer, Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment (JSOTSup 142, 1994)monograph
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford, 1972)monograph
  • W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1968), 107monograph
  • Robert G. Boling, Judges (Anchor Bible 6A, 1975), 178commentary
  • J. Alberto Soggin, Judges (Old Testament Library, 1981), 190-191commentary
  • Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings (Anchor Bible 11, 1988), 266-267commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39 (Anchor Bible 19, 2000), 191-192commentary
  • Hans Wildberger, Jesaja 1-12 (BKAT X/1, 1980), 100-101commentary
  • Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40-66 (Eerdmans Critical Commentary, 2012), on 57:3commentary
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2 (Hermeneia, 1989), 116-117commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36 (Anchor Bible 21B, 2004), 315-317commentary
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (1987), s.v. ענןlexicon

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

All attested forms of עָנַן

piel participle m p absolute

מְעוֹנְנִים, מְעֹנְנִים, עֹנְנִים

Jdg 9:37, Mic 5:12, Deu 18:14, Isa 2:6

piel consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְעוֹנֵן

2Ki 21:6, 2Ch 33:6

piel imperfect 2mp

תְעוֹנֵנוּ

Lev 19:26

piel infinitive-construct construct

עַנְנִ

Gen 9:14

piel participle f s absolute

עֹנְנָה

Isa 57:3

piel participle m p construct

עֹנְנֵי

Jer 27:9

piel participle m s absolute

מְעוֹנֵן

Deu 18:10