a shadow: the dark shape thrown where something blocks the light, whether the cool cover a tree gives or the long shapes that mark the closing of the day
This is the fuller spelling of the Hebrew word for shadow, and it turns up only four times. Three of the four put it in the plural, and in each of those the shadows are doing the same work: telling the time.
- the shadows of evening stretching out over a city about to be attacked
- the shadows fleeing when the day changes, in a line the Song of Songs sings twice
- the shade of the lotus trees where a great river beast lies down
One word covers both the shade and the shadows because they are the same fact seen from two sides. A shadow is what the sun makes when something stands in its way, so its length tracks how high the sun is, and its coolness is what the creature underneath actually feels. Hebrew has no need of one word for the relief and another for the shape. The far commoner spelling of the same shadow word (צֵל) carries that whole range across the rest of the Bible, including its great pictures of shelter and of a life that quickly passes.
The plural is worth noticing on its own. "The shadows" is close to a Hebrew way of naming a time of day rather than a scene: when they lengthen, the light is nearly gone, and a besieging army has to decide whether to attack now or wait. English keeps the picture but loses the clock.