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shad

שַׁד

HebrewH7699breast, breasts

Appears 24 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 49:25Job 3:12Job 24:9Psa 22:9(10)Sng 1:13Sng 4:5Sng 7:3(4)Sng 7:7(8)Sng 7:8(9)Sng 8:1Sng 8:8Sng 8:10Isa 28:9Isa 32:12Isa 60:16Isa 66:11Lam 4:3Ezk 16:7Ezk 23:3Ezk 23:21Ezk 23:34Hos 2:2(4)Hos 9:14Jol 2:16
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeSHAHDnoun

What shad means

breast: the milk-giving breast of a woman or a nursing animal

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary Hebrew word for the breast, and it is the same word whether the breast feeds a baby, draws a lover, or hangs shriveled under a curse. The Bible never speaks of it clinically; it is always tied to life given or, when it fails, life withheld.

Its senses are shades of one picture rather than separate meanings. As the source of milk it stands for nurture and the very beginning of life, from the blessing of "breasts and womb" to the infant safe at its mother's breast. In love poetry it becomes the object of delight and the sign of a woman grown to maturity. Turned toward judgment, the prophets use that same body to shame a people who have been unfaithful. And once, in a scene of mourning, it is simply the chest that grieving people beat.

Hebrew has a second, blunter word for the same body part (דַּד), and the two even stand side by side in one of Ezekiel's harshest passages. What holds all of this word's uses together is not a range of meanings but a range of human life gathered around a single organ: hunger and comfort, desire and shame, birth and loss.

Nuances

1athe milk-giving breast of a nursing mother or animal, standing for nurture and the start of life
Gen 49:25Job 3:12Job 24:9Psa 22:9(10)Sng 8:1Isa 28:9Isa 60:16Isa 66:11Lam 4:3Hos 9:14Jol 2:16
1bthe breast as the object of love and the sign of a woman's maturity, in love poetry and in the prophets' pictures of the female body
Sng 1:13Sng 4:5Sng 7:3(4)Sng 7:7(8)Sng 7:8(9)Sng 8:8Sng 8:10Ezk 16:7Ezk 23:3Ezk 23:21Ezk 23:34Hos 2:2(4)
1cthe breast as the chest that mourners beat in grief
Isa 32:12

What scholars say about shad

The standard lexicons treat שַׁד with unusual agreement as a simple biradical noun meaning "breast," the reflex of Proto-Semitic *ṯad-y- and cognate with Arabic ثَدْي and Ugaritic ṯd; BDB, HALOT, Gesenius18, DCH, and NIDOTTE all lay out essentially the same range (a mother's breast, the erotic breast of the Song, the weaning idiom of Isaiah 28:9, and the animal's breast in Lamentations 4:3). All modern lexicons keep three homographs sharply distinct: שַׁד "breast," שֹׁד "violence, destruction" (from שׁדד), and שֵׁד "demon" (an Akkadian loan); only concordance-level resources merge them. The by-form vocalized שֹׁד at Isaiah 60:16, 66:11, and Job 24:9 is read as "breast" by most lexicons on contextual grounds. There is no dedicated TDOT article for the noun; it is discussed within the entry on שַׁדַּי (Niehr and Steins), where the two words are compared but treated as etymologically separate, and the popular derivation of the divine name from "breast" (Biale 1982; Lutzky 1998) is judged a poetic association in Genesis 49:25 rather than a genuine etymology. Commentators mine the individual occurrences: Pope, Fox, Exum, and Hess on the Song; Block, Greenberg, and Zimmerli on Ezekiel; Andersen-Freedman and Stuart on Hosea; Oswalt, Blenkinsopp, and Paul on Isaiah's reversal of "plunder" into "nursing"; Berlin and Dobbs-Allsopp on Lamentations 4:3; and Clines on the brutal image at Job 24:9.

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, s.v. שַׁדlexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. שַׁדlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18. Aufl., s.v. שַׁדlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8, s.v. שַׁדlexicon
  • W. A. VanGemeren, ed., NIDOTTE, s.v. שַׁד (vol. 4)dictionary
  • H. Niehr and G. Steins, "šadday," TDOT XIV (2004), 418-446dictionary
  • A. Militarev and L. Kogan, Semitic Etymological Dictionary I: Anatomy, AOAT 278/1 (2000), #280dictionary
  • M. H. Pope, Song of Songs, AB 7C (1977)commentary
  • J. C. Exum, Song of Songs, OTL (2005)commentary
  • D. Block, Ezekiel 1-24, NICOT (1997)commentary
  • M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, AB 22A (1997)commentary
  • J. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah 40-66, NICOT (1998)commentary
  • A. Berlin, Lamentations, OTL (2002)commentary
  • D. Biale, "The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible," History of Religions 21/3 (1982): 240-256article

All attested forms of שַׁד

m d absolute

שָׁדַיִם, שָׁדָיִם, שָּׁדַיִם, שָּׁדָיִם

Gen 49:25, Sng 8:8, Isa 32:12, Ezk 16:7, Hos 9:14, Jol 2:16, Job 3:12, Isa 28:9

m d construct

שָׁדַיִךְ

Sng 4:5, Sng 7:3, Sng 7:7, Sng 7:8, Ezk 23:34

m d construct

שְׁדֵי

Psa 22:9, Sng 8:1, Ezk 23:21

m d construct

שָׁדַי

Sng 1:13, Sng 8:10

m s absolute

שַׁד, שֹּׁד

Lam 4:3, Job 24:9

m s construct

שֹׁד, שֹּׁד

Isa 60:16, Isa 66:11

m d construct

שְׁדֵיהֶן

Ezk 23:3

m d construct

שָׁדֶיהָ

Hos 2:2