StrongerBible

shikkor

שִׁכֹּר

HebrewH7910“drunk, drunkard, ...”

Appears 13 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Sa 1:131Sa 25:361Ki 16:91Ki 20:16Job 12:25Psa 107:27Pro 26:9Isa 19:14Isa 24:20Isa 28:1Isa 28:3Jer 23:9Jol 1:5
Root family
Word studyshik-KORadjective

What shikkor means

drunk: overcome by wine or fermented drink, and so unsteady and no longer in control; used of a person, a drunkard

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary word for someone who has had too much to drink. It names a condition rather than an action: the verb built on the same root (שָׁכַר) says that a person got drunk, while this word says what he now is. The drink behind it is naturally fermented wine or beer, since distilling was unknown in the biblical world.

Its uses spread across a short range:

  • ordinary people drunk on one occasion, like Nabal at his own feast or King Elah in his steward's house
  • people named for heavy drinking, such as the "drunkards of Ephraim" whose leaders could no longer govern
  • the drunk man as a picture of helplessness, used for sailors on a pitching deck, for a whole land staggering under its guilt, and for a prophet shaking under a message he cannot carry

That last use is where the word does most of its work. The drunk man is chosen as a picture not because he is wicked but because he cannot walk straight, cannot see clearly, and cannot be reasoned with. Wherever the prophets and poets want to show someone who has lost all bearings, this is the figure they reach for.

Nuances

1adrunk on a particular occasion: someone who has drunk too much and is no longer steady or clear-headed
1Sa 1:131Sa 25:361Ki 16:91Ki 20:16Pro 26:9
1ba drunkard: a person or group named for habitual heavy drinking
Isa 28:1Isa 28:3Jol 1:5
1cused in a comparison: the drunk man as the picture of someone who staggers and has lost all bearings
Job 12:25Psa 107:27Isa 19:14Isa 24:20Jer 23:9

What scholars say about shikkor

The standard lexica treat שִׁכּוֹר / שִׁכֹּר as a qatṭul adjective of the root שׁכר (Barth, Nominalbildung §134b), glossed "drunken" and, substantivally, "drunkard" (BDB 1016; HALOT s.v.; DCH 8 s.v.). No lexicon posits a homonym, and the semantic range is uncontroversial: the adjective describes intoxication, with substantival and comparative uses distributed as in the other qatṭul adjectives of state. TDOT XIV (ThWAT VIII) surveys the derivative under the root article, noting that the adjective, unlike the abstract noun שִׁכָּרוֹן (which BDB observes is only ever figurative), retains literal reference in the narrative books while supplying the vehicle for the prophetic staggering imagery. The concentration of comparative uses (Job 12:25; Ps 107:27; Isa 19:14; 24:20; Jer 23:9) is regularly discussed as the wisdom and prophetic literature's imaginative resource for disorientation, the same conceptual field that generates the cup-of-staggering tradition (Isa 51:17, 22), though those texts use other vocabulary. On individual passages: McCarter (AB 1 Samuel, 61-62) treats Eli's לְשִׁכֹּרָה of Hannah as a study in the priest's failed discernment, with Hannah's denial echoing the Nazirite formula יַיִן וְשֵׁכָר; Wildberger (Hermeneia, Isaiah 28-39) reads שִׁכֹּרֵי אֶפְרַיִם as an indictment of Samaria's ruling class in which literal excess and political incapacity are deliberately fused, an inversion of the priestly sobriety required by Lev 10:9; Fox (AB Proverbs 10-31) takes the שִׁכּוֹר of Prov 26:9 as a figure of insensibility, the drunk being unable to feel or dislodge the thornbranch. The related-drink question that dominates discussion of שֵׁכָר (Homan and Milgrom for barley beer; Levine, Walsh and Zakovitch for a grape product or hendiadys) does not bear on the adjective, which specifies no beverage.

Sources

  • BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 1016, s.v. שִׁכּוֹרlexicon
  • HALOT, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. שִׁכּוֹרlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8, s.v. שִׁכּוֹרlexicon
  • Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. XIV (Eerdmans, 2004), s.v. שָׁכַרtheological-dictionary
  • Jakob Barth, Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen, §134bgrammar
  • P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (Anchor Bible 8), pp. 61-62commentary
  • Hans Wildberger, Isaiah 28-39 (Hermeneia, Fortress, 2002)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Yale Bible 18B, 2009)commentary

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

All attested forms of שִׁכֹּר

m s absolute

שִׁכּוֹר, שִּׁכּוֹר, שִׁכֹּר

1Ki 16:9, 1Ki 20:16, Pro 26:9, Isa 19:14, Jer 23:9, Job 12:25, Psa 107:27, Isa 24:20

m p construct

שִׁכּוֹרֵי, שִׁכֹּרֵי

Isa 28:3, Isa 28:1

f s absolute

שִׁכֹּרָה

1Sa 1:13

m p absolute

שִׁכּוֹרִים

Jol 1:5