StrongerBible

shanan

שָׁנַן

HebrewH8150“sharpen, teach diligently, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 6:7Deu 32:41Psa 45:5(6)Psa 64:3(4)Psa 73:21Psa 120:4Psa 140:3(4)Pro 25:18Isa 5:28
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradesha-NANverb

What shanan means

1

to sharpen: to hone a blade, arrow, or weaponized speech to a cutting edge

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the verb's secure, everyday meaning, and it covers eight of its nine appearances. Something is given an edge: a sword is honed for battle, arrows are filed to a point, and, most strikingly, a person's words are sharpened until they cut like a weapon. The picture is always one of readiness to wound.

The two pieces of this meaning are simply the two kinds of thing that get sharpened. Most often it is a literal weapon. But the poets repeatedly turn the image inward: a slanderer or accuser hones his tongue the way a soldier hones a blade, so that cruel speech becomes as deadly as steel. The leap from steel to speech is not a different idea; it is the same act of sharpening, applied to the mouth.

The sense of incisiveness behind this word also lies in the background of its hardest case (the command to parents in Deuteronomy 6:7), which is treated as a separate meaning below.

Nuances

1ato put an edge on a literal weapon: a sword or an arrow
Deu 32:41Psa 45:5(6)Psa 120:4Pro 25:18Isa 5:28
1bto sharpen the tongue: to hone speech into a weapon, as a slanderer or accuser does
Psa 64:3(4)Psa 140:3(4)
1cto be pierced or cut through, as the heart is by bitter feeling
CertaintyContested
Psa 73:21
Psa 73:21

Whether the verb at Psalm 73:21 belongs to שׁנן "to sharpen, pierce" or to the similar-looking שׁנה "to change."

  • majorityA reflexive of "sharpen": I was pierced or cut to the heart. Most lexicons and English versions.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), 1041-42, s.v. שׁנן
  • minorityFrom שׁנה "to change": my feelings were altered or numbed, as the Greek Old Testament read it.; Septuagint, Psalm 72:21 (Rahlfs-Hanhart)
2

to impress upon: to teach a child by driving words in deeply, again and again

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

In one place, the command at the heart of Israel's daily prayer (Deuteronomy 6:7), the verb is used not of a weapon but of words taught to children. Whatever the exact mechanism, the point of the verse is clear: parents are to make God's commands stick in their children through sustained, repeated oral instruction. Deuteronomy itself restates the same command a few chapters later with an ordinary verb for teaching (11:19), so the goal is plainly catechesis, not combat.

Scholars are genuinely divided on how this meaning arose, and the split is recorded in the dispute attached to this entry. One camp keeps it tied to sharpening: words honed to a fine edge are driven into the mind so they pierce and embed there, the way the German verb einscharfen pictures a lesson cut in. The other camp hears a separate but identically spelled root meaning to repeat or recite, the root that later gave Judaism the very word Mishnah for its repeated oral teaching.

The ancient translations all read this verse in the teaching field rather than the sharpening field, and they used a different word for it here than for every weapon verse, so by the time the Bible was first translated this pedagogical sense was already fixed. Reading the verse either way lands in the same place: a parent patiently and forcefully fixing the words of God in a child.

Deu 6:7

What scholars say about shanan

The lexicons divide over whether this is one polysemous root or two homographs. BDB (Driver), Gesenius, HALOT (sub I), and NIDOTTE treat it as a single root "to whet, sharpen" whose Piel at Deut 6:7 is a metaphorical intensification, glossed by the German einschärfen, "to sharpen in, impress incisively." Clines's DCH splits it on distributional grounds into a sharpen lexeme and a separate teach/repeat lexeme, and Tigay and Weinfeld take the Deut 6:7 form as a by-form of שׁנה / Aramaic תנא "to repeat, recite," the root behind Mishnah, citing the inner-biblical restatement at Deut 11:19 with למד and the Akkadian D-stem šunnû "to recite" (Enuma Elish VII 147). Comparative phonology favors one origin for the sharpening verb (Arabic sanna, sinn "tooth," probably denominative) while distinguishing the repetition root (Arabic thana, Aramaic תנא), the two having merged in Hebrew through the Canaanite collapse of two Proto-Semitic sibilants; Isbell (JBQ 31.2) defends the single-root reading philologically. The ancient versions (LXX, Onkelos, Peshitta, Vulgate) all render Deut 6:7 in the teaching field and only there, using a different verb than at every weapon occurrence. Ps 73:21 (Hithpolel) is a secondary crux, parsed by most as "I was pierced" from this root but rendered "were altered" by the LXX from שׁנה.

Where scholars disagree about shanan

Whether שׁנן is one polysemous root whose teaching use at Deuteronomy 6:7 is a metaphor of sharpening, or two identically spelled roots, one meaning "sharpen" and one a by-form of שׁנה "to repeat, recite, teach."

  • contestedOne root "to sharpen, whet," with the parenting command at Deut 6:7 as a figurative intensification: words honed to an edge and driven incisively into the child (German einschaerfen). Supported by comparative phonology, which derives the sharpening verb from the word for tooth.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), 1041-42, s.v. שׁנן; Koehler-Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. שׁנן I; Charles Isbell, "Deuteronomy's Definition of Jewish Learning," Jewish Bible Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2003): 79-86
  • contestedTwo homographs: a "sharpen" verb and a separate teach/repeat verb at Deut 6:7, the latter a by-form of שׁנה / Aramaic תנא behind Mishnah. Supported by the inner-biblical restatement with למד at Deut 11:19 and by the ancient versions, which all read 6:7 in the teaching field and only there.; D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8 (2011), s.v. שׁנן I and II; Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996), 78 and 365 n. 25; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, Anchor Bible 5 (1991), ad loc.
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 (1907), 1041-42, s.v. שׁנןlexicon
  • Koehler-Baumgartner, HALOT, s.v. שׁנן Ilexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8 (2011), s.v. שׁנן I and IIlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed., ed. H. Donner, s.v. שׁנןlexicon
  • W. A. VanGemeren, ed., NIDOTTE, vol. 4 (1997), 195-96, s.v. שׁנןdictionary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996), 78 and 365 n. 25commentary
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, Anchor Bible 5 (1991), ad loc.commentary
  • Charles Isbell, "Deuteronomy's Definition of Jewish Learning," Jewish Bible Quarterly 31, no. 2 (2003): 79-86article
  • A. Militarev and L. Kogan, Semitic Etymological Dictionary, vol. 1 (2000), no. 77 *sinn-* "tooth"dictionary

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

All attested forms of שָׁנַן

qal passive-participle m p absolute

שְׁנוּנִים

Psa 45:5, Psa 120:4, Isa 5:28

qal perfect 3cp

שָׁנְנוּ, שָׁנֲנוּ

Psa 64:3, Psa 140:3

hithpael imperfect 1cs

אֶשְׁתּוֹנָן

Psa 73:21

piel consecutive-perfect 2ms

וְשִׁנַּנְתָּ

Deu 6:7

qal passive-participle m s absolute

שָׁנוּן

Pro 25:18

qal perfect 1cs

שַׁנּוֹתִי

Deu 32:41