StrongerBible

saraph

שָׂרָף

HebrewH8315Proper NounSaraph

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

1Ch 4:22
Word studyResearch-gradesa-RAHFproper noun

What saraph means

Saraph: a man's name in the family records of Judah, spelled exactly like the Hebrew word for a burning one, the snake whose bite burns

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Saraph is a person, not a creature. He appears once in the whole Bible, in the long family record of the tribe of Judah in 1 Chronicles 4, among the descendants of Shelah, one of Judah's sons. He is listed next to a man named Joash, and the short remark attached to the pair of them is read either as "who had the dominion in Moab" or as "who married into Moab," because the Hebrew verb behind it covers both taking possession of something and taking a wife. Nothing else is told about him: no story, no deed, only his place in the list, which the writer closes by noting that these records are ancient.

The name itself is an ordinary Hebrew noun, שָׂרָף, meaning "a burning one." That noun is the Old Testament's word for the venomous desert snakes remembered for how much their bite burns, the ones that struck the people in the wilderness, and it is also the word Isaiah uses for the six-winged beings who stand above God's throne calling out his holiness. Behind both stands the plain everyday verb שָׂרַף, "to burn." So the man's name means something close to "the burning one" or "the fiery one."

Naming a child after an animal, even a dangerous one, was ordinary in ancient Israel rather than sinister. Another man in the Bible is simply called Nahash, which is the everyday Hebrew word for a snake, and other familiar biblical names are built the same way: Deborah means "bee," Rachel means "ewe," and Jonah means "dove." A name like Saraph made no claim about the man's character and said nothing at all about heavenly beings; it worked much the way names such as Wolf and Fox have worked in later languages.

1Ch 4:22

What scholars say about saraph

BDB and HALOT both register שָׂרָף at 1 Chronicles 4:22 as a personal name, catalogued apart from the homographic common noun that denotes the venomous serpent (Numbers 21:6, 8; Deuteronomy 8:15; Isaiah 14:29; 30:6) and Isaiah's throne attendants (Isaiah 6:2, 6). On the noun's sense and background see Mettinger's DDD article, which states the mainstream position that the term designates "a burning one" and that the seraphim are generally conceived as winged serpents with human attributes; the personal name is simply that noun used onomastically, and nothing in the Chronicles context invokes the serpentine or celestial associations. The name occurs within 1 Chronicles 4:21-23, a fragmentary and textually difficult notice about the Shelanite clans of Judah and their crafts. Japhet (OTL, 1993, ad loc.) treats the unit as excerpted from older material and reads the closing formula וְהַדְּבָרִים עַתִּיקִים as the Chronicler's own comment on the antiquity of his source. Knoppers (Anchor Bible 12, 2003, ad loc.) documents the difficulties, including divergence between the Hebrew and the Greek witnesses across the verse and the ambiguity of אֲשֶׁר־בָּעֲלוּ לְמוֹאָב, where בעל is rendered either "ruled over" or "married into"; Williamson (New Century Bible, 1982, ad loc.) likewise leaves the clause's sense open. Traditional Jewish exegesis, taking בעל as "married," identified Joash and Saraph with Mahlon and Chilion of Ruth 1; modern critical commentators do not adopt the identification. Formally the name belongs to the well-attested West Semitic class of personal names drawn from animals and natural phenomena, classified by Noth in his standard study of Israelite personal names.

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. שָׂרָףlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. שָׂרָףlexicon
  • T. N. D. Mettinger, "Seraphim," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd ed. (Brill/Eerdmans, 1999), 742-744reference
  • Sara Japhet, I and II Chronicles, OTL (Westminster John Knox, 1993), ad loc.commentary
  • Gary N. Knoppers, I Chronicles 1-9, Anchor Bible 12 (Doubleday, 2003), ad loc.commentary
  • H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, New Century Bible (Eerdmans, 1982), ad loc.commentary
  • Martin Noth, Die israelitischen Personennamen im Rahmen der gemeinsemitischen Namengebung (Kohlhammer, 1928)monograph

All attested forms of שָׂרָף

m

שָׂרָף

1Ch 4:22