StrongerBible

shesh

שֵׁשׁ

HebrewH8336fine linen, linen, ...

Appears 41 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 41:42Exo 25:4Exo 26:1Exo 26:31Exo 26:36Exo 27:9Exo 27:16Exo 27:18Exo 28:5Exo 28:6Exo 28:8Exo 28:15Exo 28:39Exo 35:6Exo 35:23Exo 35:25Exo 35:35Exo 38:23Exo 39:3Ezk 16:10
Root family
Word studySHAYSHnoun

What shesh means

1

fine linen: a costly, bright white cloth used for sacred and royal garments

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the prized white fabric of the ancient world, imported from Egypt and reserved for people and objects of the highest honor. The great majority of its appearances are in the instructions for the tabernacle, where it forms the curtains, the screen at the entrance, and the garments of the priests. It is the cloth that surrounds holy space and clothes those who serve in it.

Outside worship, it marks status and wealth. Pharaoh dresses Joseph in it when he raises him to power, the capable woman of Proverbs makes her clothing from it, and the prophet Ezekiel pictures Jerusalem draped in it like a bride and Tyre using it for a ship's sail. Across all these settings the word points to one thing: the finest, whitest linen money could buy.

Because the fabric is always the same, this meaning holds together as a single sense. What changes from verse to verse is only what the linen is made into, a curtain, a robe, or a sail, not what the word itself means.

Gen 41:42Exo 25:4Exo 26:1Exo 26:31Exo 26:36Exo 27:9Exo 27:16Exo 27:18Exo 28:5Exo 28:6Exo 28:8Exo 28:15
2

alabaster or white marble: a costly pale stone used for columns and paving

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

In two poetic descriptions the same spelling names a stone rather than a cloth. Both times it appears as gleaming pale columns: the pillars in the king's garden court at Susa, and, in a love poem, a man's legs compared to shining pillars set on gold.

The stone is white or translucent and expensive, the kind used in the grandest architecture. Whether it is true marble or the softer alabaster is not certain, and translators go back and forth between the two words. Either way the picture is the same: something pale, smooth, and splendid.

Scholars usually treat this as a separate word from the one meaning fine linen, even though both are spelled alike and both suggest brilliant whiteness.

Est 1:6Sng 5:15

What scholars say about shesh

Lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat שֵׁשׁ as two homonyms. שֵׁשׁ I "fine linen, byssus" is widely recognized as an Egyptian loanword (from Egyptian šś), which fits its concentration in the tabernacle texts, where the material is explicitly Egyptian in provenance; T. O. Lambdin catalogued it among the Egyptian loans in Biblical Hebrew. In post-biblical and later biblical usage it is displaced by בּוּץ. שֵׁשׁ II "alabaster/marble" (Esther 1:6; Song 5:15) is generally kept as a separate lexeme, though some connect both to a common notion of whiteness. The precise mineral behind שֵׁשׁ II, marble versus alabaster, remains an identification question rather than a dispute over the word's basic sense.

Sources

  • HALOT, s.v. שֵׁשׁ I, IIlexicon
  • BDB, s.v. שֵׁשׁlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. שֵׁשׁlexicon
  • T. O. Lambdin, "Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament," JAOS 73 (1953): 145-155article

All attested forms of שֵׁשׁ

m s absolute

שֵׁשׁ, שֵּׁשׁ

Gen 41:42, Exo 25:4, Exo 26:1, Exo 26:31, Exo 26:36, Exo 27:9, Exo 27:16, Exo 27:18

m s construct

שֵׁשׁ

Exo 35:6, Exo 35:23