Hebrew word · H1317
בׇּשְׁנָה
bashenah
shame
bôš means to be put to shame, disgraced, shown up, let down. It is often used of someone whose trust or hope failed in public (Ps 22:5; Isa 20:5; Jer 2:36, 'you will be put to shame by Egypt as you were by Assyria'). The noun bošnâ appears only here.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) shame
1a) shame
1b) shameful thing
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
bôš means to be put to shame, disgraced, shown up, let down. It is often used of someone whose trust or hope failed in public (Ps 22:5; Isa 20:5; Jer 2:36, 'you will be put to shame by Egypt as you were by Assyria'). The noun bošnâ appears only here. It is a variant of bōšet, 'shame', which later writers substituted for the name 'Baal' (Ishbosheth for Eshbaal; Hos 9:10 uses bōšet of Baal-Peor).
- Against the English
English 'ashamed' mostly describes an inner feeling of guilt or embarrassment. The Hebrew is mainly about objective, public disgrace, the collapse of what one relied on, whether or not anyone feels sorry.
- How it drifted
Modern English has turned shame into a matter of personal psychology. In the honour-shame cultures of the ancient Near East it was first a public loss of standing.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Jer 2:36 and Isa 20:5 use bôš for the humiliation of nations whose foreign protector failed them. Hos 4:19 says 'they will be ashamed because of their sacrifices.'
Where it appears
Hosea · 1
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Hosea 10:6 בָּשְׁנָה֙ shame
Yes, it will be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king. Ephraim will be seized with shame; Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.
Here: A rare form of the word for shame, found only here in the Bible. It is placed first for emphasis: 'shame is what Ephraim will get.' It means public disgrace, the humiliation of having trusted something that failed.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.