Hebrew word · H1731

דּוּד

hadud

pot

Dud means a container: a cooking pot or kettle (1 Sam 2:14; 2 Chr 35:13; Job 41:20 in English numbering), or a basket for carrying (2 Kgs 10:7; Ps 81:6 [Heb 81:7], 'his hands were freed from the basket', meaning forced labour).

Appears 8 times in 7 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) pot, jar, basket, kettle

1a) pot, kettle

1b) basket, jar

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

From the study of Jeremiah 24:1

Range of meaning

Dud means a container: a cooking pot or kettle (1 Sam 2:14; 2 Chr 35:13; Job 41:20 in English numbering), or a basket for carrying (2 Kgs 10:7; Ps 81:6 [Heb 81:7], 'his hands were freed from the basket', meaning forced labour).

Against the English

All the major English versions say 'baskets', which fits figs. The Greek Septuagint uses kalathos, a woven basket.

Used elsewhere in the period

In 2 Kgs 10:7 the heads of Ahab's seventy sons are sent to Jehu in duddim, baskets. In Ps 81:7 the basket is the load of a forced labourer. The spelling here, with an aleph (duda'e), matches the plural of duda'im, 'mandrakes' (Gen 30:14–16; Song 7:13), a prized and fragrant fruit. Some interpreters see a deliberate sound-play. Others treat it as simply a variant spelling.

From the study of Psalm 81:6

Range of meaning

A container, either a cooking pot or kettle (1 Samuel 2:14; 2 Chronicles 35:13; Job 41:20) or a basket (2 Kings 10:7; Jeremiah 24:1-2, where it holds figs). The shared idea is a vessel that holds things; context decides the material and use.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, YLT, NIV, ESV and NASB say 'basket'. KJV says 'pots'. NLT drops the object and generalizes it into hard tasks.

How it drifted

KJV's 'pots' is a real meaning of the word, but today it suggests a kitchen or a potter's shop. Neither is the likely picture here. 'Basket' can also sound light and domestic, when this is a laborer's hauling container.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint translates it kophinos, a stout carrying basket, and the Vulgate cophinus, so ancient translators took it as a basket here. A wall painting in the Egyptian tomb of Rekhmire (15th century BC, TT100) shows foreign captives making bricks and hauling clay and bricks, with shoulder yokes and carrying containers, under overseers with sticks. It does not depict Israelites, but it shows what this kind of work looked like.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 2:14 בַדּ֗וּד in the kettle

    and plunge it into the pan or kettle or cauldron or cooking pot. And the priest would claim for himself whatever the meat fork brought up. This is how they treated all the Israelites who came to Shiloh.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 10:7 בַּדּוּדִ֔ים in <the> baskets

    And when the letter arrived, they took the sons of the king and slaughtered all seventy of them. They put their heads in baskets and sent them to Jehu at Jezreel.

2 Chronicles · 1

  1. 2 Chronicles 35:13 וּבַדְּוָדִים֙ and in <the> kettles

    They roasted the Passover animals on the fire according to the regulation, and they boiled the other holy offerings in pots, kettles, and bowls and quickly brought them to all the people.

    Here: Larger cooking vessels, cauldrons. The word appears in the sanctuary meat-boiling scene of 1 Samuel 2:14.

Job · 1

  1. Job 41:20 כְּד֖וּד like a pot

    Smoke billows from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 81:6 מִדּ֥וּד from a basket

    “I relieved his shoulder of the burden; his hands were freed from the basket.

    Here: 'From a carrying vessel', here most likely the basket used to haul clay or bricks. It parallels 'load' in the first line and turns the general idea of forced labor into one concrete object.

Jeremiah · 3

  1. Jeremiah 24:1 דּוּדָאֵ֣י baskets of

    After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD.

    Here: 'Baskets of'. Dud can mean a cooking pot or a carrying basket. Here it must mean baskets for fruit. The spelling with an extra aleph is unusual and sounds like duda'im, 'mandrakes', a fruit that people prized.

  2. Jeremiah 24:2 הַדּ֣וּד וְהַדּ֣וּד the basket, and the basket

    One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early, but the other basket contained very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.