Hebrew word · H1760

דָּחָה

dachoh

to thrust

To push or shove, especially so that someone falls. The passive form means to be pushed down or overthrown.

Appears 8 times in 7 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 31, 2026

What it means

1) to push, thrust, chase, overflow, totter, sore, drive away or out, be outcast, be cast down

1a) (Qal) to push, push violently

1b) (Niphal) to be thrust, be cast down

1c) (Pual) to be thrust down

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: To push or shove, especially so that someone falls. The passive form means to be pushed down or overthrown.
Against the English: The KJV's "driven away" sounds like banishment or exile. The Hebrew picture is being knocked off your feet. BSB "thrown down" and WEB "brought down" are closer.
How it drifted: "Driven away" probably comes from a related idea of driving out (compare the root ndḥ). In older English it may have meant something like "driven back". A modern reader takes it as being sent away to a far place.
Used elsewhere in the period: Ps 118:13: "I was pushed hard (dachoh dechitani) so that I was falling." Ps 36:12 (36:13 in Hebrew): evildoers "are thrust down, unable to rise". Ps 140:4 (140:5 in Hebrew): enemies plan "to trip up my steps". Jer 23:12: the false prophets will be "driven on and fall" on slippery paths.

Range of meaning: To push, shove or thrust, especially so as to topple something or someone. It is used for knocking a person over, tripping someone's steps, pushing down a wall that is already leaning, and driving people out. The related noun dechi means "a stumble" or "a fall".
Against the English: English "pushed" is accurate but mild. In modern use it can describe anything from a nudge to pressure. The Hebrew picture is physical: someone throwing their weight against you to bring you down. KJV's "thrust sore" ("sore" meaning severely) keeps the violence.
Used elsewhere in the period: Ps 36:12: the wicked "are thrust down and cannot rise". Ps 62:3: attackers rushing a man as at "a leaning wall, a tottering fence" (a passive form of this verb). Ps 140:4: violent men who plan "to trip up my steps". Ps 35:5: the angel of the LORD "driving them on". Ps 56:13 and 116:8: God has kept "my feet from stumbling" (the noun dechi). Ps 116 belongs to the same group of psalms as Ps 118, so the echo would have been heard.

Range of meaning: To push, shove, thrust, especially so as to make someone totter or fall. It is used for a leaning wall that has been shoved (Psalm 62:3), for being pushed hard "so that I was falling" (Psalm 118:13), for the wicked "thrust down, unable to rise" (Psalm 36:12), and for enemies who plan "to trip up my steps" (Psalm 140:4). The passive is used for outcasts who have been driven away.
Against the English: "Drives them away" (BSB, and similar wording elsewhere) gets the wind picture across but loses the sense of being knocked off one's feet. KJV's "chase" fits the next verse's word ("pursue") better than this one.
Used elsewhere in the period: Jeremiah 23:12 is a close parallel to verses 5–6 together: "their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness; they shall be driven on (yiddachu) and fall." The Septuagint here has ἐκθλίβων ("pressing hard, crushing"); the Latin Vulgate has coartans ("hemming in"), and Jerome's translation from the Hebrew has impellens ("driving on").

Psalms · 6

Psalm 35:5 דּוֹחֶֽה׃ pushing

May they be like chaff in the wind, as the angel of the LORD drives them away.

Here: A participle, "pushing": a continuous shove, not a single blow. The verb usually means pushing someone so they stumble or fall over, which leads straight into verse 6, where the enemies' path is dark and slippery.
Psalm 36:12 דֹּ֝ח֗וּ they were pushed down

There the evildoers lie fallen, thrown down and unable to rise.
Psalm 62:3 הַדְּחוּיָֽה׃ <the> pushed down

How long will you threaten a man? Will all of you throw him down like a leaning wall or a tottering fence?

Here: Passive participle, 'the shoved one': a wall already pushed and giving way. It picks up the sound of 'to thrust him down' (lehaddiach) in v. 4.
Psalm 118:13 דַּחֹ֣ה דְחִיתַ֣נִי certainly <to push>, you pushed me

I was pushed so hard I was falling, but the LORD helped me.

Here: This form repeats the verb's action ahead of the main verb, the way Hebrew says "really" or "hard". Together with the next word it means "you shoved me hard" or "you kept on shoving me". It stresses how violent the attack was.
Psalm 140:4 לִדְח֥וֹת to trip up

Guard me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked. Keep me safe from men of violence who scheme to make me stumble.

Here: 'To shove', meaning to give someone a push so they lose their footing and fall. It is a physical picture of bringing someone to ruin.

Proverbs · 1

Proverbs 14:32 יִדָּחֶ֣ה he is pushed down

The wicked man is thrown down by his own sin, but the righteous man has a refuge even in death.

Here: A passive verb for being shoved so that you fall. It is used of someone pushed to stumble or knocked flat and unable to get up. The wicked person is toppled. The word is about collapse, not about being sent somewhere far off.

Jeremiah · 1

Jeremiah 23:12 יִדַּ֖חוּ they will be pushed down

“Therefore their path will become slick; they will be driven away into the darkness and fall into it. For I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment,” declares the LORD.

Here: Passive: someone shoves them. The verb is about pushing someone so they topple, not about being sent into exile or banished. The unnamed pusher is God (compare the 'angel of the LORD' pushing in Ps 35:5–6).

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