Hebrew word · H1805

דְּלִי

midalyav

bucket

A bucket for drawing water, from dālāh, 'draw (water)' (Exodus 2:16, 19). Elsewhere it appears only in Balaam's oracle (Numbers 24:7, 'water shall flow from his buckets').

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

bucket

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 Isaiah 40:15

Range of meaning

A bucket for drawing water, from dālāh, 'draw (water)' (Exodus 2:16, 19). Elsewhere it appears only in Balaam's oracle (Numbers 24:7, 'water shall flow from his buckets').

Against the English

KJV has 'a drop of a bucket' and YLT 'a drop from a bucket'. Both keep the Hebrew 'from'. BSB, WEB and most modern versions have 'a drop in a bucket', which sounds like the modern English saying.

How it drifted

The KJV wording gave English the saying 'a drop in the bucket', meaning a contribution too small to meet a big need. In that picture the drop goes in and the bucket is the need. The Hebrew has no 'need' in it. The drop is the spill falling off the bucket.

Used elsewhere in the period

Septuagint: ἀπὸ κάδου, 'from a jar/bucket'. Vulgate: situlae, 'of a bucket'. Both ancient versions keep 'from/of', not 'in'.

From the study of Numbers 24:7

Range of meaning

A bucket or pail for drawing or carrying water. The dual form here means a pair of buckets. It may picture a man carrying two pails on a shoulder-pole, or the buckets of a well or simple irrigation device.

Against the English

Most English versions say 'buckets'. That is accurate, but it hides the dual ('his two buckets'), which gives the picture of a carrier's full load.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Hebrew Bible the word occurs only here and at Isaiah 40:15 ('the nations are like a drop from a bucket'). A related Akkadian word, dalû, means 'bucket', and drawing water with buckets is an everyday scene throughout the ancient Near East. The Septuagint does not translate 'buckets' literally. It renders the line 'a man shall come out of his seed'. Some modern scholars propose re-reading the consonants as dāliyyōtāyw, 'his branches' (the word used for vine branches in Ezekiel 17:6–7), to match the trees of verse 6. No manuscript supports this.

Where it appears

Numbers · 1

  1. Numbers 24:7 מִדָּ֣לְיָ֔ו from buckets its

    Water will flow from his buckets, and his seed will have abundant water. His king will be greater than Agag, and his kingdom will be exalted.

    Here: 'From his two buckets': the form is dual, meaning a pair. Picture a water-carrier with two buckets on a yoke, or buckets drawn from a well, so full they slop over. 'His' is Jacob/Israel (verse 5). The word occurs elsewhere only at Isaiah 40:15, 'a drop from a bucket'.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 40:15 מִדְּלִ֔י from a bucket

    Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust.

    Here: 'From a bucket.' The word is a draw-bucket, the kind let down into a well (the verb dālāh means 'draw water'). The preposition 'from' pictures the drip that falls off as the full bucket is hauled up, which nobody bothers to catch.

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