Hebrew word · H2064

זָבַד

zevadani

to endow

To give a gift or endowment, and the gift itself. The verb and the noun each occur only here in the Hebrew Bible. The root is common in personal names: Zabad, Zabdi, Zebadiah ('YHWH has given'), Zabdiel ('God's gift').

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Qal) to endow, bestow, endow with, bestow upon

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 Genesis 30:20

Range of meaning

To give a gift or endowment, and the gift itself. The verb and the noun each occur only here in the Hebrew Bible. The root is common in personal names: Zabad, Zabdi, Zebadiah ('YHWH has given'), Zabdiel ('God's gift'). It is also a normal verb for 'give' in later Aramaic and in Palmyrene and Nabataean names, and it appears in Old South Arabian.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and YLT have 'dowry.' BSB has 'gift.' ESV has 'endowment.' NJPS has 'a choice gift.' 'Dowry' is a defensible reading in context but more specific than the Hebrew word has to be.

How it drifted

'Dowry' is a guess from context. Because Leah is talking about her marriage, translators reached for the marriage-gift word. The Hebrew may simply mean 'gift.'

Used elsewhere in the period

The root appears in personal names across the Hebrew Bible (e.g. 1 Chr 2:36; 27:7; Ezra 10:27) and in Aramaic inscriptions, always meaning 'give.' The Greek Septuagint translates it 'God has gifted me a fine gift,' using a general gift word, not the technical Greek word for dowry.

Where it appears

Genesis · 1

  1. Genesis 30:20 זְבָדַ֨נִי he has endowed me

    “God has given me a good gift,” she said. “This time my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.” And she named him Zebulun.

    Here: This verb occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. It means to give someone a gift or settlement that becomes theirs to keep. The perfect form treats the gift as done and received.

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