Hebrew word · H300
אֲחִישָׁ֑חַר
va'achishachar
Ahishahar
"My brother is dawn". Achi- ("my brother") is a common opening for Israelite names (Ahijah, Ahimelech, Ahitub), where the "brother" is usually the clan's god or a divine kinsman. Shachar means "dawn".
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
A man of the tribe of Benjamin living at the time of Divided Monarchy, only mentioned at 1Ch.7.10;
son of: Bilhan (H1092H);
brother of: Jeush (H3266H), Benjamin (H1144H), Ehud (H0164H), Chenaanah (H3668H), Zethan (H2133) and Tarshish (H8659I)
§ Ahishahar = "my brother is dawn" or "brother of the dawn"
a Benjamite
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 1 Chronicles 7:10
- Range of meaning
"My brother is dawn". Achi- ("my brother") is a common opening for Israelite names (Ahijah, Ahimelech, Ahitub), where the "brother" is usually the clan's god or a divine kinsman. Shachar means "dawn".
- Against the English
"Ahishahar" keeps the sound but hides the meaning.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Ugaritic texts of the Late Bronze Age, from a Canaanite city on the Syrian coast, Shachar (Dawn) and Shalim (Dusk) are twin gods (KTU 1.23). In the Bible shachar is poetic: "wings of the dawn" (Ps 139:9) and "son of the dawn" (Isa 14:12). By the time of Israel's monarchy such names normally used old language without implying worship of Dawn as a god.
Similar words
Where it appears
1 Chronicles · 1
-
1 Chronicles 7:10 וַאֲחִישָֽׁחַר׃ and Ahishahar
The son of Jediael: Bilhan. The sons of Bilhan: Jeush, Benjamin, Ehud, Chenaanah, Zethan, Tarshish, and Ahishahar.
Here: This name occurs only here. It means "my brother is the dawn": achi means "my brother", a common way of naming God or a kinsman in a name, and shachar means "dawn". It closes the seven-name list.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.