Hebrew word · H3252

יִסְכָּה

yiskah

Iscah

Appears only here. The meaning is uncertain. The rabbis linked it to the verb sakah, 'to look, gaze'. Modern lexicons give no confident derivation.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A woman living at the time of the Patriarchs, only mentioned at Gen.11.29;

daughter of: Haran (H2039);

sister of: Lot (H3876) and Milcah (H4435)

§ Iscah = "one who looks forth"

daughter of Haran, niece of Abraham, sister of Lot and Milcah

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 11:29

Range of meaning

Appears only here. The meaning is uncertain. The rabbis linked it to the verb sakah, 'to look, gaze'. Modern lexicons give no confident derivation.

Against the English

KJV/BSB/ESV spell it 'Iscah', NIV 'Iskah'. All simply transliterate it.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 14a; Sanhedrin 69b) identifies Iscah with Sarai. It explains the name as 'she who saw' by the holy spirit, or 'she whom all gazed at' for her beauty. Rashi follows this. Josephus (Antiquities 1.151) makes Sarai, like Milcah, a daughter of Haran, so both brothers married nieces. The Septuagint spells it Iescha.

Where it appears

Genesis · 1

  1. Genesis 11:29 יִסְכָּֽה׃ Iscah

    And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. Abram’s wife was named Sarai, and Nahor’s wife was named Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, who was the father of both Milcah and Iscah.

    Here: A daughter of Haran named nowhere else in the Bible. The meaning of her name is uncertain. Mentioning her for no clear reason led to the old Jewish view that Iscah is Sarai under another name.

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