Hebrew word · H350

אִי־כָבוֹד

khavod

Ichabod

A compound name: the particle 'i plus kavod. 'I is rare in Hebrew. It works as a negative, 'not, no' (Job 22:30, 'i-naqi, 'one not innocent'; compare Phoenician 'y, 'not'). It can also be a form of 'ey, 'where?' (compare Ugaritic 'iy, 'where?').

Appears 3 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

A man living at the time of United Monarchy, first mentioned at 1Sa.4.21;

son of: Phinehas (H6372H);

brother of: Ahitub (H0285)

§ Ichabod = "no glory"

a son of Phinehas, so named because of the capture of the Ark by the Philistines

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 Samuel 4:21

Range of meaning

A compound name: the particle 'i plus kavod. 'I is rare in Hebrew. It works as a negative, 'not, no' (Job 22:30, 'i-naqi, 'one not innocent'; compare Phoenician 'y, 'not'). It can also be a form of 'ey, 'where?' (compare Ugaritic 'iy, 'where?'). Some link it to the exclamation 'i, 'alas, woe' (Eccl 4:10; 10:16).

Against the English

English Bibles transliterate it, so its meaning is hidden. Most readers know only the narrator's explanation, 'the glory has departed.' The name itself is stronger: 'No-Glory' or 'Where is the Glory?'

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Ugaritic Baal myth, the cry 'iy 'al'iyn b'l, 'Where is mightiest Baal?', is raised when the god has vanished into death. This is often compared to the name Jezebel ('i-zevel, perhaps 'Where is the prince?'). Josephus (Antiquities 5.360) understands the name as meaning 'disgrace' (adoxia). The Septuagint's 'Ouai-' forms read it as 'woe'. Ichabod appears again only in 1 Sam 14:3, as the brother of Ahitub, whose son Ahijah served as priest under Saul.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 3

  1. 1 Samuel 4:21 אִֽי־ כָבוֹד֙ I-, -chabod

    And she named the boy Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel,” because the ark of God had been captured and her father-in-law and her husband had been killed.

    Here: A short particle that can mean 'not / no' (as in Job 22:30) or 'where?' (a by-form of 'ey). Either way it empties out the word that follows: the child is named for an absence.

  2. 1 Samuel 14:3 אִיכָב֣וֹד׀ Ichabod

    including Ahijah, who was wearing an ephod. He was the son of Ichabod’s brother Ahitub son of Phinehas, the son of Eli the priest of the LORD in Shiloh. But the troops did not know that Jonathan had left.

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