Hebrew word · H3561

כַּוָּן

kavanim

bun

Ritual cakes offered to a deity. The word occurs only here and in Jer 44:19, where the women say they made them 'to represent her' or 'in her image' (לְהַעֲצִבָהּ). It is not a general Hebrew word for baked goods; ordinary cakes and loaves have other names (ʿugah, ḥallah, leḥem).

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

What it means

cake, sacrificial cake

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 Jeremiah 7:18

Range of meaning

Ritual cakes offered to a deity. The word occurs only here and in Jer 44:19, where the women say they made them 'to represent her' or 'in her image' (לְהַעֲצִבָהּ). It is not a general Hebrew word for baked goods; ordinary cakes and loaves have other names (ʿugah, ḥallah, leḥem).

Against the English

English 'cakes' (KJV, BSB, WEB, ESV, NIV) is accurate as to form but sounds homely, like a treat. The Hebrew word is a technical cult term borrowed from Mesopotamian religion.

How it drifted

Not really drift in the English word itself. Readers simply lose the fact that it is a foreign ritual term, because English has no equivalent loanword.

Used elsewhere in the period

Borrowed from Akkadian kamānu, a cake used in offerings, including to Ishtar. Mesopotamian ritual texts mention kamān tumri, cakes baked in ashes, for her. Clay moulds from Mari (18th century BCE) show female figures and may have been used to shape cakes, which would fit 'in her image' in Jer 44:19, though their use is debated. The Greek Septuagint did not translate the word but transliterated it as chauōnas, a sign the translators saw it as a special term.

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 2

  1. Jeremiah 7:18 כַּוָּנִ֜ים cakes

    The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven; they pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.

    Here: A rare foreign word, used only here and in Jer 44:19, borrowed from Akkadian kamānu, a cake offered to the goddess Ishtar. These are cult cakes, not dessert, and 44:19 says they were made 'to represent her'.

  2. Jeremiah 44:19 כַּוָּנִים֙ cakes

    “Moreover,” said the women, “when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ knowledge that we made sacrificial cakes in her image and poured out drink offerings to her?”

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