סְאוֹן

From the study of Isaiah 9:5

Range of meaning

A boot or sandal, footwear. Because it occurs only once in the Hebrew Bible, its meaning has to be worked out from related languages and from this one context. The verb beside it (so'en, H5431) is probably built from the noun and means something like 'to tramp in boots'.

Against the English

Most modern versions say 'boot' (BSB, NIV, ESV, NASB, NLT). KJV and YLT say 'battle', with the following words read as noise or rushing. WEB says 'armor', a broader guess at military equipment.

How it drifted

This is an old gap in knowledge rather than a shift in English. Ancient and early modern translators had no clear evidence for this one-time word and guessed from context. The Vulgate reads 'violent plunder with tumult', and English Bibles of the 1500s and 1600s spoke of battle and noise. Knowledge of Akkadian, the language of Assyria and Babylon, later made 'boot' the leading view.

Used elsewhere in the period

Akkadian šēnu means 'shoe, sandal', and there are related words in Aramaic and Syriac (BDB; HALOT). Some scholars think Hebrew borrowed the word. Assyrian palace reliefs of this general period show soldiers in tall laced boots, and Isaiah 5:27 has already described the coming army as one in which 'not a sandal strap is broken'. A foreign-sounding word for an invader's footwear is suggestive, but it does not prove the boot here is specifically Assyrian.