Hebrew word · H6709
צַחֲנָה
tzachanato
stench
A foul, putrid smell. It appears only here in the Bible and is paired with be'osh (H889), the ordinary word for the stench of decay, which occurs only three times (Isa 34:3; Joel 2:20; Amos 4:10).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
stench, foul odour
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
- Range of meaning
A foul, putrid smell. It appears only here in the Bible and is paired with be'osh (H889), the ordinary word for the stench of decay, which occurs only three times (Isa 34:3; Joel 2:20; Amos 4:10).
- Against the English
'Stink…ill savour' (KJV), 'stench…foul odor' (BSB). Both are fine. The point is that this is the smell of mass death, not just an unpleasant odor.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Isa 34:3: the slain of the nations, 'their corpses shall give off their stench'. Amos 4:10: 'I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils', which uses the same verb 'go up' with be'osh after a military disaster. Ancient writers describe the deadly reek of locust swarms washed ashore after drowning. Orosius (History 5.11), followed by Augustine (City of God 3.31), reports a vast cloud of locusts drowned off North Africa whose rotting heaps on the shore brought pestilence.
Similar words
Where it appears
Joel · 1
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Joel 2:20 צַחֲנָת֔וֹ foul smell its
The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its stench will rise; its foul odor will ascend. For He has done great things.
Here: A rare word for a putrid smell, found only here in the Bible. It is a parallel to be'osh, and together they paint mass death.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.