Hebrew word · H6847

צָֽפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ

tzafenat

Zaphenath-paneah

A personal name, not a common noun. Almost all scholars treat it as an Egyptian name written in Hebrew letters (the Hebrew spelling may be slightly distorted). The main reconstructions are: ḏd pꜣ nṯr iw.f ꜥnḫ, 'The god speaks, and he lives' (Steindorff, 1889). This is the most widely cited.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

A man living at the time of the Patriarchs, first mentioned at Gen.30.24;

son of: Israel (H3478) and Rachel (H7354);

brother of: Benjamin (H1144);

half-brother of: Reuben (H7205), Simeon (H8095), Levi (H3878), Judah (H3063), Dan (H1835H), Naphtali (H5321), Gad (H1410), Asher (H0836), Issachar (H3485), Zebulun (H2074) and Dinah (H1783); married to Asenath (H0621);

father of: Manasseh (H4519) and Ephraim (H0669); also called Zaphenath-paneah at Gen.41.45;

Another name of yo.seph (יוֹסֵף "Joseph" H3130G)

§ Zaphnath-paaneah = "treasury of the glorious rest"

a name given by Pharaoh to Joseph

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 41:45

Range of meaning

A personal name, not a common noun. Almost all scholars treat it as an Egyptian name written in Hebrew letters (the Hebrew spelling may be slightly distorted). The main reconstructions are:

  • ḏd pꜣ nṯr iw.f ꜥnḫ, 'The god speaks, and he lives' (Steindorff, 1889). This is the most widely cited. The name type 'Djed-[god]-iuf-ankh' is well attested in Egyptian, mostly in the first millennium BC.
  • ḏd(.w) n.f ip-ꜥnḫ, '(he) who is called Ipiankh' (Kitchen). On this view Joseph was given an ordinary Egyptian personal name, of a type known from the Middle Kingdom.
  • Other proposals, such as 'sustainer of life' or 'the one who knows things', have weaker support.

On any of these views the element ꜥnḫ, 'life', is probably present.

Against the English

English versions simply transliterate it, with different spellings: Zaphnath-paaneah (KJV/YLT), Zaphenath-paneah (BSB/WEB/ESV). Footnotes and study notes add very different 'meanings': 'revealer of secrets', 'the god speaks and he lives', or (from the Latin Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims Bible) 'Savior of the world'.

How it drifted

Very early on, Jewish readers heard Hebrew roots in the name: tsafan, 'to hide', and an Aramaic-type pa'neach, 'to reveal'. That gave 'revealer of hidden things', which matched Joseph's dream-reading. Jerome's Latin Vulgate (around AD 400) went further and replaced the name with a translation, Salvatorem mundi, 'Savior of the world'. He was apparently relying on an Egyptian or Coptic interpretation of the Greek form, and it fed later readings of Joseph as a figure of Christ.

Used elsewhere in the period
  • Septuagint (Greek): Psonthomphanēch, closer to an Egyptian pronunciation.
  • Josephus (Antiquities 2.91): explains it as 'finder of secrets'.
  • Targum Onkelos (Aramaic): renders it 'the man to whom hidden things are revealed'.
  • Vulgate: 'he called him in the Egyptian tongue Savior of the world'.
  • Egyptian evidence: names of the form Djed-[god]-iuf-ankh are common, especially from about 1000 BC on.

Where it appears

Genesis · 2

  1. Genesis 41:45 צָֽפְנַ֣ת פַּעְנֵחַ֒ Zaphenath-, Paneah

    Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-paneah, and he gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife. And Joseph took charge of all the land of Egypt.

    Here: First half of Joseph's Egyptian court name, written in Hebrew letters. It is almost certainly Egyptian, and its exact meaning is debated (see studies).

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