Hebrew word · H6890
צֶרֶת הַשַּׁ֫חַר
hashachar
Zereth-shahar
A two-part place name found only here. Shachar is the common word for 'dawn' (H7837). 'Zereth' has no clear Hebrew meaning. Proposals tie it to Arabic words, or to the measure zereth ('span'), but none is certain.
Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
§ Zareth-shahar = "splendour of the dawn"
a town in Reuben
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 Joshua 13:19
- Range of meaning
A two-part place name found only here. Shachar is the common word for 'dawn' (H7837). 'Zereth' has no clear Hebrew meaning. Proposals tie it to Arabic words, or to the measure zereth ('span'), but none is certain.
- Against the English
KJV has 'Zareth-shahar' (following older spelling), modern versions 'Zereth-shahar'. No version translates it, and 'Shahar' gives the English reader no hint of 'dawn'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Not attested elsewhere in the Bible. At Ugarit, Shachar ('Dawn') and Shalim ('Dusk') are twin gods (text KTU 1.23). Some scholars have proposed that Shachar here, like Shalim in 'Jerusalem', keeps an old divine name. The site is often identified with ez-Zarat on the east shore of the Dead Sea near the hot springs of Callirrhoe (ʿAin ez-Zara), but this rests mainly on how similar the names sound.
Similar words
Where it appears
Joshua · 2
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Joshua 13:19 וְצֶ֥רֶת הַשַּׁ֖חַר and Zereth, <the> Shahar
Kiriathaim, Sibmah, Zereth-shahar on the hill in the valley,
Here: The first part of a two-word place name. It appears only here in the Bible, and no one knows for sure what 'Zereth' means.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.