Hebrew word · H803

אָשְׁיָה

'ashviyoteiha

foundation

This word occurs only here in the Bible. The scholarly consensus links it to Akkadian asītu / asayyu, meaning a tower, buttress or projecting part of a fortification wall. Some versions render it 'bulwarks' or 'battlements.'

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

buttress, support

Aramaic equivalent: osh (אֹשׁ "foundation" H0787)

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 50:15

Range of meaning

This word occurs only here in the Bible. The scholarly consensus links it to Akkadian asītu / asayyu, meaning a tower, buttress or projecting part of a fortification wall. Some versions render it 'bulwarks' or 'battlements.'

Against the English

KJV 'foundations' follows the Vulgate's fundamenta and an older guess that tied it to Aramaic ʾuššā ('foundation,' cf. Ezra 4:12). Modern versions say 'towers' (BSB, NIV), 'bulwarks' (ESV, WEB), or something similar.

How it drifted

This is not a meaning that drifted over time. Early translators guessed at a rare word. The guess came into English through the Latin and stayed in the KJV tradition.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint (Jer 27:15 in its numbering) appears to read ἐπάλξεις, 'battlements.' That supports an above-ground fortification. The supplied source data has the same tension: lemma gloss 'foundation,' contextual gloss 'towers.'

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 50:15 אָשְׁיוֹתֶ֔יהָ towers its

    Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

    Here: 'Her buttresses' or 'towers.' This word appears only here in the Bible. It most likely comes from the Akkadian (Babylonian) word for a tower or buttress built against a wall. It means the parts of the fortifications that stand up above ground, not the foundations underneath.

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