אַשָּׁף

From the study of Daniel 1:20

Range of meaning

Incantation-priest or exorcist. It is borrowed from Akkadian āšipu (also called mašmaššu), the Mesopotamian specialist who used spoken spells and rituals to drive off demons, treat illness and undo bad omens.

Against the English

BSB, WEB, ESV and NIV have 'enchanters' and NASB 'conjurers', both reasonable. KJV's 'astrologers' is misleading: the āšipu was an incantation and exorcism specialist, not a star-watcher. (Babylon did have astronomer-diviners, but that is not this word.)

How it drifted

KJV followed older guesses about the word, made before the Akkadian original was known. Cuneiform study in the 19th century identified the source as āšipu.

Used elsewhere in the period

In Hebrew only here and Dan 2:2; in Aramaic (ʾāšap) in Dan 2:10, 27; 4:4; 5:7, 11, 15. The āšipu is abundantly attested in Mesopotamian sources: incantation series such as Maqlû and Šurpu, and the exorcist's handbook attributed to the scholar Esagil-kin-apli.

From the study of Daniel 2:2

Range of meaning

A loanword from Babylonian Akkadian āšipu (also wāšipu): the incantation priest or exorcist. He diagnosed illness and misfortune as the work of demons, angry gods or witchcraft, and dealt with it by spells, purifications and rituals for averting evil (Akkadian namburbi). The word appears only in Daniel, in Hebrew (1:20; 2:2) and Aramaic (2:10, 27; 4:7; 5:7, 11, 15).

Against the English

'Enchanters' (BSB, ESV, NIV, WEB) and 'conjurers' (NASB) are reasonable. KJV's 'astrologers' is a mismatch: the āšipu dealt with spells and exorcism, not the stars. 'Exorcist' (HALOT) is probably the closest single English word.

How it drifted

KJV's 'astrologers' goes back to older uncertainty about the word, before the Akkadian background was known.

Used elsewhere in the period

The āšipu is one of the main scholar-classes in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian royal correspondence, next to the omen-scribe, the haruspex (bārû, who read the entrails of sacrificed animals), the physician and the lamentation priest (Parpola, SAA 10). Texts for dispelling evil dreams, in which the dream's evil was ritually transferred onto an object and destroyed, belonged to this kind of expertise (Oppenheim 1956).