Hebrew word · H8430

תּוֹחַ

toach

Toah

The name occurs only here. Its meaning is uncertain: lexicons offer guesses, and some suggest a sense like 'lowly'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated November 06, 2026

What it means

A man of the tribe of Levi living at the time of United Monarchy, first mentioned at 1Sa.1.1;

son of: Zuph (H6689);

father of: Elihu (H0453); also called Nahath at 1Ch.6.26; Toah at 1Ch.6.34;

Another name of to.chu (תֹּחוּ "Tohu" H8459)

§ Toah = "lowly"

son of Zuph, father of Eliel, and ancestor of Samuel and Heman

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: The name occurs only here. Its meaning is uncertain: lexicons offer guesses, and some suggest a sense like 'lowly'.
Against the English: KJV, BSB, WEB and YLT all have 'Toah'. Readers may not know that 1 Samuel 1:1 calls the same man 'Tohu'.
Used elsewhere in the period: The parallels are Tohu (תֹּחוּ, 1 Sam 1:1) and probably Nahath (נַחַת, 1 Chr 6:26). In the Hebrew alphabet ו/ח and ת/ח could be confused or swapped when names were copied or pronounced.

1 Chronicles · 1

1 Chronicles 6:34 תּֽוֹחַ׃ Toah

the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah,

Here: Samuel's great-great-grandfather. He is called Tohu (תֹּחוּ) in 1 Samuel 1:1 and probably Nahath (נַחַת) in 1 Chronicles 6:26. The letters are similar enough to explain the variation. No one knows for certain what the name means.

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