כד

Pronunciation

• Tiberian: kaḏ, with suffix kaddēḵ, plural kaddîm^[1][2]
• Samaritan reading tradition: kidda, kiddək^[3]

Forms

כַּד (kaḏ) noun, masculine, plural כַּדִּים^[1][4] With suffix כַּדֵּךְ, כַּדָּהּ, plural כַּדִּים; feminine in BDB, masculine in some passages according to Gesenius–Buhl.^[2][5][6]

Etymology

Noonan counts the jar among the foreign words of the Bible, an old culture word of the Mediterranean.^[7] Its Semitic relatives are only in Northwest Semitic: Ugaritic kd (“jar; a liquid measure”),^[8] Phoenician kd and Punic kd,^[9] Aramaic כַּדָּא (kaddā) and Classical Syriac ܟܕܢܐ (kaddānā, “small jug”).^[6][5] Akkadian kandu (“jar”) is a Neo-Babylonian loan from West Semitic or Aramaic.^[7][10] The same word is Ancient Greek κάδος (kádos, “jar for water or wine”), with a Cypriot syllabic form, and Latin cadus.^[7][11]

Its direction is disputed.^[6][5][7] HALOT and Klein take the Greek from the Semitic word,^[6][12] Gesenius–Buhl compared the Babylonian word and took the Greek from it,^[5] and Wiktionary suggests Sanskrit कन्दु (kandu, “pot”), from Dravidian.^[4] Noonan points to its spread in the west and its frequent use at Ugarit, a trade port of the Late Bronze Age, and to Hesychius, who glosses Ancient Greek καδία (kadía) as a Salaminian word for a water jar: the word may have spread from Cyprus or from some other Mediterranean language now unknown.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

All its biblical uses are in narrative, most of them in the story of Rebekah at the well, where the servant asks haṭṭî-nāʾ kaddēḵ wəʾešteh, “please let down your jar, that I may drink” (Genesis 24:14), a jar large enough to water the camels.^[1][7] BDB notes that she carries it on her shoulder, as women carried water.^[2] It is written kd on an inscription from Tell el-ʿOreme on the Sea of Galilee.^[13]

Semantic evolution

HALOT and Noonan describe a large jar, used for water (Genesis 24; 1 Kings 18:34) and for storing flour: Elijah promises the widow that kaḏ haqqemaḥ lōʾ ṯiḵlâ, “the jar of flour shall not be used up” (1 Kings 17:14).^[6][7][1] Gideon's men hid torches in empty jars and broke them (Judges 7:16–20).^[2] Qohelet's image of death includes a jar broken at the spring (Qohelet 12:6).^[6][1] The Septuagint mostly renders it by Ancient Greek ὑδρία (hudría) “water jar”.^[1] The Qumran scroll 3Q15 has it twice.^[14] In Rabbinic Hebrew kaḏ is a round, bulging jug, used in the Mishnah for the same vessel as the ḥāḇîṯ.^[15] Modern Hebrew כד (kad) is a jug or pitcher.^[4]

Timeline

• Classical Biblical Hebrew – Rebekah's water jar (Genesis 24), Gideon's jars (Judges 7) and the widow's jar of flour (1 Kings 17).^[1][2]
• Late Biblical Hebrew – the jar broken at the spring in Qohelet 12:6.^[1]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint translates it as Ancient Greek ὑδρία (hudría).^[16][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – twice in the scroll 3Q15.^[17][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. a jar, pitcher, especially a water jar carried on the shoulder.^[6][2]
2. a storage jar for flour.^[6][2]

Descendants

• Modern Hebrew כד (kad)^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c d e f g Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. כַּד
3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
4. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
5. ^ a b c d Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. כַּד
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. כַּד
7. ^ a b c d e f g Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 115
8. ^ del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. kd I
9. ^ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2000), Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Leuven: Peeters (OLA 90), p. s.v. kd
10. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. kandu
11. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. κάδος
12. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. כַּד I
13. ^ Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 38.002.1
14. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
15. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. כַּד II
16. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
17. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143