דָּשֵׁן
to be fat
also: grow fat, become fat, become prosperous, anoint fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Piel verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 9 distinct
- Verb, Pual, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Pual, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Piel, Infinitive Construct 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Piel, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (9%)
+1 more form (1 occurrence)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1878 appears — 11 distinct verses across 6 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Exodus 1 verse
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
Psalms 2 verses
Proverbs 4 verses
- Proverbs 11:25 תְדֻשָּׁ֑ן Pual impf 3fs The liberal soul shall be made fat. He who waters shall be watered also himself.
- Proverbs 13:4 תְּדֻשָּֽׁן Pual impf 3fs The soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing, But the desire of the diligent shall be fully satisfied.
- Proverbs 15:30 תְּדַשֶּׁן Piel impf 3fs The light of the eyes rejoices the heart. Good news gives health to the bones.
- Proverbs 28:25 יְדֻשָּֽׁן Pual impf 3ms One who is greedy stirs up strife; But one who trusts in Yahweh will prosper.
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 34:6 הֻדַּ֣שְׁנָה Hothpaal pf 3fs The sword of Yahweh is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
- Isaiah 34:7 יְדֻשָּֽׁן Pual impf 3ms The wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bulls with the bulls: and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
At its core, דשן (dâshên) means “to be fat.” Read the stem: it spans 4 stems, including Qal and Piel. Spanning 11 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Proverbs (36% of all occurrences). Scripture first uses it in Exodus 27:3. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1878 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,210
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,210 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 6 verses · 55%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 27%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 18%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Shall be made fat 3×
- American Standard Version†: Shall be made fat 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Will prosper 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Will be fattened 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1878 across 12† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1878 across 12† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1878 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1878 across 12† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel) and Hothp (the passive of Hithpael).
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 4 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
דשן I be fat, grow fat (Arabic دَسِمَ
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. וְדָשֵׁן consec. Dt 31:20 (JE) fig. of Isr.’s prosperity. e.g. Deuteronomy 31:20
Piel
- Pf. דִּשַּׁנְתָּ ψ 23:5; וְדִשְּׁנוּ consec. Nu 4:13; Impf.: יְדַשְּׁנֶה־סֶּֽלָה ψ 20:4 volunt. (cf. Ges§ 48, 3 De; but perhaps read sf. -נֶהָ, -נָהּ v. Ki Gesl.c.); 3 fs. תְּדַשֶּׁן־ Pr 15:30; Inf. לְדַשְּׁנוֹ Ex 27:3—causat. make fat ד׳ בשׁמן ראשׁי i.e. anoint, symbol of festivity and joy ψ 23:5; ד׳ עָ֑צֶם Pr 15:30 of bodily effect of good news; ד׳ עולה find a burnt-offering fat = acceptable ψ 20:4; elsewhere denom. from דֶּשֶׁן (fat ashes);—take away, clear away the fat ashes (acc. of altar cleared) Nu 4:13 (P), so סירות לְדַשְּׁנוֹ Ex 27:3 (P). e.g. Psalms 23:5
Pual
- Impf. יְדֻשָּׁ֑ן Pr 28:25 Is 34:7; 3 fs. תְּדֻשָּׁן Pr 11:25; 13:4—pass. of causat. Pi. be made fat, of dust saturated מֵחֵלֶב Is 34:7; fig. of prosperity of the liberal Pr 11:25, the diligent 13:4, the trustful 28:25. e.g. Proverbs 28:25
Hothp
- Pf. 3 fs. הֻדַּ֫שְׁנָה (cf. Ol§ 271 Ges§ 54, 3) Is 34:6, of Yahweh’s sword:—it hath fattened itself מֵחֶלֶב (‖ מָֽלְאָה דָּם). e.g. Isaiah 34:6
דשן II fat, דָּשֵׁן Is 30
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. vb. be fat, grow fat (Arabic دَسِمَ; whence also دَسَمٌ grease, fat; NH דִּשֵּׁן make fat, cf. NH דֶּשֶׁן fat)—
II. adj. fat, דָּשֵׁן Is 30:23 (‖ שָׁמֵן), of לֶחֶם as product of ground; fig. of righteous as trees דְּשֵׁנִים ψ 92:15 (‖ רעננים) fat, full of oil (?) or sap (Che; cf. דֶּשֶׁן Ju 9:9); as subst. vigorous, stalwart ones (opp. יוֹרְדֵי עָפָר cf. Che) ψ 22:30 דִּשְׁנֵי־ אֶרֶץ (Brüll שֹׁכְנֵי, RenanHist. iii. 134 ישְׁבֵי).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
דָּשֵׁן
- to be moist, sappy, fat.
- 1. to bless with rich pastures. Ber. 29ᵃ דַּשְּׁנֵנוּ בנאות וכ׳ (cmp. Ps. XXIII, 2) give us pasture on the meadows of thy land. e.g. Psalms 23:2
- 2. (b. h.; to remove the ashes, to clean (the lamps). Tam. III, 9 מְדַשְּׁנָן trims them. Yoma II, 3 מי מְדַשֵּׁן וכ׳ who shall do the cleaning of the inner altar. Tam. III, 1; a. e.
- 1. to become sappy, vigorous. Pirké d’R. El. ch. XXXII, end.
- 2. to be treated like the charred wick, to become unfit for sacred use. Men. 88ᵇ ני׳ השמן נִידַּשְּׁנָה וכ׳ the oil as well as the wick has become unfit.
דֶּשֶׁן
- v. preced.)
- 1. fat, honorary gift, v. next w.
- 2. ashes (of burnt flesh &c.). Zeb. V, 2, a. fr. בֵּית הד׳ the place where the ashes of sacrifices were deposited.—Pl. דְּשָׁנִין. Ib. 104ᵇ שלש בֵּית הַדְּשָׁנִין(!)
שֵׁן
- c. (b. h.;
- 1. tooth, tooth-like projection. Sabb. VI, 5 (64ᵇ) שן תותבת ושן של זהב an inserted (natural) tooth or an (artificial) gold tooth; (Bab. ed. שן תותכת שן וכ׳, Ms. O. ושן, v. Rashi a. l.). Ib. 10, v. שׁוּעָל; a. fr.—Esp. (sub. נזק) the damage done by an animal’s eating. B. Kam. 2ᵇ שלשה … הקרן והשן והרגל three chief damages are mentioned (in the Scriptural text) with reference to the ox: damage by the horn, by the tooth, and by the foot. Ib. תולדה דשן, v. נְשִׁיכָה. Ib. שן יש הנאה וכ׳, v. הֶיזֵּק. Ib. אשן ורגל it refers to damages by the tooth and by the foot; שן ורגל היכא כתיבי where is the damage by the tooth or the foot written (in the Biblical text)? Ib. ובער זו השן ubhiʿer (Ex. XXII, 4) this refers to damage by the tooth; a. fr.—Du. שִׁנַּיִים, שִׁנַּיִם, שִׁי׳. Ḥull. I, 2 בכל … והש׳ you may cut ritually with anything, except … with teeth in the jaw. Ib. ואם החליקו שִׁינֶּיהָ and if the teeth of the saw have been made smooth. Keth. 71ᵇ בין שיניה, v. אֶצְבַּע. Ib. 16ᵃ, v. כֶּרֶס. Kel. XIII, 8 שניטלו שִׁינָּיו (a hackle) whose teeth are broken off. Gen. R. s. 33 חשש רבי את שיניו וכ׳ Rabbi suffered from tooth-ache for thirteen years. Keth. 111ᵇ טוב המלבין ש׳ וכ׳ he who causes his neighbor to show the white of his teeth (who makes him cheerful) does better than he who gives him milk to drink. Ib. א"ת לבן ש׳ אלא לבון ש׳ read not l’ben shinnayim (Gen. XLIX, 12) but libbun shinnayim (whitening of teeth, cheerfulness); a. fr.— any organ of the body resembling teeth, gland.—Du. as ab. Y. Yeb. VI, beg. 7ᵇ בית הש׳ that part of the vagina which has glands; מבין הש׳ ולפנים from the glands and farther inside; Nidd. 41ᵇ. Ḥull. 16ᵇ שיניו נושרות the glands of his rectum will fall off; Sabb. 82ᵃ; a. e. e.g. Exodus 22:4
- 3. cliff, peak. Gen. R. s. 74 כשן הזה של וכ׳ (the stone which Jacob put up was) as large as the peak of Tiberias; Yalk. ib. 130; a. e.
- 4. (sub. של פיל) ivory. Num. R. s. 312 (play on מי יג̇ור̇ … חזק כש̇ן̇ (ג̇ר̇ש̇ון̇ who can abide snow and hail, and cold and heat? He who is as strong as ivory (or marble?); אין שן אלא לשון חזק וכ׳ shen has the meaning of strong (ref. to Cant. V, 14); a. e e.g. Song of Solomon 5:14
- 5. marble. Cant. R. to V, 11; Yalk. ib. 991, v. עֶשֶׁת.
שֵׁן ²
- Targ. O. Deut. XXXII, 24. Targ. Ex. XXI, 24. Targ. I Kings X, 22 (v. פִּילָא I). Ib. 18. Targ. I Sam. XIV, 4; a. fr.—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ bot; האי שִׁינָּךְ וכ׳ how is that tooth of thine?; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵃ bot.; Gen. R. s. 33. Ib. יהב ידיה על שִׁינֵּיה וכ׳ he put his hand on his (Rabbi’s) tooth, and it was cured.—Gitt. 68ᵇ ומנח להו אש׳ דטורא וכ׳ he puts it (the Shamir) on the peak of a mountain, and the mountain bursts. Snh. 96ᵇ תא אש׳ דטורא (Rashi דטורי) come (to Jerusalem) even if it be necessary to march over the cliffs of mountains (differ. in Rashi); Yalk. Is. 287; a. fr.—ש׳ דדור, שן דור pr. n. pl. the Cliff of Dor (v. Hildesh. Beitr. pp. 4; 10). Y. Shebi. VI, 36ᶜ (not דרור); Tosef. Shebi. IV, 11 שורא דרור (corr. acc.); Sifré Deut. 51 [read:] מדבר שר שן דור; Yalk. ib. 874 (corr. acc.).—Pl. שִׁנִּין, שִׁנַּיָּא, שִׁנֵּי, שִׁי׳. Targ. Am. IV, 6 (not שְׁנִין). Targ. Prov. X, 26.—Targ. Jer. XLIX, 16. Targ. Y. Gen. XLIX, 21 (not שֵׁינֵי); a. fr.—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᵇ תלת … חשש (ב)שִׁינּוֹי suffered from tooth-ache for thirteen years. Ib. חד שִׁינַּיי וכ׳ one of my teeth annoys me; (Y. Keth. l. c. חד שינא).—Sabb. 82ᵃ, v. כַּרְכְּשָׁא; a. fr.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 10 distinct written forms H1878 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יְדֻשָּֽׁן | Verb, Pual, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Isaiah 34:7 | 2 |
| דִּשַּׁ֖נְתָּ | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 23:5 | 1 |
| הֻדַּ֣שְׁנָה | Verb, Hothpaal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Isaiah 34:6 | 1 |
| וְ/דִשְּׁנ֖וּ | Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Numbers 4:13 | 1 |
| וְ/דָשֵׁ֑ן | Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Deuteronomy 31:20 | 1 |
| יְדַשְּׁנֶ֣/ה | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 20:3 | 1 |
| לְ/דַשְּׁנ֔/וֹ | Verb, Piel, Infinitive Construct | Exodus 27:3 | 1 |
| תְדֻשָּׁ֑ן | Verb, Pual, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Proverbs 11:25 | 1 |
| תְּדַשֶּׁן | Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Proverbs 15:30 | 1 |
| תְּדֻשָּֽׁן | Verb, Pual, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Proverbs 13:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1878, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
