🔼The name Dizahab: Summary
- Meaning
- Abounding In Gold
- Etymology
- From (1) the noun זהב (zahab), gold, and (2) the adjective די (day), sufficient or enough.
🔼The name Dizahab in the Bible
The name Dizahab occurs only once in the Bible. In Deuteronomy 1:1 the place called Dizahab serves along with no fewer than six other location names to pinpoint precisely where in the Arabah Moses spoke to Israel according to all that YHWH had commanded him to give them (Deuteronomy 1:3). Israel was still on the move by then, and this pinpoint precision strongly suggest that the location at which this happened was relevant to the whole endeavor. It's therefore equally telling that this place itself was never named.
🔼Etymology of the name Dizahab
The name Dizahab obviously consists of two elements. The first part of our name is the substantive די (day), meaning sufficient or enough:
די
The particle די (day) means sufficiently or enough and implies an abundance. It often occurs joined with prefixes.
The second part of the name Dizahab comes from the noun זהב (zahab), meaning gold:
זהב
What the unused verb זהב (zahab) may have meant is utterly unknown. But the noun זהב (zahab) is the regular word for gold. Since stability and unchangeability are qualities of the divine and the eternal laws of nature, gold has been long considered holy. In recent times it has become quite clear that gold is not unchangeable, and is rather as profane as the rest of all creatures.
🔼Dizahab meaning
For a meaning of the name Dizahab, NOBSE Study Bible Name List reads Abounding In Gold and Jones' Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names proposes the slightly more elaborate and thus slightly less accurate A Place Abounding With Gold. BDB Theological Dictionary does not offer an explanation of our name but does list it under די (day), meaning sufficient or enough.