דּוֹנַג

# Dōnag (דּוֹנַג): Wax in Biblical Hebrew The Hebrew word dōnag refers to wax, a substance known to biblical audiences through practical experience. With only four occurrences in the biblical text, this term appears rarely but consistently in contexts where its physical properties matter. The limited frequency suggests that while wax was a recognized material in ancient Israelite life, it held a relatively minor place in the concerns addressed by biblical writers. The scarcity of textual evidence means we cannot determine a wide semantic range or metaphorical applications for this word based solely on the provided data. The four instances represent the complete biblical documentation of dōnag, which constrains what we can confidently say about nuances in its meaning or figurative uses. What remains clear is that the term denoted a specific, identifiable substance familiar enough to require no elaborate explanation when mentioned to the biblical audience. Without access to the specific contexts of these four occurrences, we cannot detail exactly how dōnag functioned in Israelite material culture or symbolic thought. The lexical data confirms only that wax existed as a named substance in the Hebrew vocabulary—a material object grounded in the ordinary world of biblical writers and their audiences.