יָדַד
ya.dad
to cast a lot
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
ExploredThe Hebrew word יָדַד (ya.dad), with Strong's number H3032, is defined as "to cast a lot." This verb carries a specific meaning related to a form of decision-making or determining outcomes through chance. In its construction and crafts semantic domain, it implies a mechanical or aleatoric process. The word appears in the Bible three times. Given its meaning, it's logical to associate it with practices like divination or decision-making under uncertainty. Its significance lies in its depiction of early human attempts to discern or control outcomes through unpredictable means. In its limited but specific usage, the verb highlights the human inclination to rely on chance, which is an integral aspect of human decision-making and problem-solving strategies across cultures and historical periods.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
3 total occurrences across the text
and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
Obadiah 1:11In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.
Nahum 3:10Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.