🔼The name Ashdod: Summary
- Meaning
- Mountain Slope, Ravine Bottom
- Fortress, Demon Place, Furrowed Field
- Fire Of David
- Etymology
- From אשד ('eshed), mountain slope or ravine bottom.
- From שדד (shadad), to deal violently with.
- From (1) אש ('ash), fire, and (2) דוד (dawid), the name David.
🔼The name Ashdod in the Bible
The name Ashdod belongs to one of the five Philistine cities in southwest Israel, which were governed by five lords (Joshua 13:3). The other four cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron, which also somehow included some Avvim and Anakim (Joshua 11:22).
Upon completion of the Canaanite campaign, Ashdod was optimistically assigned to the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:46-47), but the Ashdodites didn't think so and resisted until well into the reign of king David. When the Ark was lost during the Battle of Ebenezer, it was initially stored in the temple of Dagon in Ashdod (1 Samuel 5:1), only for the Ashdodites (אשדודים, 'ashdodim) to find their deity fallen on his face before it, and themselves covered with tumors.
The Philistines were formally defeated by David (2 Samuel 8:1), although their resistance never quite died down. Only under king Uzziah were the walls of Ashdod broken down and the area annexed to Judah (2 Chronicles 26:6). Ashdod was among the cities targeted by the Assyrians (Isaiah 20:1, Jeremiah 25:20, Amos 1:8, Zephaniah 2:4). After the Jews had begun to return from the Babylonian exile, the Ashdodites joined Ammonites and Arabs in hostilities against the rebuilders (Nehemiah 4:7), although some Jews had married their women (Nehemiah 13:23), and many of their children only spoke Ashdodese (אשדודית, Ashdodit) and no Hebrew.
The prophet Zechariah foretold that Ashdod would be peopled by a bastard race (Zechariah 9:6), while bastards were specifically excluded from the assembly of the Lord — the only other time this word, ממזר (mamzer), bastard, occurs in the Bible is Deuteronomy 23:2. Still, in that same law, eunuchs were likewise excluded, while Isaiah jubilantly declared them welcome (Isaiah 56:4-5).
All this is significant for Ashdod's brief cameo appearance in the New Testament: an angel of the Lord sends the disciple Philip to the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza, where he meets an unnamed Ethiopian eunuch, an officer of queen Candace, who had purchased a copy of Isaiah and was trying to read it. Philip explains the text, and invites him to be baptized. As they emerge from the water, the Spirit of the Lord zaps Philip away, so that the eunuch is left and Philip finds himself at Ashdod — in the Hellenistic era curiously called Αζωτος (Azotos), but still the same city (Acts 8:40 only). Philip continues preaching the gospel to all the cities until he reaches Caesarea.
The name Ashdod survives until the modern age, but the present city of Ashdod was newly founded in 1956, 7 kilometers north of the ruins of the ancient city.
🔼Etymology of the name Ashdod
The name Ashdod may be interpreted in a variety of ways, and it's possible that the Scribes who first committed this name to paper meant every one of them. BDB Theological Dictionary reports an original connection to a root אשד ('ashad), meaning to be a foundation or mountain slope:
אשד
The root אשד ('ashad) means to be a foundation or slope (of a mountain). Noun אשד ('eshed) describes the slope or bottom of a ravine. Noun אשדה ('asheda) describes the slope of a mountain.
The problem with this explanation is that the coast of Israel is as flat as a pancake, and although Ashdod may have seemed the bottom of a ravine in some figurative sense, such a figurative use is not recorded. Wadis and ravine bottoms were excellent places to hide, and there are better words to discredit Ashdod, if any Scribe would have had the need to. In that line of thought, our name Ashdod appears to have been designed to also point toward the verb שדד (shadad), to deal or be dealt violently with:
שדד
The verb שדד (shadad) means to deal violently with, ruin or destroy. Noun שד (shad) or שוד (shud) means havoc, violence or devastation.
An identical verb, which in the middle ages was pointed slightly different, is שדד (sadad), which describes the harrowing of a field: to act violently upon a field. Whether formally related or not, the noun שדמה (shedema) means field, and nouns שדי (saday) and שדה (sadeh) do too, and may denote either a cultivated field or a wild one, where wild animals live.
Speaking of wild animals, the noun שד (shed) is a loan word but its adoption was probably lubricated by the similar words treated above. It describes a mythological creature, namely the entity called sedu, a kind of protecting spirit depicted as a winged bull, in essence not unlike the more familiar genius and daemon. Note the similarity between this word שד (shed) and the noun שד (shad), meaning havoc.
Slightly more surprising, a third identically spelled noun, שד (shad), describes the mammalian breast, whether human or animal. This noun is assumed to stem from an unused verb שדה (shadeh), meaning to moisten in cognate language, which is identical to the assumed verb that yields the nouns שדי (saday) and שדה (sadeh), meaning field, suggesting an emphasis on natural irrigation.
In cognate languages, these same nouns also mean [wet] mountain, and beside the link between a moist, fruitful mountain and a milk dispensing breast: milk is dispensed to infants, whereas the belief in supernatural bullies is a mark of an immature mind.
Finally, as the original audience would have readily noticed, our name is spelled identical to the phrase אש דוד ('esh dawid), or fire of David; the first word being אש ('ash), fire:
אש
The noun אש ('esh) means fire. Noun אשה ('ishsheh) describes a fire offering.
And the second word being the name David, meaning Beloved, from the extensive root ידד (yadad), to love:
ידד
The root ידד (yadad) has to do with love, and that mostly in the affectionate, physical sense. Adjective ידיד (yadid) means beloved or lovely. Noun ידידות (yedidot) means love, as in "a song of love" and noun ידידות (yedidut), meaning love in the sense of beloved one.
Curiously, an identical verb ידד (yadad II) means to cast a lot and instead of being kin to the previous, it appears to be related to the verb ידה (yada), which originally meant to cast but which evolved to mean to praise.
That our root has to do with physical fondling and love-making is demonstrated by the verb דדה (dada), which means to move slowly. Noun דד (dad) denotes a women's nipple or breast specifically as object of one's husband's interest.
Unused verb דוד (dwd) probably meant to gently swing, dandle, fondle. Noun דוד (dod) or דד (dod) means beloved or loved one, and may also describe one's uncle. The feminine version, דודה (doda), means aunt. Noun דודי (duday) literally means a "love-bringer" and describes a mandrake. Noun דוד (dud) refers to a kind of pot or jar (perhaps one that was rocked or stirred?).
It may or may not be that the noun יד (yad), meaning hand, also has something to do with this root.
🔼Ashdod meaning
For a meaning of the name Ashdod, Alfred Jones (Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names) goes with the verb שדד (shadad), to deal violently with, but renders it an unwarranted twist of to be strong and thus fortified. Jones reads A Fortified Place, and likewise NOBSE Study Bible Name List has Stronghold, Fortress, but it does not seem likely that an original audience would have interpreted this name as such.
BDB Theological Dictionary lists our name under the root אשד ('ashad), to be a slope, and does not offer an interpretation, but that would be something like Mountain Slope or Ravine Bottom. As noted above, that would hardly suit a city on a very flat plain.
Finally, we note that our name Ashdod is identical to a phrase that means Fire Of David or Fire Of The Beloved, which might, perhaps, have been interpreted in light of David's victory over the Ashdodites.