Daughter
Summary
A word used in Scripture not only for direct female offspring but also for granddaughters, female descendants, and metaphorically for female inhabitants of a city or dependent towns.
☩Literal and Extended Usage
Besides its ordinary meaning of a female child, 'daughter' is used for any female descendant—granddaughter, niece, or more remote relation. It also designates women as natives, residents, or adherents of certain places or religions: 'daughters of Zion,' 'daughters of the Philistines,' 'daughter of a strange god.' The phrase 'daughter of ninety years' indicates a woman of that age, as when Sarah is so described.
☩Cities and Villages
In Hebrew idiom, small towns are called 'daughters' of neighboring large cities—the mother cities from which they derived or to which they belonged. Thus Scripture speaks of 'Heshbon and all her daughters' (rendered 'villages' in translation) and calls Abel 'a mother in Israel.' This usage reflects the ancient view of cities personified as female figures.
☩Collective Personification
The phrase 'daughter of Jerusalem' or 'daughter of Zion' refers to the people collectively of that place, personified poetically as a woman. This usage appears throughout the prophets, as in 'the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee.' Jesus addressed the women of Jerusalem as 'daughters of Jerusalem' on His way to the cross.
☩Status of Daughters
Daughters in the ancient Near East performed domestic services and outdoor labor—drawing water, keeping sheep, baking bread—even when of noble parentage. A father might sell his daughter as a bondwoman, though not to a foreigner. Daughters could inherit when there were no sons but could not take the inheritance outside their tribe. Jesus used 'daughter' as a term of tender address to the woman healed of her issue of blood.
Related Verses509 mentions
References
- 1.John McClintock and James Strong, "Daughter," in Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. II (Harper & Brothers, 1867–1887).
- 2.James Orr (ed.), "Daughter," in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. II (Howard-Severance Company, 1915).
- 3.James Hastings (ed.), "Daughter," in Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, vol. I (T. & T. Clark, 1906–1908).