zana · prostitute oneself

What it means

zana (זָנָה) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “prostitute oneself”.

Figuratively, be unfaithful to God by going after other gods. As a noun, a prostitute.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. To give one's body to others outside marriage, often for pay; the woman who does so.
2. To be unfaithful to YHWH by going after other gods.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

To prostitute oneself; as a feminine participle, a prostitute. Figuratively, to be unfaithful to YHWH by going after other gods. BDB: to commit fornication; figuratively, to commit idolatry, Israel being the wife of YHWH.

• The prostitute: Tamar taken for one, Rahab Genesis 38:15Joshua 2:1
• A law for the priest Leviticus 21:7
• Israel “prostituted themselves” after other gods Judges 2:17Numbers 25:1
• The image of the broken marriage in the prophets Hosea 1:2Ezekiel 16:15

How we translate it

“Prostitute” 51 times, “prostituted yourself” 9, “prostituted themselves” 8, “prostituted herself” 7, “prostitutes” 5. זָנָה אַחֲרֵי is ‘prostitute oneself after’ (“they prostituted themselves after other gods”, Judges 2:17), without softening the image, and זוֹנָה “prostitute” is kept apart from קְדֵשָׁה “sacred prostitute” (Genesis 38:21).

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• prostitute ×51
• prostituted yourself ×9
• prostituted themselves ×8
• prostituted herself ×7
• prostitutes ×5
• prostituting herself ×2
• prostituting themselves ×2
• they give themselves wholly to prostitution ×2
• utterly prostituting itself ×2
• no one prostituted himself ×1
• others ×3

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Genesis×3
• Exodus×3
• Leviticus×9
• Numbers×2
• Deuteronomy×3
• Joshua×4
• Judges×6
• 1 Chronicles×1
• 2 Chronicles×3
• Psalms×2
• Proverbs×4
• Isaiah×5
• Jeremiah×6
• Ezekiel×22
• Hosea×14
• Joel×1
• Amos×1
• Micah×2
• Nahum×1

• Genesis 34:31

  But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”

• Genesis 38:15

  Judah saw her and thought her to be a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

• Genesis 38:24

  About three months later Judah was told, saying, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has prostituted herself, and moreover, look, she is pregnant by prostitution.” And Judah said, “Bring her out and let her be burned!”

• Exodus 34:15

  Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they prostitute themselves after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone invites you, and you eat of his sacrifice,

• Exodus 34:16

  and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters prostitute themselves after their gods and make your sons prostitute themselves after their gods.

• Leviticus 17:7

  So they shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goats after which they prostitute themselves. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.

• Leviticus 19:29

  Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land does not prostitute itself and the land become full of infamy.

• Leviticus 20:5

  then I will set my face against that man and against his clan, and I will cut off him and all who prostitute themselves after him, prostituting themselves after Molech, from among their people.

• Leviticus 20:6

  And the person who turns to those who call up the dead and to spiritists, prostituting themselves after them, I will set my face against that person and cut him off from among his people.

• Leviticus 21:7

  They shall not take a woman who is a prostitute or profaned, and they shall not take a woman divorced from her husband, for he is holy to his Elohim.

• Leviticus 21:9

  And the daughter of a priest, if she profanes herself by prostituting herself, she profanes her father; she shall be burned in the fire.

• Leviticus 21:14

  A widow, or a divorced woman, or a profaned prostitute, these he shall not take; but a virgin of his own people he shall take as wife,

• Numbers 15:39

  And it shall be a fringe for you, and you shall see it and remember all the commandments of YHWH and do them, and you shall not go exploring after your heart and after your eyes, after which you prostitute yourselves,

• Numbers 25:1

  Israel stayed in Shittim, and the people began to prostitute themselves with the daughters of Moab.

• Deuteronomy 22:21

  then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones so that she dies, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall remove the evil from among you.

• Deuteronomy 23:18

  You shall not bring the wages of a prostitute or the price of a dog into the house of YHWH your Elohim for any vow, for an abomination to YHWH your Elohim are both of them.

• Deuteronomy 31:16

  And YHWH said to Moses, “Look, you are about to lie down with your fathers, and this people will rise and prostitute themselves after the foreign gods of the land where they are going, in its midst, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I made with them.

• Joshua 2:1

  Then Joshua son of Nun sent from Shittim two men as spies secretly, saying, “Go, see the land and Jericho.” So they went and came to the house of a woman, a prostitute, whose name was Rahab, and they lay down there.

• Joshua 6:17

  The city shall be a thing devoted to destruction, it and all that is in it, to YHWH. Only Rahab the prostitute shall live, she and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers whom we sent.

• Joshua 6:22

  And to the two men who had spied out the land Joshua said, “Go into the house of the woman, the prostitute, and bring out from there the woman and all that she has, just as you swore to her.”

• Joshua 6:25

  But Rahab the prostitute and the house of her father and all that she had, Joshua kept alive; and she has lived in the midst of Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

• Judges 2:17

  Yet even to their judges they did not listen, for they prostituted themselves after other gods and bowed down to them. They turned aside quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked, listening to the commandments of YHWH; they did not do so.

• Judges 8:27

  Gideon made it into an ephod and set it up in his city, in Ophrah; and all Israel prostituted themselves after it there, and it became for Gideon and for his house a trap.

• Judges 8:33

  As soon as Gideon died, the sons of Israel again prostituted themselves after the Baals, and they made Baal-berith their god.

• Judges 11:1

  Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a valiant warrior, and he was the son of a woman, a prostitute; and Gilead fathered Jephthah.

• Judges 16:1

  Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a woman, a prostitute, and he went in to her.

• Judges 19:2

  But his concubine prostituted herself against him and went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem of Judah, and she was there for some time, four months.

• 1 Chronicles 5:25

  But they committed unfaithfulness against the Elohim of their fathers, and prostituted themselves after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom Elohim had destroyed before them.

• 2 Chronicles 21:11

  He also made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem prostitute themselves, and dragged Judah away.

• 2 Chronicles 21:13

  but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem prostitute themselves, as the house of Ahab made them prostitute themselves, and also have killed your brothers, your father’s house, who were better than you,

• Psalms 73:27

  For look, those far from you will perish; you annihilate all who prostitute themselves away from you.

• Psalms 106:39

  And they became unclean by their works, and prostituted themselves by their deeds.

• Proverbs 6:26

  For on account of a prostitute one comes to a loaf of bread, but another man’s wife hunts the precious soul.

• Proverbs 7:10

  And look, a woman comes to meet him, in the attire of a prostitute and with a guarded heart.

• Proverbs 23:27

  For a prostitute is a deep pit, and a foreign woman is a narrow well.

• Proverbs 29:3

  A man who loves wisdom makes his father glad, but a companion of prostitutes squanders wealth.

• Isaiah 1:21

  How the faithful city has become a prostitute! Full of justice, righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.

• Isaiah 23:15

  And it will happen, on that day, that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will be for Tyre like the song of the prostitute:

• Isaiah 23:16

  “Take a lyre, go around the city, forgotten prostitute; play well, sing many songs, so that you may be remembered.”

• Isaiah 23:17

  And it will happen, at the end of seventy years, that YHWH will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages, and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the earth on the face of the ground.

And 52 more times.