daughter Summary and Overview

This word, besides its natural and proper sense, is used to designate, (1.) A niece or any female descendant (Gen. 20:12; 24:48; 28:6). (2.) Women as natives of a place, or as professing the religion of a place; as, "the daughters of Zion" (Isa. 3:16), "daughters of the Philistines" (2 Sam. 1:20). (3.) Small towns and villages lying around a city are its "daughters," as related to the metropolis or mother city. Tyre is in this sense called the daughter of Sidon (Isa. 23:12). (4.) The people of Jerusalem are spoken of as "the daughters of Zion" (Isa. 37:22). (5.) The daughters of a tree are its boughs (Gen. 49:22). (6.) The "daughters of music" (Eccl. 12:4) are singing women.

The word is used in Scripture not only for daughter, but for granddaughter or other female descendant. #Ge 24:48| It is used of the female inhabitants of a place or country, #Ge 6:2; Lu 23:28| and of cities in general, #Isa 10:32; 23:12| but more specifically of dependent towns or hamlets, while to the principal city the correlative "mother" is applied. #Nu 21:25| "Daughters of music," i.e. singing birds, #Ec 12:4| refers to the power of making and enjoying music.

Daughter used also for granddaughter, or female descendant (Genesis 31:43; Genesis 27:46). "Daughter of Zion," "daughter of Jerusalem" (Isaiah 37:22); i.e., Zion or Jerusalem and her inhabitants, personified poetically as an abstract collective feminine. Hengstenberg takes "daughter of Zion" or Zion, "daughter of Jerusalem" or Jerasalem (compare Psalm 9:14). "Daughters of music," (Ecclesiastes 12:4): songs and instrumental performances sound low to the old (2 Samuel 19:35); otherwise the voice and ear, the organs which produce and enjoy music. Analogy favors the former view. As the principal city is termed "mother," so its dependent villages are called "daughter towns" (Joshua 15:45, Hebrew).