The first thing to notice here is that most of these roots, when used in reference to dancing, occur only in intensive forms; this is significant as pointing to the nature and character of the sacred dance. Of the exceptions, ḥūl “to whirl” is intensive in its root-meaning; it has no piel, and its other forms occur only rarely, and almost entirely in the later poetical books. The roots dālag and tzālaʿ, refer to a particular kind of ritual step; and as to ḥāgag more will be said in a moment.
Now as to the meaning of these different words for dancing:
The root sāḥaq, in its intensive form siḥēq, means in the first instance “to laugh,” and it is also used in the sense of “playing” (Job xl. 29) and “merry-making” (Jer. xv. 17, xxx. 19, xxxi. 4, Zech. viii. 5; cp. also Judg. xvi. 25). In the specific sense of “dancing” it occurs in 1 Sam. xviii. 7: “... and the dancing women answered one another and said ...” (see also 1 Chron. xv. 29). Equivalent to this root is tzāḥaq, also used in the intensive form tziḥēq, which occurs, e.g., in Exod. xxxii. 6: “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to dance.” It is also used of “playing” or “sporting,” e.g. Gen. xxi. 9, Judg. xvi. 25, but in the second of these passages its obvious meaning is “to dance,” for as we shall see later this was the custom at feasts. This root, therefore, presents dancing in the aspect of a pleasant and enjoyable pastime. Further, in various passages this root is used as a parallel to other words for dancing. For example, in 1 Sam. xviii. 6, 7 just cited, it occurs as a parallel to the root which is the one most frequently used in the Old Testament for dancing, viz. ḥūl. This root expresses the “whirl” of the dance (e.g. Judg. xxi. 21, 23, Ps. lxxxvii. 7). It is the word used of the “writhing” or “twisting” of a woman in travail, e.g. Isa. xxvi. 17, xlv. 10, or of one in great pain, Isa. xiii. 8, xxiii. 5, Jer. li. 29; so that when used in the sense of dancing, contortions of the body are thought of, which suggests something of a rather wild character.
The “whirling” idea is also contained in the root kārar (in its intensive pilpel form, kirkēr), “to whirl about,” or “rotate.” It occurs, in this sense, only once in the Old Testament, 2 Sam. vi. 14-16, of David dancing before Jahwe[34]; and in this passage we have another root which does not occur elsewhere in the sense of dancing, viz. pāzaz (again in the intensive form pizzēz); this expresses the idea of agile leaping as part of the dance[35], the cognate Arabic root means “to be excited.” The idea of leaping is also contained in another root rāqad (in its intensive form riqqēd) which in its ordinary sense means “to skip about[36]”; as applied to dancing it occurs in the passage last mentioned, and see further, Isa. xiii. 21, Job xxi. 11, Joel ii. 5, Eccles. iii. 4, 1 Chron. xv. 29; in Ps. xxix. 6 it is used of a calf “skipping.”
The root sābab, used of “going round” the altar, is spoken about below ([pp. 93 f.]), so that we can leave this for the present.
So far, then, we have briefly touched on words used in reference to dancing which either express or suggest the ideas of its being something enjoyable, of its involving the bending about of the body, whirling about, leaping, and skipping; as well as that of forming a circle, perhaps round the altar, but in any case encircling something, or going round about it.
Now we come to some rather special words. In including dālag in our category we realize that this is only justified because we are using the word “dancing” in its extended, as well as in its more restricted, sense; and we have shown above that this is not only permitted, but necessary in view of the general ideas underlying the whole subject. This word is used of the “leaping” of a hart in Isa. xxxv. 6, just as the word rāqad is used, as we have seen, of the “skipping” of a calf; the latter, as already pointed out, occurs in several passages in the sense of “dancing”; dālag may, therefore, be regarded as in some sense parallel to it. In Cant. ii. 8 dālag certainly seems to refer to some form of dancing. But in two other passages the word has a special sense; in these, though the reference is not to dancing in the strict meaning of the term, it is used of a ritual step of a leaping character, and may justifiably be applied to dancing in the more extended sense. Thus, in 1 Sam. v. 5 it is said that no one ever treads on the threshold of Dagon’s house in Ashdod. This is explained in the Septuagint by the addition of the words “leaping over they leap over”; this is probably only an explanatory gloss (though it is conceivable that they represent a text in which dālōg yidlōgū occurred), but it witnesses, at any rate, to what was a well-known custom, for in the other passage, Zeph. i. 9, punishment is pronounced against “all those who leap over the threshold,” without further explanation, showing that something quite familiar is being referred to. There was a similar Persian custom which forbad stepping on the threshold, one had to leap over it with the right foot first. The custom was due to the belief that evil spirits crouched down on the threshold, and the leaping over it prevented coming into contact with them, and the consequent risk of harm. The action implied the recognition of an alien cult, hence its prohibition[37]. In Cant. ii. 8 the root qāphatz is used as a parallel to dālag, and also means “to jump,” or the like; but this is the only passage in which the word is used in this sense.
We come now to two roots of which rather more must be said. The first is ḥāgag. In 1 Sam. xxx. there is the account of David’s attack on an Amalekite troop who had carried off all the women from Ziklag, among them his two wives; the Egyptian slave of an Amalekite, who had been abandoned by his master because he had fallen sick, is asked by David to lead him to the spot where the Amalekites were encamped; this he undertakes to do on condition that no harm comes to him; then we read in verse 16: “And when he had brought him down, behold, they were sprawling about all over the ground, eating and drinking and feasting” (hōgĕgim); that is how the Revised Version renders this last word. To render it thus, however, is pleonastic, for if they were eating and drinking they were quite obviously “feasting”; the word, therefore, cannot well have this meaning here. The more natural rendering would be “dancing”; and, indeed, this would be the meaning that we should expect, for, as will be shown below, “dancing” is almost synonymous with “feasting,” because it was characteristic of feasts. Driver, in discussing this passage, says in reference to the word:
Whether, however, the sense of dancing is really expressed by the word is very doubtful. Modern lexicographers only defend it by means of the questionable assumption that ḥāgag may have had a similar signification to ḥūg, which, however, by no means itself expresses the sense of to dance, but to make a circle (Job xxvi. 10).... It is best to acquiesce in the cautious judgement of Nöldeke[38], who declares that he cannot with certainty get behind the idea of a festal gathering for the common Semitic ḥag. Here then the meaning will be “behaving as at a ḥag or gathering of pilgrims,” i.e. enjoying themselves merrily[39].