Dorcas Meaning in the Bible

Dorcas is the Greek Dorkas (Δορκάς), 'gazelle,' given in Acts 9:36 as the translation of her Aramaic name Tabitha, which means the same thing. Luke gives both — 'a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas' — which tells us she moved between the Aramaic-speaking and Greek-speaking communities of Joppa.

Acts 9:36 also gives her the only feminine form of the word 'disciple' in the entire New Testament: mathētria. Luke then defines her by output rather than title: she 'was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.' When she died, the widows stood beside Peter 'weeping, and shewing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them' (9:39). The evidence of her discipleship was clothing, held in the hands of the poor women who were wearing it.

Peter's response — 'Tabitha, arise' — deliberately mirrors Jesus' 'Talitha cumi' in Mark 5:41, a single consonant apart in Aramaic. Luke almost certainly intends the reader to hear the echo.

The name entered wide Christian use through Puritan naming in the seventeenth century, and 'Dorcas societies' — church sewing groups making clothes for the poor — were common across Britain and America into the twentieth century. That is a rare thing: a name that generated an entire genre of ministry.