Lives of Scripture

Darda, like Calcol, Ethan, and Heman, is named in Scripture only as a byword for wisdom. Among the descendants of Zerah, Judah's son by Tamar, was "Dara" -- an alternate spelling of Darda -- listed alongside his brothers Zimri, Ethan, Heman, and Calcol (1 Chronicles 2:6). First Kings 4:29-31 praises Solomon's God-given wisdom by comparison: Solomon "was wiser than all men, than Ethan the Ezrahite, Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was known in all the surrounding nations" (NASB). The comparison implies these four were already renowned sages of Israel's history, proverbial enough that surpassing them said something remarkable about Solomon. (Whether "the sons of Mahol" of 1 Kings 4:31 are the same men as the "sons of Zerah" of 1 Chronicles 2:6 is debated, since Scripture does not explicitly equate the two lists, and "son of" can indicate a more distant ancestor in genealogies.) Nothing else is recorded of Darda's own words, deeds, or the content of his wisdom -- only that his name, alongside his brothers', had become an established standard by which even a king as wise as Solomon could be measured, and found to surpass.