Basic HTML Version
(
, 561), “word; speech.” This noun appears 48 times.
,
refers to
“words” in Prov. 2:1: “My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my
commandments with thee.”
Several other nouns are related to the verb
!
9
also means “word, speech,”
and it occurs 37 times. One occurrence of
is in 2 Sam. 22:31 (cf. Ps. 18:30). The
noun
is found 6 times and means “word, speech, promise” (Ps. 68:11; Hab. 3:9).
"
and
mean “word, command.”
"
occurs 3 times (Esth. 1:15;
2:22; 9:32), and
occurs twice (Ezra 6:9; Dan. 4:17).
TO SAY, UTTER, AFFIRM
A. Verb.
$
(
.
, 5002), “to say, utter an affirmation, speak.” The word is a verbal form
of the verb
, which occurs only once in the entire Old Testament: “Behold, I am
against the prophets, saith [
$
] the Lord, that use their tongues, and say [
], He
saith [ne’um]” (Jer. 23:31). The word
$
appears as many as 361 times and, because
of the frequency in the prophetical books, it is characteristic of prophetic speech.
: $
is an indicator which generally appears at the end of the quotation: “What
mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith [
$
]
the Lord God of hosts” (Isa. 3:15). The word may also be found in the middle of an
argument: “And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for
Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith [ne’um] the Lord. But ye gave
the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not” (Amos
2:11-12).
B. Noun.
$
(
.
, 5002), “utterance; saying.” The use of
$
is rare at the beginning of a
statement: “The Lord said unto my Lord [literally, “a statement of Jehovah to my Lord”],
Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Ps. 110:1).
With one exception (Prov. 30:1) in the sayings of Agur, the usage throughout the Old
Testament is virtually limited to a word from God. In Numbers the utterances of Balaam
are introduced with the formula “and he uttered his oracle”: “The
of Balaam the
son of Beor, the
of the man whose eye is opened” (Num. 24:3,
RSV
; cf. v. 15).
David’s concluding words begin with these words: “Now these are the last words of
David: The
of David, the son of Jesse, the
of the man who was raised on
high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam. 23:1,
RSV
).
Apart from these instances there are a few more examples, but as a rule
$
is a
prophetic term, which even beyond the prophetical literature is associated with a word
from God.
The Septuagint gives the following translation(s):
(“utterance in words”) and
(used with reference to what follows, e.g., “this is what … says”).