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126:5). The universal law of the harvest, sowing and reaping, applies to all areas of life
and experience.
A good example of the need for free translation of the inherent meaning rather than a
strictly literal rendering involves
, in both its verb and noun forms. This is found in
Num. 5, which describes the law of trial by ordeal in the case of a wife accused of
infidelity. If she was found innocent, it was declared: “… She shall be free, and shall
conceive [
] seed [
]” (Num. 5:28). This phrase is literally: “She shall be
acquitted and shall be seeded seed,” or “She shall be made pregnant with seed.”
An Old Testament name, Jezreel, has been connected with this root. Jezreel (“God
sows”) refers both to a city and valley near Mt. Gilboa (Josh. 17:16; 2 Sam. 2:9) and to
the symbolically named son of Hosea (Hos. 1:4).
B. Noun.
(
&
, 2233), “seed; sowing; seedtime; harvest; offspring; descendant(s);
posterity.” This word occurs about 228 times in biblical Hebrew and in all periods. It has
cognates in Aramaic, Phoenician, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Akkadian.
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refers to the process of scattering seed, or “sowing.” This is the emphasis in
Gen. 47:24: “And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part
unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your
food.…” Num. 20:5 should be rendered: “It [the wilderness] is not a place of sowing
[
NASB
, “grain”] or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.” Ezek. 17:5
should be rendered: “He also took some of the seed of the land and planted it in a field
[suitable for] sowing” (
NASB
, “in a fertile field”). A closely related emphasis occurs in
passages such as Gen. 8:22, where the word represents “sowing” as a regularly recurring
activity: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat … shall not
cease.”
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frequently means “seed.” There are several nuances under this emphasis, the
first being what is sown to raise crops for food. The Egyptians told Joseph: “Buy us and
our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed,
that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate” (Gen. 47:19). The word
represents the product of a plant: “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed
[food], and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself …” (Gen.
1:11-the first biblical appearance). In this and other contexts
specifically refers to
“grain seed,” or “edible seed” (cf. Lev. 27:30). This may be the meaning of the word in 1
Sam. 8:15: “And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards.…” However,
it is possible that here the word refers to arable land, as does its Akkadian cognate. In
other contexts the word represents an entire “crop or harvest”: “For the seed [harvest]
shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase,
and the heavens shall give their dew …” (Zech. 8:12). In Isa. 23:3
and the usual
Hebrew word for “harvest” (
) are in synonymous parallelism.
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sometimes means “semen,” or a man’s “seed”: “And if any man’s seed of
copulation go out from him [if he has a seminal emission] …” (Lev. 15:16). A beast’s
“semen” can also be indicated by this word (Jer. 31:27).
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often means “offspring.”