desirable: the quality that makes something worth wanting, always said of something else to mark it as choice or lovely
This word never stands on its own. It attaches to something else to say that thing is worth wanting: a vineyard of delight (a choice vineyard), fields of delight (prime farmland), young men of delight (handsome soldiers). English versions turn it into a describing word and say "pleasant", "choice", "desirable", or "handsome".
It comes from the verb chamad (חמד), "to desire", the same verb that stands behind "you shall not covet". That family tie matters, because the word does not simply mean nice or agreeable. It marks a thing as the kind of thing people want to have.
Five of its six uses sit inside a scene of loss or ruin:
- vineyards planted by men who will never drink their wine
- fine fields mourned over by women beating their breasts
- handsome foreign soldiers who attract two sisters and then destroy them
Only Isaiah 27:2 turns the word warm, where God sings over a choice vineyard of his own.
Two close relatives divide the work differently. The sister noun chemdah (חמדה) can name the longing itself or the treasure that longing prizes, and machmad (מחמד) names the cherished thing or person outright. This word names neither the wanting nor the thing wanted: it names the quality that makes the thing wanted.