StrongerBible

yedid

יָדִיד

HebrewH3039“beloved, lovely, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 33:12Psa 45:0(1)Psa 60:5(7)Psa 84:1(2)Psa 108:6(7)Psa 127:2Isa 5:1 (2×)Jer 11:15
Names & words formed with this
Word studyyah-DEEDadjective

What yedid means

beloved: someone or something held dear, and above all the person or people God himself loves and keeps

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word names the one who is loved, not the one who does the loving. It is affection seen from the receiving end, and in the Hebrew Bible the one doing the loving is almost always God.

That makes it a word about standing rather than about feeling. To be God's beloved is to be safe, provided for, and watched over:

  • Benjamin dwells in safety as the one the LORD loves (Deuteronomy 33:12).
  • God gives sleep to the one he loves, while others wear themselves out for bread (Psalm 127:2).
  • Israel prays that God's beloved ones be rescued by his right hand (Psalm 60:5).

The word also reaches past people. A place can be dear in the very same way, which is why one psalm calls God's dwellings lovely with this word rather than with any word for beauty. In the plural it can name the affection itself, so the heading of Psalm 45 announces a love song.

Isaiah 5:1 turns the direction around. There the singer calls God his own beloved, setting this word beside דּוֹד, the ordinary word for a lover, and opening what sounds like a love song but becomes an accusation against a vineyard.

Nuances

1athe one God holds dear: a person or a people he loves and looks after
TranslatabilityDirect
Deu 33:12Psa 60:5(7)Psa 108:6(7)Psa 127:2Jer 11:15
1bmy dear one: the person the speaker loves, spoken with a singer's affection
Isa 5:1 (2×)
1clovely: said of a place that is dear and delightful rather than of a person
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 84:1(2)
1dlove itself: the plural used for affection, naming a psalm as a love song
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
Psa 45:0(1)
Psa 45:0

Whether the plural form in the heading of Psalm 45 names love itself, so the psalm is called a love song, or names the people loved, so it is a song about the beloved.

  • majorityAn abstract plural naming love, so the heading calls the psalm a love song.; Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), s.v. ידיד; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, Eng. ed. 1994-2000), s.v. ידיד
  • minorityThe plural of the adjective naming the ones loved, the reading behind the ancient Greek rendering "concerning the beloved".; A. Rahlfs, ed., Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935), Psalm 44:1

What scholars say about yedid

BDB, HALOT, and DCH agree in treating the word as a passive adjective built on the root ידד, "to love", and gloss it "beloved, dear". The root survives in Biblical Hebrew almost entirely in nominal forms: this adjective, the rare noun יְדִדוּת (Jeremiah 12:7), and the personal names Jedidiah (2 Samuel 12:25) and Jedidah (2 Kings 22:1); comparable forms appear in Akkadian and Ugaritic. TWOT and NIDOTTE both stress that the term is theologically weighted rather than merely affectionate: apart from Isaiah 5:1 and the heading of Psalm 45, the one who loves is God, and the word functions as a marker of election and protection. Tigay reads Deuteronomy 33:12 as making Benjamin the LORD's beloved on whose territory the sanctuary rests, and Hossfeld and Zenger note the plural in Psalms 60:5 and 108:6 extending the title to the whole people at prayer. Psalm 84:1 is the one clear application to a place, where the feminine plural agrees with the noun for dwellings. The genuinely contested form is the feminine plural in the heading of Psalm 45: BDB and HALOT take it as an abstract plural, "a love song", while the Septuagint at Psalm 44:1 renders it "concerning the beloved", reading the plural of persons. Blenkinsopp and other commentators on Isaiah 5:1 observe that the word is paired there with the Song of Songs term for a lover, setting up the vineyard song as a love song that turns into an indictment. Lundbom notes that Jeremiah 11:15 is textually damaged and that the versions diverge sharply over the rest of the line, though the opening address is stable.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1906), s.v. ידידlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brill, Eng. ed. 1994-2000), s.v. ידידlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 4 (Sheffield, 1998), s.v. ידידlexicon
  • R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, B. K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody, 1980), s.v. ידדdictionary
  • W. A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 2 (Zondervan, 1997), s.v. ידידdictionary
  • J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; Jewish Publication Society, 1996), pp. 322-323commentary
  • F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100 (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2005), s.v. Psalms 60 and 84commentary
  • J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1-39 (Anchor Bible 19; Doubleday, 2000), pp. 205-208commentary
  • J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20 (Anchor Bible 21A; Doubleday, 1999), pp. 631-634commentary
  • A. Rahlfs, ed., Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1935), Psalm 44:1ancient version

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of יָדִיד

m s construct

לִידִידִי

Isa 5:1, Isa 5:1, Jer 11:15

m p construct

יְדִידֶיךָ

Psa 60:5, Psa 108:6

f p absolute

יְּדִידוֹת

Psa 84:1

f s absolute

יְדִידֹת

Psa 45:0

m s construct

יְדִיד

Deu 33:12

m s construct

לִידִידוֹ

Psa 127:2