StrongerBible

yehudi

יְהוּדִי

HebrewH3064GentilicJew, Judean

Appears 75 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Ki 16:62Ki 25:25Neh 1:2Neh 2:16Neh 4:1(3:33)Neh 4:2(3:34)Neh 4:12(6)Neh 5:1Neh 5:8Neh 5:17Neh 6:6Neh 13:23Est 2:5Est 3:4Est 3:6Est 5:13Est 6:10Est 8:7Est 9:29Est 9:31Est 10:3Jer 34:9Jer 43:9Jer 52:28Jer 52:30Zec 8:23
Word studyyeh-hoo-DEEnoun

What yehudi means

a member of the people of Judah: a Judean, and later a Jew

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word began as a simple label for where a person came from: someone who belonged to Judah, the southern kingdom and its territory. In the earliest passages it works like any place-based name, the way we might call someone a Texan or a Roman. A Judean was a citizen of Judah, set apart from the people of Israel to the north or from the surrounding nations.

After Judah fell and its people were scattered, the same word slowly took on a fuller meaning. A person could now be one of these people while living far from the land of Judah, in Babylon or Persia or anywhere across the empire. What marked them was no longer an address but a shared ancestry, a shared God, and a shared way of life. This is the sense English Bibles usually translate as Jew.

The two shades are not two different words but one word stretching across a turning point in the nation's history. The book of Esther shows the later sense at full strength: the people are spread through one hundred twenty-seven provinces, their identity is something others can even choose to join, and the threat against them is aimed at the whole people rather than a country. The historical books and Jeremiah show the earlier, territory-based sense.

Because the shift is gradual, some verses sit comfortably in either sense, and translators differ on where the line falls. The point to hold onto is that the word names belonging to a people, whether that belonging is pictured chiefly as a homeland or chiefly as a heritage.

Nuances

1aa Judean: a member of the kingdom, territory, or surviving community of Judah
2Ki 16:62Ki 25:25Jer 32:12Jer 34:9Jer 38:19Jer 40:11Jer 40:12Jer 41:3Jer 43:9Jer 44:1Jer 52:28Jer 52:30
1ba Jew: a member of the Jewish people defined by descent and faith, often living scattered among the nations
Est 2:5Est 3:4Est 3:6Est 3:10Est 3:13Est 4:3Est 4:7Est 4:13Est 4:14Est 4:16Est 5:13Est 6:10

What scholars say about yehudi

The standard lexica (BDB; HALOT) treat יְהוּדִי as the gentilic of יְהוּדָה (Judah), denoting first a member of the southern kingdom or its territory and, in the later books, a member of the Jewish people regardless of residence. The semantic broadening is widely connected to the exile and the diaspora setting of Esther, where the term names a dispersed ethnic-religious community and even admits proselytes (Esther 8:17, the only Hebrew Bible attestation of the related verb in the Hithpael, "to become a Jew", H3054). DCH catalogs the full distribution (heavily Esther, Jeremiah, Nehemiah) and the textual variants in the Aramaic parallels (cf. the Aramaic gentilic in Daniel and Ezra). Zechariah 8:23 is regularly cited as an early instance of the universalized "Jew" as the people through whom the nations seek God.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. יְהוּדִיlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. יְהוּדִיlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. יְהוּדִיlexicon

All attested forms of יְהוּדִי

m p absolute

יְּהוּדִים, יְהוּדִים

2Ki 25:25, Neh 1:2, Neh 2:16, Neh 4:1, Neh 4:2, Neh 4:12, Neh 5:1, Neh 5:8

m s absolute

יְּהוּדִי, יְהוּדִי, בִּיהוּדִי

Est 5:13, Est 6:10, Est 8:7, Est 9:29, Est 9:31, Est 10:3, Est 2:5, Est 3:4