there is, there are: the word that asserts something exists, is present, or is at hand
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
Hebrew has no ordinary present-tense verb for "to be," so when a writer wants to say flatly that something exists, is on hand, or belongs to someone, this little word does the work. At heart it means "there is" or "there are," and its opposite is אַיִן, the word for "there is not." Everything it does grows from that single act of pointing at something and saying: it is real, it is here.
The shades come from what gets pointed at. Pointing at a thing in a place gives "there is" (God is in this place; there are fifty righteous people in the city). Adding "to me" or "to you" turns the same assertion into possession, the Hebrew way of saying "I have" (I have plenty; we have an old father). Used in a question it asks whether something is available or on hand (is there room? is the seer here?). In the proverbs it sets up a general truth by naming a case that exists in the world (there is a person who scatters and yet grows richer).
A handful of times the word stands on its own as a noun for the stuff a person actually has: substance, property, what one possesses. That is the same idea worn down to a thing: "that which is" becomes "what one owns."
Nuances
1athere is, there are: a plain statement that something or someone exists or is present
does not really mean have at all: it says there is to me, so possession is read off an existence claim plus a personGen 33:9
Both
both can state that a person possesses somethingGen 44:20
Only have
English have names ownership directly and can imply holding or control, ideas the Hebrew existence word does not carry on its own
“exist”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“substance”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How yesh differs from similar Hebrew words
אַיִןthe exact opposite: the word for there is not, used to deny existence or presence where this word affirms it
הָיָהthe full verb to be, to become, to happen, which carries tense and action; this word is the tenseless present-tense assertion that something simply is
yesh in the other biblical languages
εἰμίGreek“to be”the Greek verb to be, which (unlike Hebrew) has a present tense, so Greek says it is with a verb where Hebrew uses this standalone particle
ὑπάρχωGreek“be already”the Greek verb meaning to exist, to be present, to be at one's disposal, close to this word's notes of presence and possession
The Hebrew word can name a general case that exists in the world, the "there is a kind of person who..." move that sets up a proverb or an observation: a way that looks right but ends in death, one who gives freely and still grows richer, a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and stretches of time when the cloud stayed only a few days. The Aramaic word never frames a truth this way.Pro 14:12Pro 11:24Ecc 7:15Num 9:20
It can stand on its own as a plain noun for what a person actually owns, so that wisdom gives those who love her real "substance" to inherit. "What is" has worn down into "what one has", a step the Aramaic word never takes.Pro 8:21
It runs through every kind of Hebrew writing across the whole Old Testament: family news that grain is for sale in Egypt, a lookout's question whether a man is here, a miner's claim that silver has its source, a promise that there is reward for the work, and a warning against the cheat who does have a sound male in his flock.Gen 42:1Jdg 4:20Job 28:1Jer 31:16Mal 1:14
Both
Each is its language's ordinary way of stating flatly that something or someone is there, with no verb involved at all: there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and the LORD is in this place.Dan 2:28Gen 28:16
Both become the normal way to say someone "has" something once the short word for "to" and a person is added: the king will have no share left beyond the River, and Esau says he already has plenty.Ezr 4:16Gen 33:9
Both carry the weight of a conditional claim about God being present or able, still with no verb: if our God is able to rescue us from the furnace, and if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened?Dan 3:17Jdg 6:13
Neither word says when. Whether an English Bible prints "there is", "there was" or "there will be" is decided by the story around it, so the same form covers a past search of the royal records and a future hope of a son.Ezr 5:17Rut 1:12
Only the Aramaic word takes a personal ending and turns into the "am", "are" or "is" that ties a person to what they are doing. Nebuchadnezzar asks the three men whether they really are refusing his gods, and they answer that they are not serving them; Daniel is asked whether he is able to make the dream known. The Hebrew word never changes shape this way.Dan 3:14Dan 3:18Dan 2:26
Aramaic denies existence with this same word plus its ordinary "not", so one word covers both "there is" and "there is not": no man on earth can tell the king his dream, no one else can reveal it, no share of the region will be left to the king, no one can stop God's hand. Hebrew keeps a separate word for absence instead.Dan 2:10Dan 2:11Ezr 4:16Dan 4:35
Its whole life is spent in the Aramaic court scenes of Ezra and Daniel, so its range is the narrow one of royal orders, interrogations and official reports: whether a decree from Cyrus is on file, a decree that no one may speak against the God of the three men, and the reminder that a man with the spirit of the holy gods is in the kingdom.Ezr 5:17Dan 3:29Dan 5:11
What scholars say about yesh
The standard lexica (BDB; HALOT; DCH) treat yesh as a single substantive of existence functioning as a quasi-verbal particle of being, the positive counterpart to ayin ("there is not"). Its core force is existential ("there is/are"), with possessive ("have," yesh + lamed), interrogative-availability, and presentative-generalizing uses all derived from that one sense, plus a rare concrete substantival use "substance, property" (Prov 8:21). Comparative Semitic links it to Ugaritic it and the cognate negative forms; grammars (Joüon-Muraoka; Waltke-O'Connor) describe its role in verbless clauses, where Hebrew lacks a present-tense copula. The lexica do not posit homonyms here.
Sources
BDB, s.v. יֵשׁlexicon
HALOT, s.v. יֵשׁlexicon
DCH, s.v. יֵשׁlexicon
Joüon-Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, §154grammar
Waltke and O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntaxgrammar