StrongerBible

yashan

יָשָׁן

HebrewH3465“old, last year's harvest”

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Lev 25:22 (2×)Lev 26:10 (2×)Neh 3:6Sng 7:13(14)Isa 22:11
Root family
Word studyyah-SHAHNadjective

What yashan means

old: held over from an earlier time, whether last season's grain still in store or something that has stood for generations

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

Hebrew has more than one word for old, and this one is about things that have been kept since an earlier time. It describes grain from last year's harvest, fruit laid up in storage, a pool, and a city gate. It is never used of a person: someone advanced in years gets a different word (זָקֵן).

The surprise for an English reader is that being old is usually good news here. Most of its uses picture a full storehouse:

  • last year's grain still feeding the household when the ninth year comes around (Leviticus 25:22)
  • harvests so large that the old has to be carried out to make room for the new (Leviticus 26:10)
  • choice fruits, new and old alike, saved up as a gift for the one you love (Song of Songs 7:13)

The other use is plainer. A reservoir in Jerusalem is called the old one because it had been there long before Isaiah's day (Isaiah 22:11), and one of the gates repaired in Nehemiah's wall carries the same word (Nehemiah 3:6), though readers have long argued over whether that gate was called old or was named for the town of Jeshanah. In both kinds of use the word simply marks something as dating from before, with no hint that it has gone bad.

Nuances

1aproduce held over from an earlier harvest: last season's grain or fruit, still in store
Lev 25:22 (2×)Lev 26:10 (2×)Sng 7:13(14)
1bstanding since an earlier time: a structure or landmark that has been there for generations
TranslatabilityDirect
Neh 3:6Isa 22:11
Neh 3:6

Whether the gate in Nehemiah 3:6 is the Old Gate or a gate named after the town of Jeshanah.

  • majorityThe name means the Old Gate, with "old" qualifying an unstated noun such as the old wall or the old city.; BDB, s.v. יָשָׁן; DCH, s.v. יָשָׁן
  • minorityThe name points to the town of Jeshanah, so it is the Jeshanah Gate, on the road running toward that town.; Williamson, H. G. M., Ezra, Nehemiah, Word Biblical Commentary 16 (1985), on Nehemiah 3:6

What scholars say about yashan

BDB, HALOT and DCH treat yashan as an adjective meaning old, belonging to a former time, and restrict it to things rather than persons: stored produce (Leviticus 25:22; 26:10; Song of Songs 7:13) and long standing constructions (Isaiah 22:11; Nehemiah 3:6). BDB assigns it to a root ישׁן II, to be old, kept apart from ישׁן I, to sleep, while other treatments derive both from one root on the image of things lying undisturbed; the derivation is debated, the sense of the adjective is not. The cognate form noshan, long standing or weathered, stands beside it in Leviticus 26:10 and appears again in Deuteronomy 4:25. Nehemiah 3:6 is the one contested occurrence: the phrase read as "the old gate" is grammatically awkward, since the adjective does not match the gender of the noun for gate, and the same gate at Nehemiah 12:39 is frequently taken as a reference to the town of Jeshanah (2 Chronicles 13:19), a reading the lexical tradition also registers.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. יָשָׁןlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. יָשָׁןlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. יָשָׁןlexicon
  • Milgrom, J., Leviticus 23-27, Anchor Bible 3B (2001), on Leviticus 26:10commentary
  • Williamson, H. G. M., Ezra, Nehemiah, Word Biblical Commentary 16 (1985), on Nehemiah 3:6commentary

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

All attested forms of יָשָׁן

m s absolute

יָשָׁן

Lev 25:22, Lev 25:22, Lev 26:10, Lev 26:10

f s absolute

יְשָׁנָה

Neh 3:6, Isa 22:11

m p absolute

יְשָׁנִים

Sng 7:13