a settled place of rest: the shepherd's pasture and fold, and by extension the secure home of people or of God
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
At its root this word names the place a shepherd settles a flock: the grazing ground and the fold where the animals lie down in safety. It is not just the grass they eat but the whole resting place a shepherd provides and guards.
From that pastoral picture the word stretches to cover any settled home. It can name the dwelling of a person or a household, the site of a city, or God's own dwelling place. Wherever it points, it keeps the feeling of somewhere lived in, peaceful, and permanent, a place one comes home to and rests.
One word carries both because the image behind them is the same. Whether the one who rests is a flock of sheep or a family or the LORD himself, a settled abode is a place of quiet and security. That shared idea is why the prophets can move in a single breath between the fold where sheep lie down and the home of a whole nation.
Nuances
1athe shepherd's pasture and fold: the grazing ground where a flock is settled and rests
it carries rest, safety, and permanence, and can name God's own dwelling, not just any spot where someone livesExo 15:13Isa 33:20
Both
both name the place where someone settles down and livesPro 3:33
Only habitation
"habitation" is a stiff, general English word that loses the warmth of a peaceful, settled home and the shepherding background behind it
“dwelling”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“home”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“meadow”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“resting place”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How naveh differs from similar Hebrew words
מָעוֹןa dwelling, den, or refuge, often the lair of a wild animal or God's dwelling in his temple. It leans on the idea of a lair or retreat one hides in, where this word leans on a settled resting place, especially a shepherd's fold.
Is the pasture and fold of flocks, the grazing ground and resting place where sheep are led to lie down and feed.Isa 65:10Jer 23:3Jer 33:12Ezk 34:142Sa 7:8
Is a settled, peaceful homestead, the quiet dwelling of a household at rest and secure, blessed and undisturbed.Job 5:24Pro 3:33Isa 32:18Isa 33:20
Both
Both name God's holy dwelling place, the sacred abode from which he acts and to which his people belong.Deu 26:15Exo 15:13
Both simply mean the place where someone lives, a habitation, and they stand side by side in one verse for where the LORD dwells.Jer 25:30
Names the lair or den of wild animals, the haunt where beasts hole up, especially in pictures of a ruined city abandoned to jackals and lions.Nam 2:11Jer 9:11Jer 10:22Jer 49:33Jer 51:37
Is the safe place someone flees to for shelter, the stronghold and retreat, so that God himself is called the refuge a person runs to and stays in.Psa 71:3Psa 91:9
מִרְעֶהthe grazing land itself, the open ground where a flock feeds. This word points more to the settled fold and resting place the shepherd provides, not just the feeding ground.
It most often names a settled home or dwelling for people, well beyond any shepherding scene: the home of the righteous, the dwelling of a nation, even the place where God dwells.Exo 15:13Pro 3:33Job 5:24
When it does describe flocks, it is the fold where they lie down and rest, a place of settled safety rather than a place to graze.Jer 23:3Ezk 25:5Isa 65:10
Because it means a home, it is often pictured in ruin: a dwelling laid waste, a habitation forsaken and left to wild creatures.Psa 79:7Isa 27:10
Both
Both belong to the picture of a shepherd caring for a flock, so they stand together where God promises to feed his people on good grazing land and to give them a safe place to rest.Ezk 34:14
It names the grazing ground itself: the open land where a flock goes to feed on grass. The word is tied to eating, so it marks the source of food rather than a place to settle down.Gen 47:41Ch 4:40Ezk 34:18
It is used of wild animals' feeding grounds too, not only domestic flocks: the mountain range the wild donkey searches for food, or the place where lions feed their young.Job 39:8Nam 2:11
This is the grazing land itself, the open country where a flock feeds and lies down. Nothing is built here; the ground and its grass are the whole point.Ezk 34:14Isa 65:10Jer 50:19Jer 23:3
It stretches from grazing ground to a person's home, the settled place where a household lives, is blessed, or is robbed. Here it is often rendered "dwelling" rather than "pasture".Job 5:24Pro 3:33Pro 24:15Isa 32:18
It reaches all the way up to God's own home and to Jerusalem as the place he settles. God leads the rescued people to his holy dwelling, David hopes to see the Lord's dwelling again, and the restored city is greeted as a home of right dealing.Exo 15:132Sa 15:25Jer 31:23Isa 33:20
Both
Both belong to shepherd country and name a place where flocks are kept, which is why one line of Zephaniah can use them side by side: the coast becomes grazing land for shepherds with sheep pens on it.Zep 2:6
Both become pictures of ruin when God's judgment falls, whether the walls are torn through or the grazing land is stripped and left to jackals.Psa 89:40Jer 49:3Psa 79:7Isa 34:13
This is the built barrier itself, the stones stacked up to close a space in. It is something people put up on purpose, and something an enemy can break through.Num 32:16Num 32:24Psa 89:40
It does not have to involve flocks at all. In the temple vision it simply names a wall of the building, with no shepherd or sheep anywhere in view.Ezk 42:12
It is cover to duck behind rather than a place to settle. Saul turns aside into the sheep pens beside the road, locusts hunker down in the walls on a cold day, and the women of Rabbah run back and forth among them.1Sa 24:3Nam 3:17Jer 49:3
It is a settled place to live, and it reaches far beyond sheep: it is the ordinary word for a person's home, where a curse or a blessing lands and where wealth is stored.Pro 3:33Pro 21:20Pro 24:15Job 8:6
It stretches up to whole territories and even to where God himself lives, so a nation can be called a home of justice and the LORD can roar from his own.Exo 15:13Jer 25:30Jer 31:23Jer 50:7
It carries a strong note of safety and rest, a place to lie down without fear and find nothing missing.Isa 32:18Isa 33:20Job 5:24
Because it is a real location, it can be emptied out, burned, and handed over to wild animals, and that ruin is one of the most frequent things said about it.Psa 79:7Isa 34:13Jer 10:25Ezk 25:5
It is where a shepherd is found working, so it names the sheepfold David was taken from and the huts shepherds build on the coast.2Sa 7:81Ch 17:7Zep 2:6
Both
Both words name good grazing for a flock: open ground where sheep are led to feed and then lie down.Isa 49:9Ezk 34:14Isa 65:10
Both belong to the picture of God as Israel's shepherd, and both turn up in the promise to gather his scattered people back to pasture.Ezk 34:31Jer 23:3Jer 50:19
Both are things judgment destroys, so the prophets announce the ruin of a pasture as a way of announcing the ruin of the people who depended on it.Jer 25:36Jer 10:25Jer 49:20
It names people rather than a place. Its commonest use is the phrase "the flock of your pasture" or "the people of his pasture", which identifies Israel by the God who feeds them; it is a way of saying whose sheep they are, not where they are grazing.Psa 74:1Psa 79:13Psa 95:7Psa 100:3Ezk 34:31
It can slide from the grazing to the animals doing the grazing, so English has to say "flock" where the Hebrew says this word.Jer 10:21Jer 23:1
It can point to the act of feeding and how much a flock got to eat, not to a piece of ground at all: Israel ate its fill "according to their pasture" and then forgot God.Hos 13:6
Every one of its uses stays inside the world of shepherding, which is why it never becomes a word for a house, a homeland, or a dwelling of any kind.Isa 49:9Jer 25:36
Regularly takes a possessive ending, so it names somebody's own place: his pasture, your home, their fold.Job 5:24Psa 79:7Jer 23:3
It can be a settled human household and everything kept in it, blessed or envied or eyed by a thief, which is a domestic use the pasture word never has.Pro 3:33Pro 21:20Pro 24:15
It names where God himself lives, and names Jerusalem as his settled, unshakable home.Exo 15:13Isa 33:20Jer 31:23
It is the fold a flock is taken out of and led back to, which makes it the natural word for coming home after exile.2Sa 7:8Jer 50:19Ezk 34:14
Both
Both name grazing ground in the same shepherd picture, the place where sheep are fed and lie down in safety.Psa 23:2Amo 1:2Jer 33:12Isa 65:10
Both can stand for a whole people's home ground, so that wrecking it is a way of saying the nation itself has been undone.Lam 2:2Psa 79:7Jer 10:25
Both pair with words for peace and quiet to picture life left undisturbed, and both can have that quiet taken away.Jer 25:37Isa 32:18Job 5:24
Always turns up in the plural, so it names a whole spread of grazing country rather than one spot: a sweep of green a flock can be turned loose on, or a stretch of range coming back to life after a hard season.Psa 23:2Jol 2:22
Its regular partner is the wilderness, in a set phrase usually rendered "pastures of the wilderness", which places it out past the towns on open range no household owns.Jer 23:10Jol 1:19Psa 65:12
What ruins it is the weather and the fire: the grass dries out, flame eats it, and the pastures are pictured mourning like people in grief.Jol 1:20Jer 23:10Amo 1:2
naveh in the other biblical languages
νομήGreek“pasture”the Greek word for pasture, the feeding ground a shepherd leads a flock to, matching the pastoral side of this word.
The Hebrew word reaches well past grazing land to mean a settled dwelling place or home, used even of a people's country and of God's own holy dwelling, a sense the Greek word does not carry.Exo 15:132Sa 15:25
It often pictures a place of secure, peaceful rest, the quiet home where flock or people dwell undisturbed, so it carries a warmth of safety beyond the bare idea of a field to feed in.Isa 33:20Isa 32:18
Both
At their core both name the pasture where a flock is led to graze and feed, the grazing ground of shepherd and sheep.Ezk 34:14Jhn 10:9
In the New Testament it is stretched into a vivid picture of decay: the way grazing animals eat their way steadily across a field becomes an image of how corrupt teaching eats through a community, spreading like gangrene through flesh.2Ti 2:17
μονήGreek“abode”the Greek word for a dwelling or abode, a place to stay and remain, matching the settled-home side of this word.
The Hebrew word is first of all pastoral: the grazing land, meadow, or fold where flocks and their shepherds settle to rest and feed.Ezk 34:14Isa 65:10Jer 23:3
It also names a human homestead or settlement, a place that can flourish under blessing or be left desolate under judgment.Pro 3:33Job 5:24Isa 27:10
Both
Both name a settled dwelling place, an abode or habitation where someone comes to rest and stay, and both can be used of the place where God himself dwells.Exo 15:13Jhn 14:2
The Greek word grows out of the verb meaning to stay or remain, so its focus is a lasting place to abide, and above all an abode shared with a person: God and the believer making a permanent home in each other.Jhn 14:23
What scholars say about naveh
Standard lexica (BDB; HALOT; DCH) treat נָוֶה as a single noun tied to the root meaning to abide or rest, with a range running from the pastoral abode of flocks (pasture, fold, encampment of shepherds) to human and divine habitation. The two are not separate homonyms but one sense developed metaphorically: the settled resting place of a flock becomes an image for the secure dwelling of a person, a city, or the LORD (Exodus 15:13;Isaiah 33:20;Jeremiah 31:23). A feminine byform נָאָה (H4999) shares the pastoral meaning. The reference at Psalm 68:12 (נְוַת בַּיִת) is textually and lexically difficult and is variously construed; commentators debate whether it denotes a woman at home, the household, or is a corruption, so it is a weak witness for any single sense.
Sources
BDB, s.v. נָוֶהlexicon
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. נָוֶהlexicon
DCH (Dictionary of Classical Hebrew), s.v. נָוֶהlexicon