StrongerBible

naqah

נָקָה

HebrewH5352“acquit, innocent, ...”

Appears 44 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 24:8Gen 24:41Exo 20:7Exo 21:19Exo 34:7 (2×)Num 5:19Num 5:28Num 5:31Num 14:18 (2×)Deu 5:11Jdg 15:31Sa 26:91Ki 2:9Job 9:28Job 10:14Psa 19:12(13)Psa 19:13(14)Pro 6:29Pro 11:21Pro 16:5Pro 17:5Pro 19:5Pro 19:9Pro 28:20Isa 3:26Jer 2:35Jer 25:29 (3×)Jer 30:11 (2×)Jer 46:28 (2×)Jer 49:12 (3×)Jol 3:21(4:21) (2×)Nam 1:3 (2×)Zec 5:3 (2×)
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradenaw-KAWverb

What naqah means

1

to be clear in a legal sense: free, innocent, or unpunished, and (when someone declares it) to acquit or leave unpunished

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This is a courtroom word. At its core it means that a person stands clear of a charge, a debt, an oath, or a penalty. Almost every time it appears, the question in view is a legal one: is this person liable, or are they in the clear?

The word works in two directions, and that is why it can look like opposite things in different verses. In the passive, it describes a person who comes out clear:

  • the guilty who slips away unpunished
  • the accused who is proven innocent
  • the one set free from a sworn promise

In the active, it describes a judge or God deciding the case: to treat someone as clear is to acquit them, and to refuse to treat them as clear is to leave them to their punishment.

The single most discussed line in the Bible built on this word is God's own self-description: he forgives wrongdoing, and yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished (Exodus 34:7). The same forensic logic runs through the courtroom (a man goes free), the home (a servant is released from an oath), and the wisdom sayings of Proverbs (the wrongdoer will not escape). One legal idea, applied wherever guilt and liability are weighed.

Nuances

1ato go unpunished: for a wrongdoer to escape the penalty they deserve
Pro 6:29Pro 11:21Pro 16:5Pro 17:5Pro 19:5Pro 19:9Pro 28:20Jer 25:29 (3×)Jer 49:12 (3×)
1bto leave unpunished, or to acquit: for a judge or for God to decide not to hold someone liable (or, in the negative, to refuse to let them off)
Exo 20:7Exo 34:7 (2×)Num 14:18 (2×)Deu 5:111Ki 2:9Job 9:28Job 10:14Psa 19:13(14)Jer 30:11 (2×)Jer 46:28 (2×)Jol 3:21(4:21) (2×)Nam 1:3 (2×)
1cto be cleared or proven innocent: to be shown free of guilt for a specific charge
Num 5:19Num 5:28Num 5:31Jdg 15:3Psa 19:12(13)Jer 2:35
1dto be free or quit: to be released from a binding oath, or to be exempt from legal liability
Gen 24:8Gen 24:41Exo 21:191Sa 26:9
2

to be emptied out or swept clean: stripped bare of inhabitants or contents

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested

A small handful of verses use the word for a city or population that has been emptied, plundered, or purged away rather than for a person cleared in court. Jerusalem sits emptied and stripped after the enemy has carried everything off (Isaiah 3:26), and dishonest people are swept out of the land like a house cleared of its contents (Zechariah 5:3).

Scholars are divided on whether this is a genuinely separate meaning or simply the same legal word stretched: "to be cleared" can shade into "to be cleared out." The connection to the courtroom sense is close enough that most lexicons keep them under one heading, and these two verses can be read as a vivid extension of clearing rather than a second word.

Isa 3:26Zec 5:3 (2×)

Disputed

Whether the be emptied out sense is a distinct meaning of the word or just a vivid extension of the legal be cleared sense.

  • majorityIt is the same forensic word stretched metaphorically: be cleared shading into be cleared out, so no separate root or meaning is needed.; David J. A. Clines, Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 5, s.v. נקה; Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, eds., Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. נקה
  • minorityThe empty out sense preserves an older concrete meaning to pour out, be empty, traced to an Akkadian cognate naqu to libate, from which the legal senses developed.; BDB, s.v. נָקָה; Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed., s.v. נקה

What scholars say about naqah

The standard lexica agree that the attested core of נקה in Biblical Hebrew is forensic: be free, clear, exempt, innocent, unpunished, with the derived adjective נָקִי innocent and noun נִקָּיוֹן innocence. The verb is virtually absent in the Qal; the Niphal carries the passive-stative sense (be clear, go free, go unpunished) and the Piel is declarative, treat as נָקִי, hence acquit or, in the negative, leave unpunished. Following Jenni's analysis of the Piel and Klein's etymological dictionary, the Piel is best taken as denominative from נָקִי rather than a causative of a ghost Qal. The lexica diverge on etymology. BDB and Gesenius reconstruct a concrete root be empty / pour out (comparing Akkadian naqu to libate) developing through empty to clean to innocent to free of liability; DCH and TLOT decline to posit a basic meaning and organize by attested usage. Comparative Semitists (Huehnergard, Kogan, Lipinski, and the silence of Tawil's lexical companion) favor treating East Semitic naqu to libate and West Semitic nqy be pure / innocent (Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac, Phoenician, Sabaic, Geez) as homophonous but distinct roots, since Akkadian never uses naqu for purity and West Semitic never uses nqy for libation. The verb's theological center is the divine-attribute formula of Exodus 34:7 (// Num 14:18, Nah 1:3), where the Piel negation וְנַקֵּה לֹא יְנַקֶּה is read by syntactic consensus as emphatic, he will surely not acquit. Major treatments include Warmuth in TDOT IX; Houtman, Propp, Childs, and Moberly on Exodus 34; Spieckermann, Franz, and Scoralick on the so-called Gnadenformel and its mercy-judgment asymmetry; Fishbane and Dozeman on the inner-biblical reuse of the formula in Joel, Jonah, Nahum, and Jeremiah; Milgrom and Frymer-Kensky on the sotah vindication procedure in Numbers 5; and Weinfeld, Tigay, and Cogan-Tadmor on the Deuteronomic innocent blood idiom built from the cognate adjective.

Where scholars disagree about naqah

How Exodus 34:7 can hold together that God forgives all kinds of wrongdoing and yet will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; and what the unstated object of the verb is.

  • majorityThe earliest Greek translation supplies the guilty as the object, reading the clause as a real limit on mercy: God forgives, yet does not simply cancel guilt, which registers as bounded, generational consequence.; Wevers, Septuaginta: Exodus, ad 34:7; Cornelis Houtman, Exodus (HCOT), vol. 3, ad 34:6-7
  • minorityA medieval and minority tradition reads the unstated object as the sinner and the verb eliminatively, he does not destroy the sinner, making the clause continue the theme of mercy, drawing on Jeremiah 30:11 and 46:28 where it parallels I will not make a full end of you.; Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed I.54; M. D. Goldman, The Root NQY in Biblical and Modern Hebrew, Australian Biblical Review 4 (1954): 49-56
  • minorityThe whole judgment side of the formula is a later editorial expansion that arose in the exile to explain why divine mercy did not prevent national disaster, with limited punishment set against unlimited mercy.; Hermann Spieckermann, Barmherzig und gnadig ist der Herr, ZAW 102 (1990): 1-18

Whether the West Semitic root meaning be pure / innocent and an East Semitic verb meaning to libate, pour out are one root or two homophonous roots, and therefore whether be emptied out is an inherited concrete meaning or a later metaphor.

  • minorityOne root: the original concrete sense pour out, be empty developed into clean, then innocent, then free of liability, with Isaiah 3:26 and Zechariah 5:3 as surviving traces of the physical sense.; BDB, s.v. נָקָה; Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed., s.v. נקה
  • contestedTwo homophonous but distinct roots: East Semitic naqu means only to libate and never be pure, while across West Semitic the root means only be pure / innocent and never to pour out, so the empty out tokens are best read as metaphor.; Leonid Kogan, Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses (De Gruyter, 2015); Hayim Tawil, An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew (Ktav, 2009)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. נָקָה, p. 667lexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. נקהlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 5 (Sheffield, 2001), s.v. נקהlexicon
  • Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, eds., Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament (Hendrickson, 1997), s.v. נקהdictionary
  • G. Warmuth, נָקָה, in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament IX (Eerdmans, 1998), 553-63dictionary
  • Ernst Jenni, Das hebraische Piel (Zurich, 1968)monograph
  • Cornelis Houtman, Exodus (HCOT), vol. 3 (Peeters, 2000), ad 34:6-7commentary
  • William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (AB 2A; Doubleday/Yale, 2006)commentary
  • R. W. L. Moberly, At the Mountain of God (JSOTSup 22; JSOT Press, 1983)monograph
  • Hermann Spieckermann, Barmherzig und gnadig ist der Herr, ZAW 102 (1990): 1-18article
  • Ruth Scoralick, Gottes Gute und Gottes Zorn (HBS 33; Herder, 2002)monograph
  • Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Clarendon, 1985), 335-350monograph
  • Thomas B. Dozeman, Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Yahweh's Gracious and Compassionate Character, JBL 108 (1989): 207-223article
  • Jacob Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary, 1990), ad 5:11-31commentary
  • Tikva Frymer-Kensky, The Strange Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers V 11-31), VT 34 (1984): 11-26article

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

All attested forms of נָקָה

niphal imperfect 3ms

יִנָּקֶה

Pro 6:29, Pro 11:21, Pro 16:5, Pro 17:5, Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9, Pro 28:20

piel imperfect 3ms

יְנַקֶּה

Exo 20:7, Exo 34:7, Num 14:18, Deu 5:11, Nam 1:3

piel infinitive-absolute absolute

נַקֵּה

Exo 34:7, Num 14:18, Jer 30:11, Jer 46:28, Nam 1:3

niphal consecutive-perfect 3ms

וְנִקָּה

Exo 21:19, Num 5:31, 1Sa 26:9

niphal imperfect 2ms

תִּנָּקֶה

Gen 24:41, Jer 49:12, Jer 49:12

niphal consecutive-perfect 3fs

וְנִקְּתָה, וְנִקָּתָה

Num 5:28, Isa 3:26

niphal imperfect 2mp

תִנָּקוּ

Jer 25:29, Jer 25:29

niphal perfect 1cs

נִקֵּיתִי

Jdg 15:3, Jer 2:35

niphal perfect 3ms

נִקָּה

Zec 5:3, Zec 5:3

piel consecutive-perfect 1cs

וְנִקֵּיתִי

Psa 19:13, Jol 3:21

piel imperfect 1cs

אֲנַקֶּ

Jer 30:11, Jer 46:28

piel imperfect 2ms

תְנַקֵּ

Job 9:28, Job 10:14

niphal consecutive-perfect 2ms

וְנִקִּיתָ

Gen 24:8

niphal imperative 2fs

הִנָּקִי

Num 5:19

niphal infinitive-absolute absolute

הִנָּקֵה

Jer 25:29

piel imperative 2ms

נַקֵּ

Psa 19:12

piel jussive 2ms

תְּנַקֵּ

1Ki 2:9

piel perfect 1cs

נִקֵּיתִי

Jol 3:21

qal infinitive-absolute absolute

נָקֹה

Jer 49:12