StrongerBible

semadar

סְמַדֵר

HebrewH5563“blossom, in bloom, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Sng 2:13Sng 2:15Sng 7:12(13)
Word studyResearch-gradeseh-mah-DARnoun

What semadar means

the grapevine in blossom: the vine at the brief, faintly fragrant moment its flowers open, before any grape has formed

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This is a vineyard word, and it belongs to a single book. It appears three times in the Song of Songs and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, and it names one precise moment in the life of a grapevine: the point in late spring when the vine puts out its tiny greenish flowers. They are small, they last only days, and they give off a faint sweet scent before they fall and the first grapes begin to set.

Ancient readers took it that way. The old Greek and Latin translations both reach for words meaning "to be in flower," and the standard reference works still gloss it as the blossom of the grape. A long minority tradition, running from the medieval Hebrew grammarians into Jewish agricultural law, places it one step later: not the open flower but the hard little berry that appears once the flower has dropped, still well before the sour green grape (בֹּסֶר) and long before the ripe fruit (עֵנָב). Either way the word marks the vine's first showing, the stage at which nothing can yet be picked.

In two of the three verses the word does not sit in the sentence as an ordinary noun would. Instead of saying the vines have blossom, the Hebrew simply says the vines are blossom, which is why English versions turn it into a phrase: "the vines are in bloom." In the third verse it stands on its own as the thing that opens.

In the Song that timing carries the poem. The vineyard stands for the young woman throughout, so a vineyard in bloom is love that is fragrant and full of promise but not yet ready. In one place the man's invitation to "arise and come away" is set in a spring landscape where the vines are in bloom; later the woman leads her lover out to the vineyards to see whether the blossom has opened, and there she gives him her love.

Sng 2:13Sng 2:15Sng 7:12(13)

Disputed

Whether the word names the vine's open flower or the tiny hard berry that sets just after the flower falls.

  • majorityThe vine in blossom. The noun names the grapevine at flowering, before any fruit has formed. This is the reading of the ancient Greek and Latin versions and of the standard lexica, and it remains the basis of nearly every modern translation.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. סְמָדַר; Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (Carta, 1987), s.v. סְמָדַר; Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch, The Song of Songs: A New Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Random House, 1995)
  • minorityThe small, just-set unripe berry, a stage after the flower has fallen and before the sour green grape. This is the reading of the medieval Hebrew grammarians and the sense assumed by tannaitic agricultural law, which treats the word as a named ripening stage distinct from בֹּסֶר.; Abū al-Walīd Marwān ibn Janāḥ, Kitāb al-Uṣūl (Sefer ha-Shorashim), s.v. סמדר; David Kimḥi (Radak), Sefer ha-Shorashim, s.v. סמדר; Rubens Duval, note on סמדר, Revue des études juives 14 (1887)

What scholars say about semadar

The lexica agree on the broad referent and diverge at the margin. BDB glosses סְמָדַר as "blossom of grape (just at flowering)," notes its currency in Late Hebrew, Aramaic, and Mandaic (Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik, 128), and cites Duval, Revue des études juives 14 (1887); HALOT, DCH VI, and Klein carry the same basic gloss and relate the noun to Aramaic and Syriac סְמָדְרָא. The etymology is unknown. Strong's, following BDB, records the word as of uncertain derivation, and the best-known proposal, Gesenius's analysis of the four-consonant form as a compound of סָמַם ("be fragrant") and הָדַר ("adorn"), is an old conjecture rather than demonstrated morphology; his alternative derivation from the Khazar town Samandar has no following, and suggested Persian, Hurrian, Hittite, or Greek origins have no serious basis. The comparative evidence locates the word securely within Northwest Semitic: Syriac ܣܡܳܕܪܳܐ carries the same sense and appears in the Peshitta at Isaiah 17:11, where the Hebrew has a different phrase, showing it was live botanical vocabulary and not merely a calque from the Song.

The live semantic question is whether the noun denotes the vine in flower or the just-set, still-hard berry. The versions favor flowering: the Septuagint uses κυπρίζω and κυπρισμός at 2:13, 2:15, and 7:13 MT, the Vulgate renders with forms of florēre ("to flower"), and the Peshitta simply retains the cognate. Against that, Ibn Janāḥ and David Kimḥi located the stage after the flower falls, and tannaitic agricultural law treats it as a discrete ripening stage preceding בֹּסֶר, with an internal dispute (Rashi against the position reflected in Maimonides) over whether the individual berries are already visible; the halakhic stake is that produce at this stage is generally not yet liable as fruit. Modern commentary (Bloch and Bloch; Pope; Duguid) keeps "blossom" primary while granting that the stages are only days apart, and Song 2:15 supplies the strongest realia objection, since foxes plunder ripe grapes rather than flowers.

Levantine viticulture supports the spring frame of Song 2:11 to 2:13: Vitis vinifera flowers in a lightly scented panicle in mid to late spring, which suits "they give forth fragrance" (Walsh; Borowski; Zohary). The word is also enlisted in the dating argument for the Song, its Aramaic and Mishnaic character read as evidence of lateness by Dobbs-Allsopp and Garbini and as northern Israelian dialect by Noegel and Rendsburg, following Hurvitz's caution that Aramaisms alone do not prove a late date; on either view the decisive lexical evidence lies with פַּרְדֵּס (4:13), אֱגוֹז (6:11), and probably אַפִּרְיוֹן (3:9), not with this word. Duval's article is conventionally cited as REJ 14 (1887), p. 227ff, following BDB, though the relevant pages appear to be 277 to 281.

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, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. סְמָדַרlexicon
  • HALOT, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. סְמָדַרlexicon
  • DCH, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. VI: Samekh to Pe (Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), s.v. סְמָדַרlexicon
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (Carta, 1987), s.v. סְמָדַרdictionary
  • Ariel Bloch and Chana Bloch, The Song of Songs: A New Translation with an Introduction and Commentary (Random House, 1995)commentary
  • Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs, Anchor Bible 7C (Doubleday, 1977)commentary
  • Iain M. Duguid, The Song of Songs, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (InterVarsity Press, 2015)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985)monograph
  • Rubens Duval, note on סמדר, Revue des études juives 14 (1887)article
  • Theodor Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik (Waisenhaus, 1875), 128monograph
  • Carey Ellen Walsh, The Fruit of the Vine: Viticulture in Ancient Israel, HSM 60 (Eisenbrauns, 2000)monograph
  • Oded Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel (Eisenbrauns, 1987)monograph
  • Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible (Cambridge University Press, 1982)monograph
  • F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, "Late Linguistic Features in the Song of Songs," in Anselm C. Hagedorn, ed., Perspectives on the Song of Songs, BZAW 346 (de Gruyter, 2005), 27 to 77article
  • Scott B. Noegel and Gary A. Rendsburg, Solomon's Vineyard: Literary and Linguistic Studies in the Song of Songs, AIL 1 (Society of Biblical Literature, 2009)monograph
  • Gary A. Rendsburg, "Israelian Hebrew in the Song of Songs," in Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz, eds., Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting (Magnes/Eisenbrauns, 2006), 315 to 323article

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

All attested forms of סְמַדֵר

m s absolute

סְמָדַר, סְּמָדַר

Sng 2:13, Sng 2:15, Sng 7:12