StrongerBible

arev

עָרַב

HebrewH6149“sweet, pleasing, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 104:34Pro 3:24Pro 13:19Jer 6:20Jer 31:26Ezk 16:37Hos 9:4Mal 3:4
Root family
Word studyah-RAYVverb

What arev means

to go down well with someone: to be sweet, welcome, or acceptable to the person on the receiving end

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This verb always looks at things from the receiving end. It does not say that something is sweet in itself; it says that something went down well with a particular person, and Hebrew nearly always names that person: sweet to me, pleasing to him, welcome to the LORD. Take the person away and the verb has nothing left to say.

The handful of subjects it takes hang together:

  • sleep that comes easily and leaves a person rested
  • a longing that has finally been satisfied
  • an offering or a prayer brought to God
  • a woman who was agreeable to the men around her

None of these is an achievement. Each is something handed over to somebody who then either welcomes it or does not.

Most of its appearances are about worship, and there the verb carries real weight. Jeremiah has God turn away imported incense and sacrifices as unwelcome. Hosea says the bread of mourners will not be welcome to him. Malachi promises a day when the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be welcome again as it once was. Psalm 104 aims the same verb at a person's own words, asking that the singer's musing be welcome to God, which quietly puts a song where a sacrifice normally stands.

Hebrew has other ways of saying sweet and pleasant, and they do different jobs. The adjective built from the same root (עָרֵב) calls the thing itself sweet, whether it is food or a voice. The verb for tasting sweet (מָתֹק) stays in the mouth. The regular worship word for God receiving someone with favor (רָצָה) puts God in the active position, where this verb keeps the spotlight on the gift and on how it landed.

Nuances

1awhat goes down sweetly with a person: sleep that rests well, or a longing at last satisfied
Pro 3:24Pro 13:19Jer 31:26
1bwelcome to God: an offering or a prayer that God receives gladly, or turns away
Psa 104:34Jer 6:20Hos 9:4Mal 3:4
Hos 9:4

Whether Hosea 9:4 originally read this verb at all. The consonants of the received text differ by a single letter from a common verb meaning to set out or arrange, and the verse's imagery of pouring out wine and setting food before God has led some critics to prefer that other verb.

  • majorityKeep the received text: their sacrifices will not be pleasing to the LORD. The standard lexica assume this reading when they list the verse among the attestations of the stative verb, and the close parallel at Jeremiah 6:20, where sacrifices are likewise not pleasing to God, supports it.; HALOT, s.v. ערב; DCH, s.v. ערב
  • minorityEmend to the verb meaning to arrange or set out, so that the line reads that they shall not set out their sacrifices before the LORD. This proposal belongs to the older critical tradition and is recorded in the lexicographic literature.; BDB, s.v. עָרַב III, recording the proposal of Kuenen, Cheyne, Wellhausen, G. A. Smith, and Nowack
1cagreeable to another person: one human being who is welcome to others
TranslatabilityPartial
Ezk 16:37

What scholars say about arev

The verb is attested eight times, all in the qal, and BDB isolates it as a separate homonym (its ערב III, "be sweet, pleasing"), listing precisely this set: Jer 6:20; 31:26; Prov 3:24; 13:19; Mal 3:4; Ezek 16:37; Hos 9:4; Ps 104:34. It is a stative construed with ל or על naming the person to whom the subject is agreeable, which is the syntactic feature that most cleanly separates it from the transitive "stand surety" and hitpael "mingle" material spelled with the same consonants. HALOT and DCH maintain the separation, DCH characteristically willing to multiply homonyms where distribution and syntax diverge; the older Gesenius tradition instead derived the stative from a single primitive root by a chain running from braiding and intermixing, through barter and exchange, to "well mixed" and hence agreeable, and Ernest Klein's etymological dictionary follows that route. The comparative Semitic evidence that separates "evening, west, raven" (from proto-Semitic *ġrb, with Arabic ghayin) from "pledge, mix, Arab" (from *ʿrb) cannot adjudicate the stative, since Arabic supplies no clean ghayin cognate for "sweet"; most current lexicographers therefore treat it as a homonymous stative rather than forcing it back into "mix." BDB additionally notes the Late Hebrew and Ben Sira hiphil יעריבו (Sir 40:21) and the Aramaic adjective עָרִיב "pleasant," both of which support a live independent stative in the later language. The Septuagint renders the sense with ἡδύς, γλυκύς, and related "pleasing" vocabulary rather than the ἐγγυάομαι group used for the surety verb, so the ancient translators already heard a distinct word. The one significant text-critical crux is Hos 9:4, where a line of nineteenth-century critics (Kuenen, Cheyne, Wellhausen, G. A. Smith, Nowack, the proposal recorded in BDB) read יַעַרְכוּ "they shall arrange, set out" for MT יֶעֶרְבוּ. Ezek 16:37 is the other soft spot: the form is second feminine singular with עַל, which yields "to whom you were agreeable," though the English versional tradition standardly inverts it to "with whom you took pleasure." The prophetic occurrences (Jer 6:20; Hos 9:4; Mal 3:4) cluster in the cultic-acceptance polemic and pair naturally with רָצוֹן, which stands in Jer 6:20 in the same verse.

Where scholars disagree about arev

Whether the verb meaning "be sweet, pleasing" is a word in its own right or the far end of a semantic chain running from a single root meaning "to mix," the same root that yields the verb for standing surety for a debt.

  • majorityA distinct verb. The lexica that separate homonyms give the stative "be sweet, pleasing" its own numbered entry, on the grounds that its subjects, its syntax with a following preposition naming the person pleased, and its distribution all differ from the "mix" and "pledge" material. This is the working assumption of current lexicography.; BDB, s.v. עָרַב III; HALOT, s.v. ערב; DCH, s.v. ערב
  • minorityOne primitive root developed by stages: from braiding or intermixing, to trafficking by barter, to giving something in exchange as security, and finally to the stative sense of being well mixed and therefore agreeable. On this account the "sweet" verb is the end of a chain rather than an unrelated look-alike.; Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, s.v. ערב; Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Carta, 1987), s.v. ערב

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. עָרַב IIIlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. ערבlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. ערבlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, s.v. ערבlexicon
  • Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (Carta, 1987), s.v. ערבdictionary
  • TDOT, s.v. ערבtheological-dictionary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15, NICOT (Eerdmans, 2004)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9, Anchor Bible 18A (Doubleday, 2000)commentary
  • Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Hosea, Anchor Bible 24 (Doubleday, 1980)commentary
  • Andrew E. Hill, Malachi, Anchor Bible 25D (Doubleday, 1998)commentary
  • William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah, vol. 1, ICC (T&T Clark, 1986)commentary

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

All attested forms of עָרַב

qal consecutive-perfect 3fs

וְעָרְבָה

Pro 3:24, Mal 3:4

qal imperfect 3fs

תֶּעֱרַב

Pro 13:19

qal imperfect 3mp

יֶעֶרְבוּ

Hos 9:4

qal imperfect 3ms

יֶעֱרַב

Psa 104:34

qal perfect 2fs

עָרַבְתְּ

Ezk 16:37

qal perfect 3cp

עָרְבוּ

Jer 6:20

qal perfect 3fs

עָרְבָה

Jer 31:26