to wake up: to pass from sleep into wakefulness, or to rouse oneself to act
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This verb describes the plain, physical event of waking up: the moment a sleeper passes into wakefulness. The one who wakes is normally the sleeper himself, so it is closer to "to wake up" than to "to wake someone else."
From that ordinary picture the word stretches in two directions worth feeling. One reaches toward death: to lie down and "not wake" is to be dead, and to "wake" from the dust of the earth becomes the Bible's early language for the dead rising to life again. The other reaches toward God: worshippers cry "Awake!" to the LORD, urging him to bestir himself and rescue them, and one prophet mocks those who tell a block of wood to "Awake," as if a carved idol could rouse itself.
It shares this ground with the broader verb עוּר, which means to rouse or stir something up, and with the plainer waking verb יָקַץ. Set beside those, this word keeps the vivid picture of waking and carries the weight of waking from death that the plainer verb never takes on.
Nuances
1ato wake up from sleep: to pass from sleeping to being awake
The Hebrew verb is applied to the dead rising from the sleep of death, a use English "awake" can bear but rarely calls to mind on its ownDan 12:2Isa 26:19
Both
Both name the return from sleep to wakefulnessPsa 3:5
Only awake
English "awake" can mean alert or aware with no sleep in view, as in "awake to the danger," a sense the Hebrew verb does not carry
“wake up”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“arise”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How quts differs from similar Hebrew words
יָקַץThe plain verb for waking from sleep: it stays with ordinary people rising in the morning and never carries the reach into death or the summons for God to rouse himself.
Carries the hope of resurrection: those who sleep in the dust of death will one day "awake", or, in judgment, will never wake again.Isa 26:19Dan 12:2Job 14:12
The urgent cry of the psalms, pleading with God to rouse himself from apparent inaction and come to help.Psa 44:23Psa 35:23Psa 59:5
Both
Both name the ordinary event of a sleeper waking from a night's rest.Gen 28:16Psa 3:5
Both describe waking out of a dream.Gen 41:7Psa 73:20
The everyday storytelling word for a specific person rousing from sleep, from wine, or after being overpowered, at home in the narratives of Genesis and Judges.Gen 9:24Jdg 16:20
Pictures a sleeping figure who has to be roused, applied vividly even to God stirring to act and to a taunt that a silent god must be asleep.Psa 78:651Ki 18:27
עוּרThe broader verb for rousing or stirring up: it wakes a sleeper but also stirs a fire, a storm, or a person's spirit into action, where this word stays focused on the act of waking.
It is the plain word for waking up from one's own sleep, the natural transition from sleeping to being awake.Psa 3:5Pro 6:221Sa 26:12
It carries the hope of awakening from death, the dead rising as if from sleep.Isa 26:19Dan 12:2
Both
Both are used to call on a sleeping God to wake up and act, the psalmist crying for the Lord to rouse himself and not to keep sleeping.Psa 44:23Psa 35:23
Both describe the sleep of death that one does not wake from, set side by side in the same lines.Job 14:12
It commonly means to stir someone or something up into action, rousing a person to fight or stirring a nation, an emotion, or even God himself to move.Jdg 5:12Isa 13:17Psa 7:6
It is the word for awakening love or desire, and the repeated charge not to stir up love before it pleases.Sng 2:7Sng 8:4
quts in the other biblical languages
ἐγείρωGreek“to arise”The main Greek verb the New Testament uses for both waking a sleeper and raising the dead, taking up the same range this word opens toward resurrection.
Pictures God himself waking up, a plea for him to rouse from seeming sleep and act for his people or bring judgment.Psa 35:23Psa 44:23Psa 59:5
Describes a person waking from ordinary sleep, the plain bodily sense with no thought of death or resurrection.1Sa 26:12Psa 3:5Pro 6:22
Both
Both treat death as a sleep and resurrection as waking out of it, the figure that lets each word name the dead rising to life.Dan 12:2Isa 26:19Mat 27:521Co 15:4
Often does work on someone else: one person raises another up, lifts the sick to their feet, or restores the dead to life by an act.Mat 9:25Act 3:7Jhn 12:1
Carries the central New Testament claim that God raised Jesus from the dead, the event the whole gospel turns on.Rom 10:91Co 15:4Act 13:30
Used in everyday scenes for simply getting up or being roused, with no overtone of death at all: rising from bed, standing up, being woken in a storm.Mat 8:25Mrk 2:9Mat 2:13
What scholars say about quts
The lexica treat קיץ as a verb "to awake," attested only in the hiphil, which here carries intransitive force ("to wake up") rather than causing another to wake. It is widely analyzed as a byform paired with יקץ (H3364), the two together supplying a single "awake" paradigm, and it is kept distinct from the homographs קיץ "summer" and קוץ "to loathe, dread." Its application to the dead (Job 14:12;Isaiah 26:19;Daniel 12:2) is central to discussion of Israel's developing hope of bodily resurrection, while Ezekiel 7:6 exploits the sound-play between הֵקִיץ "has awakened" and קֵץ "end."