a reed or stalk: the tall, hollow, jointed plant that grows in water, and any single cane-like stem.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the word's home base. It names the reed that grows thick along the Nile and in marshland: a tall, hollow, jointed plant, slender and easily bent. From that picture everything else in the word grows.
Because a reed is light and bends in the wind, the Bible reaches for it whenever it wants an image of something frail. A reed shaken by water is a nation easily uprooted. A reed someone leans on for support is a promise that splinters and pierces the hand that trusts it, which is exactly how Isaiah and the prophets describe relying on Egypt. The same word also covers a single stalk of grain, since it is the same kind of slim, upright stem.
Nuances
1athe reed plant growing in water or marsh
1Ki 14:15Job 40:21Psa 68:30(31)*Isa 19:6Isa 35:7
1ba single reed as the picture of something weak that breaks or bends
2Ki 18:21Isa 36:6Isa 42:3Ezk 29:6
1cthe stalk of a grain plant
Gen 41:5Gen 41:22
2
a measuring rod: a fixed-length reed used as a surveyor's measuring tool, and the length itself as a unit.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
A straight reed cut to a standard length made a natural ruler, so the word came to name the measuring rod a builder or surveyor carried. In Ezekiel's vision of the future temple a man holds exactly such a rod and uses it to measure the walls, gates, and courts.
The word then does double duty: it names both the rod in the man's hand and the distance it marks off, so that a wall can be so many reeds long the way we would say so many yards. Ezekiel's rod is given a set length, which is why the same word can serve as a unit of measurement.
the shaft and branches of the golden lampstand in the tabernacle.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
When the tabernacle's lampstand is described, this word names its upright central stem and the six branches, three to a side, that curve out from it. Each is a hollow, tubular arm shaped like a reed, which is why the same word is used.
The instructions in Exodus return to it again and again as the lampstand is laid out branch by branch, then repeated when the lampstand is actually made. It is a specialized, architectural use of the basic reed image: a slender tube, here cast in gold rather than grown in a marsh.
the upper arm bone, the long bone running from shoulder to elbow.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Job uses the word once for a part of the body: the long bone of the upper arm, pictured as the reed-like shaft that joins the shoulder to the rest of the arm. He calls down on himself that his arm be broken off at this bone if his oath is false.
The extension is the same one that names the lampstand's stem: a straight, tube-shaped length. Here it is borrowed for human anatomy, the only place in the Bible the word is used this way.
Job 31:22
5
the beam of a balance, the horizontal arm a weighing scale hangs from.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Isaiah mocks people who pour out gold and weigh silver to pay a goldsmith to make them an idol. The word names the beam of the scale, the straight crossbar from which the two pans hang, again a slender, rod-like length.
This is a single, specialized use drawn from the same root picture: a balance beam is just another straight reed put to work, this time for weighing.
Isa 46:6
6
aromatic cane (calamus): a fragrant reed imported as a costly spice and perfume ingredient.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
A particular reed gave off a sweet scent when its stalk was crushed, and that fragrant cane became a prized spice traded over long distances. The word names it in the recipe for the holy anointing oil, in love poetry listing the finest perfumes, and in trade lists of luxury goods.
The prophets also use it to expose hollow worship: people import this expensive sweet cane from far away to burn before God, yet God says he takes no pleasure in it while their lives are corrupt. It is the most narrowly defined use of the word, almost always paired with words like sweet or good to mark it as the fragrant variety rather than an ordinary marsh reed.
covers cut, manufactured uses an English reader would not call a reed: a measuring rod, the lampstand's branches, an arm bone, a balance beamEzk 40:5Exo 25:31
Both
both name the tall hollow water plant and use it as an image of frailtyIsa 42:31Ki 14:15
Only reed
in English a reed is mainly the plant or the thin vibrating strip in a wind instrument; the Bible never uses this word for a musical reed
Names the jointed stalk of a plant, as in the ears of grain growing up on one stalk in Pharaoh's dream.Gen 41:5Gen 41:22
Names the arms or branches of the golden lampstand, each a reed-like shaft rising from the central stem.Exo 25:31Exo 25:32Exo 37:17
Becomes a standard unit of length, the measuring reed a surveyor holds out to lay off a building.Ezk 40:3Ezk 40:5Ezk 42:16
Names the fragrant cane or calamus, an aromatic spice imported for anointing oil and incense.Exo 30:23Sng 4:14Jer 6:20
Pictures frailty and false support, the cracked reed that pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it.2Ki 18:21Isa 36:6Isa 42:3
Both
Both can name a reed or rush growing in standing water, and Isaiah pairs them in one breath when he pictures Egypt's marsh plants withering as the Nile dries up.Isa 19:6Exo 2:5Job 40:21
Names one particular marsh plant rather than reeds in general: the dense rushes of the Nile where the infant Moses was hidden, and the tangled water weeds that wrap around a sinking man's head.Exo 2:3Exo 2:5Jon 2:5
Serves as the fixed name of the sea Israel crossed at the exodus, the Sea of Reeds (traditionally the Red Sea), a geographic use that accounts for most of its occurrences.Exo 15:4Exo 15:22Num 33:10Deu 11:4
אֵבֶהthe papyrus reed specifically (as in skiffs of reed); this word is the broader, ordinary reed and also the cut cane put to many uses.
qaneh in the other biblical languages
κάλαμοςGreek“reed/stick/pen”the Greek reed used both for the literal plant and, like this word, for a measuring rod; the bruised reed and the reed staff of the Gospels render this Hebrew picture.
Names the branches and central shaft of the golden lampstand in the tabernacle, the arms that hold its lamps.Exo 25:31Exo 25:32Exo 37:18
Names fragrant cane (calamus), an aromatic spice blended into the holy anointing oil and traded as a luxury good.Exo 30:23Sng 4:14Isa 43:24
Names the beam of a balance, the horizontal arm from which the pans of a scale hang for weighing out silver.Isa 46:6
Names the standing stalk of grain that bears the ears of corn.Gen 41:5Gen 41:22
Names the long bone of the arm at the shoulder joint, an anatomical use with no counterpart in the Greek word.Job 31:22
Both
Both name the marsh reed, a tall hollow plant that grows by water and is proverbial for its weakness, bending and shaking whenever the wind blows.1Ki 14:15Mat 11:7
The Greek word directly renders the Hebrew one: Matthew's promise that God's servant will not break a bruised reed quotes Isaiah word for word, putting the Greek term where the Hebrew stood.Isa 42:3Mat 12:20
Both name a reed cut to a fixed length and used as a measuring rod; Revelation's measuring reed for the temple and the city deliberately echoes the reed the man uses to measure the temple in Ezekiel.Ezk 40:3Ezk 40:5Rev 11:1Rev 21:15
Names the reed cut into a writing pen, dipped in ink to write a letter.3Jn 1:13
Serves as the mock scepter pressed into Jesus' hand and then used to strike him, a stick handled as an instrument of mockery and beating.Mat 27:29Mat 27:30Mrk 15:19
What scholars say about qaneh
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat קָנֶה as a single polysemous noun whose base meaning is reed or stalk, with the other senses (measuring rod, lampstand shaft and branches, the upper arm bone, the balance beam, and aromatic cane) understood as concrete extensions of the reed image rather than separate homonyms; this analysis follows that consensus. The word is widely held to be a culture word for cane shared across Semitic and into Greek (καλάμη, κάλαμος) and Latin (calamus), reflecting the reed's role in trade and measurement. The aromatic קְנֵה־בֹשֶׂם of Exodus 30:23 and the קָנֶה הַטּוֹב of Jeremiah 6:20 are generally identified with an imported fragrant cane (calamus), debated in detail by commentators on the spice trade. Ezekiel's measuring קָנֶה is assigned a fixed length in the vision and so functions both as instrument and as a unit, discussed in the major Ezekiel commentaries.
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. קָנֶהlexicon
BDB, s.v. קָנֶהlexicon
David J. A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. קָנֶהlexicon