StrongerBible

qatsav

קָצַב

HebrewH7094“cut, shorn”

Appears 2 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Ki 6:6Sng 4:2
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekah-TSAHVverb

What qatsav means

to cut off: to sever a piece cleanly away with a blade, whether a stick from a tree or the wool from a sheep

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This verb appears only twice in the whole Hebrew Bible, and both times it names the same plain action: a blade taking a piece off something. In 2 Kings the prophet Elisha helps a workman who has lost a borrowed iron axe head in the Jordan; Elisha cuts a stick free, throws it in, and the iron comes back up. In the Song of Songs a bride's teeth are praised by comparing them to a flock of ewes fresh from the washing with their wool cut off, gleaming white and matched top to bottom with none missing.

Two verses is very little to work from, so the word's shape is largely read off its relatives. A noun built on the same root (קֶצֶב) names not the cutting but its result: the form something has been cut to, which is how the temple account can say the two winged figures in the inner room were made to one measure and one form. Later Hebrew and Aramaic pushed the root in two further directions, toward the butcher who cuts up meat and toward a fixed allowance, an amount cut to a set size. Both of those later uses keep the original idea of a cut that fixes a limit.

The two biblical uses stay close together. Cutting a stick from a tree and clipping the fleece off a sheep are the same motion applied to different stuff, and both leave a clean edge where something has been taken away. That is why English Bibles need two words, "cut" in Kings and "shorn" in the Song, to carry one Hebrew verb.

Nuances

1ato cut a piece off: to sever a stick or piece of wood free with a blade
TranslatabilityDirect
2Ki 6:6
1bto be shorn: to have the wool clipped off, said of sheep
TranslatabilityDirect
Sng 4:2

What scholars say about qatsav

The verb קָצַב is attested only twice in the Hebrew Bible (2 Kings 6:6, Qal; Song 4:2, feminine plural passive participle), and the cognate noun קֶצֶב three times (1 Kings 6:25; 7:37; Jonah 2:7 [Eng. 2:6]), so every treatment leans heavily on comparative Semitic and later-Hebrew evidence. BDB glosses the verb "cut off, shear (?)", the question mark signalling caution, and files the family under one root with the nominal senses "shape" (something cut to size) and "extremity" (the cut-off end) as derivatives; HALOT, the Gesenius tradition ("abschneiden / zuschneiden", with the semantic bridge to "bestimmen"), and DCH converge on the same base sense, differing chiefly in arrangement, since DCH's policy of maximizing homonyms and excluding etymology makes it the reference most likely to distribute the senses across separate entries. Akkadian kaṣābu "to pare off, amputate" (CAD K; von Soden, AHw), whose initial k reflects the regular dissimilation of an original emphatic, is generally accepted as an East Semitic cognate. Arabic qaṣṣāb "butcher" and the verb qaṣaba back-formed from it are, on Fraenkel's analysis, Aramaic loans rather than independent reflexes, the native Arabic reflex being qaḍaba; the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon likewise derives Aramaic קַצָּבָא from Hebrew or Canaanite. Rabbinic Hebrew specializes the root as קַצָּב "butcher" and קִצְבָּה "fixed amount, limit" (Jastrow). For Song 4:2 the Song commentators (Pope, Murphy, Longman, Keel and others) agree on the mechanics of the simile, whiteness plus matched completeness, and take הַקְּצוּבוֹת as "the shorn ones", a poetic substitute for the רְחֵלִים of the parallel Song 6:6, which is therefore a thematic and not a lexical parallel; a minority presses the participle toward "about to be shorn" (so NAB). In 2 Kings 6:6 the Kings commentators (Cogan and Tadmor; Sweeney; Hobbs) treat the verb as unproblematic and locate the exegetical difficulty in the following צוף "float" and in the intertext with Exodus 15:25. The one genuine crux of the root, לְקִצְבֵי הָרִים in Jonah 2:7, belongs to the noun rather than to this verb.

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. קָצַבlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. קצבlexicon
  • DCH (D. J. A. Clines, ed.), s.v. קצבlexicon
  • Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 18th ed., s.v. קצבlexicon
  • M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, s.v. קצב, קצבהdictionary
  • The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD), vol. K, s.v. kaṣābulexicon
  • W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (Wiesbaden, 1965 to 1981), s.v. kaṣābulexicon
  • S. Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1886), 258monograph
  • M. H. Pope, Song of Songs, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1977)commentary
  • R. E. Murphy, The Song of Songs, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990)commentary
  • T. Longman III, Song of Songs, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001)commentary
  • O. Keel, The Song of Songs, Continental Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994)commentary
  • M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1988)commentary
  • T. R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, Word Biblical Commentary 13 (Waco: Word, 1985)commentary
  • M. A. Sweeney, I and II Kings, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007)commentary
  • J. M. Sasson, Jonah, Anchor Bible 24B (New York: Doubleday, 1990)commentary

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

All attested forms of קָצַב

qal consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיִּקְצָב

2Ki 6:6

qal passive-participle f p absolute

קְּצוּבוֹת

Sng 4:2