an ear of grain: the seed-bearing head at the top of a cereal stalk.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the picture at the center of Pharaoh's dream: seven plump ears of grain swallowed by seven thin ones. In nearly every place the word names the same thing, the seed head that ripens at the top of a wheat or barley plant, whether it is still standing on the stalk it grew from (קָמָה), being gleaned by hand, or cut down at harvest.
One place stretches the image. In Zechariah's vision the same word labels the two olive sprays that pour oil into the lampstand, borrowing the shape of a grain head to describe a leafy branch heavy with fruit.
a rushing body of water: a flood, torrent, or flowing stream.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Here the same spelling turns to water on the move. In one of the Psalms it is the flood that closes over a drowning man, deep water with no place to stand; the danger is not rain but a current strong enough to sweep a person away.
The word also covers the steady flow of a great river. Isaiah pictures God threshing grain from the channel of the Euphrates (נָהָר) down to the brook of Egypt, gathering his scattered people one by one.
The word's most famous appearance belongs here too, though by a side door. At the fords of the Jordan the men of Gilead used it as a password, and the fleeing Ephraimites who could not pronounce its opening sound gave themselves away. What the speakers took the word to mean is debated; it was the sound, not the sense, that decided who lived.
Nuances
2aa flood or torrent that sweeps over a person.
Psa 69:2(3)Psa 69:15(16)
2bthe flowing channel or current of a great river.
Isa 27:12*
2ca spoken password at the crossings of the Jordan.
TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyContested
Jdg 12:6*
Jdg 12:6
What the password word meant to the men of Gilead who chose it at the Jordan crossings in Judges 12:6.
contestedIt meant a flowing stream or watercourse, a pointed allusion to the Jordan the fugitives were trying to ford.; E. A. Speiser, "The Shibboleth Incident (Judges 12:6)," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 85 (1942): 10-13
contestedIt was the word's ordinary sense, an ear of grain, an everyday word chosen for its opening sound rather than its meaning.; HALOT, s.v. שִׁבֹּלֶת
Names the individual seed-head itself, the countable ear that tops a single stalk, which is why Pharaoh dreams of seven ears growing on one stalk and can count the plump ones against the thin, withered ones.Gen 41:5Gen 41:7Gen 41:22
Is the ear that gets gleaned or lopped off one at a time: the poor gather the leftover ears dropped in the field, and the wicked are cut down like the tops of grain-heads.Rut 2:2Job 24:24
Both
Both name the cereal crop at harvest, the wheat or barley a reaper works in the field: Isaiah 17:5 sets them side by side, the harvester gathering the standing grain in his hand and reaping the ears with his arm.Isa 17:5
Names the whole standing crop still rooted and uncut in the field, which is why fire can sweep through it: stray sparks catch the standing grain in Exodus 22:6, and Samson's torches set the standing grain of the Philistines ablaze in Judges 15:5.Exo 22:6Jdg 15:5
Marks the field as the unit for timing the harvest: Israel counts seven weeks from the day the sickle is first put to the standing grain.Deu 16:9
Stands for the crop blighted before it matures, scorched while still on the stalk and never coming to a harvest.2Ki 19:26Isa 37:27
נָהָרa river as a permanent, named body of water, where this word is the flowing current or flood-surge of such water.
Names the moving water itself, the flood or current that sweeps over and threatens to drown a person, not a fixed channel with a name.Psa 69:2Psa 69:15
Both
Both can denote the flowing water of a river, and in one verse they join: the current of the Euphrates is called the flowing stream (H7641) of the River (H5104).Isa 27:12
Names a permanent, identifiable river standing on the map as a fixed feature, most often the Euphrates called "the great river" or the river that flowed out of Eden.Gen 15:18Gen 2:10
Marks a lasting boundary or the reach of a realm, the river serving as a settled geographic limit rather than a passing surge of water.Jos 1:4Psa 72:8
מַבּוּלthe one great Deluge of Noah's day, a unique catastrophe, where this word is any overwhelming rush of water.
Names one specific event: the great Deluge God sent in Noah's day, the single cataclysm that covered the earth and destroyed all flesh.Gen 6:17Gen 7:17
Belongs to the Noah story almost everywhere it occurs, threading through the covenant promise that such waters will never again destroy the earth.Gen 9:11Gen 9:15Gen 10:1
Carries cosmic, mythic weight: the LORD is enthroned as king over these waters, the ordered ruler above the primeval chaos.Psa 29:10
Covers the head of grain at any stage, including heads that are fully formed and ripe. Pharaoh dreams of seven plump, healthy heads on one stalk and seven shriveled ones that swallow them (Genesis 41:5,Genesis 41:6,Genesis 41:22,Genesis 41:26).Gen 41:5Gen 41:6Gen 41:22Gen 41:26
Is the word for heads of grain at harvest time, when they are gleaned, gathered, or cut down. Ruth asks to gather heads behind the reapers, an arm sweeps them up in the valley, and prophets and poets use the cutting of heads as a picture of people being gathered in or brought low (Ruth 2:2,Isaiah 17:5,Isaiah 27:12,Job 24:24).Rut 2:2Isa 17:5Isa 27:12Job 24:24
Has a second, unrelated use with the same spelling: rushing water, the surge or current of a flood. The psalmist is sunk in deep water where the flood sweeps over him and prays not to be swallowed by it (Psalm 69:2,Psalm 69:15).Psa 69:2Psa 69:15
Became a spoken password, the one biblical case of a word used as a test of accent. Gilead's men made each fugitive pronounce it, and the ones who could not say it correctly were killed at the river crossing (Judges 12:6).Jdg 12:6
Stretches past grain to name the two olive branches beside the lampstand that pour their oil into it, so the shape of a head on a stalk is applied to a tree (Zechariah 4:12).Zec 4:12
Both
Both name the head at the top of a grain stalk, the part where the kernels sit, and both are what a person looks at to judge how a crop is doing. Hail catches the barley once its heads have formed, and Pharaoh's dream is read entirely off whether the heads are plump or shriveled.Exo 9:31Gen 41:5
Both belong to the barley and wheat harvest, and English Bibles often render each of them "ear of grain". Fresh heads are brought as the first offering of new grain, and heads left standing are what a poor woman is allowed to gather for herself.Lev 2:14Rut 2:2
Names the grain only at the young green stage, when the head has formed but the kernels are still soft. That is why the barley could be ruined by hail once it had reached this point (Exodus 9:31), and why the first offering of new grain is fresh heads scorched over fire and eaten at once (Leviticus 2:14).Exo 9:31Lev 2:14
Doubles as the name of a month, the spring month when barley reaches that green stage. In most of its appearances the word is not a plant at all but a date on the calendar, fixing when Passover and the feast of unleavened bread fall (Exodus 13:4,Exodus 23:15,Exodus 34:18,Deuteronomy 16:1).Exo 13:4Exo 23:15Exo 34:18Deu 16:1
Carries a memory of the exodus. Because the month took its name from the greening barley, the word became shorthand for the season in which Israel was brought out of Egypt, so a farming term ended up marking the nation's founding deliverance (Exodus 13:4,Deuteronomy 16:1).Exo 13:4Deu 16:1
shibbol in the other biblical languages
στάχυςGreek“head of grain”the ordinary Greek word for a head of grain, matching this word's grain sense.
שׁבּלת is a homonym: apart from grain it also means a flowing stream or a flood of water, a watery sense στάχυς never carries.Psa 69:2Isa 27:12
In its grain sense שׁבּלת can carry symbolic weight, as in Pharaoh's dream where plump and withered ears stand for coming years of plenty and famine.Gen 41:5Gen 41:6
Both
Both name the head or ear of a cereal plant, the top of a wheat or barley stalk where the kernels form.Mrk 4:28Gen 41:5
Both refer to the ripe grain that a harvester or a hungry traveler gathers and plucks by hand.Mat 12:1Rut 2:2
στάχυς keeps a single sense, always the ripe cereal head standing in the field, and appears where hungry disciples pluck and eat the heads on the Sabbath.Mat 12:1Luk 6:1
ποταμόςGreek“river”the common Greek word for a river or torrent, close to this word's flowing-water sense.
The very same Hebrew word most often means something with no connection to water at all: an ear of grain standing on the stalk, as in Pharaoh's dream and the gleaner's field.Gen 41:5Rut 2:2
Even in its water sense it is a rare, poetic word for a rushing current, not Hebrew's ordinary everyday noun for a river.Psa 69:2Isa 27:12
Both
Both name a rush of flowing water strong enough to sweep over a person or beat against a house: a flood or torrent.Psa 69:2Psa 69:15Mat 7:25Luk 6:48
Both can denote simply a moving stream or current of water.Isa 27:12Rev 22:1
Names an actual, permanent river as a geographic landmark: the Jordan where John baptized, or the Euphrates in the visions of Revelation.Mat 3:6Mrk 1:5Rev 9:14
Pictures the ever-flowing river of the water of life streaming from God's throne, and the rivers of living water Jesus promises to the believer.Rev 22:1Rev 22:2Jhn 7:38
What scholars say about shibbol
The standard lexicons treat שִׁבֹּלֶת as two homonyms: I "ear of grain, head of grain" (Gen 41; Ruth 2:2;Isa 17:5;Job 24:24; and, extended to olive foliage, Zech 4:12) and II "flood, flowing stream" (Ps 69:2, 15; Isa 27:12, of the Euphrates). The two are given separate entries in HALOT, BDB, and DCH; a proposed common origin in a root meaning "to flow, grow up" is sometimes floated but is not transparent and is not the basis for merging them. The much-discussed occurrence is the password of Judges 12:6, where the word's referential meaning is not activated by the narrative. Speiser argued the Gileadites chose it for its sense of "stream, watercourse," alluding to the Jordan the Ephraimites were fording; others take it as the common word for an ear of grain, selected only because its initial sibilant exposed the Ephraimite dialect. The lexica record both possibilities without resolving them.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. שִׁבֹּלֶת I, IIlexicon
BDB, s.v. שִׁבֹּלֶתlexicon
DCH, s.v. שִׁבֹּלֶתlexicon
E. A. Speiser, "The Shibboleth Incident (Judges 12:6)," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 85 (1942): 10-13article