StrongerBible

shaqad

שָׁקַד

HebrewH8245“watch over, lie awake, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Ezr 8:29Job 21:32Psa 102:7(8)Psa 127:1Pro 8:34Isa 29:20Jer 1:12Jer 5:6Jer 31:28 (2×)Jer 44:27Dan 9:14
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeshaw-KADverb

What shaqad means

to keep wakeful watch: to stay awake and alert over something, refusing to let it go until it happens

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

At its root this word is about not sleeping. It pictures someone who stays awake when others rest, and it stretches from the plain experience of lying awake at night to the deliberate act of keeping unbroken watch over a person, a task, or an outcome. What ties every use together is not merely looking at something but staying with it: a committed, tireless attention that will not lapse until the thing is done.

The word is rare, but it carries great weight, above all in Jeremiah, who makes it the signature term for God's sleepless oversight of his own word. Its most famous moment is a play on sound in Jeremiah 1:11-12: the prophet sees an almond branch (the almond tree in Hebrew is named the "waker" because it is the first to bloom in late winter), and God answers that he is "watching" over his word to carry it out. Almond and watching sound nearly identical, so the vision and its meaning are welded into a single spoken pun. Jeremiah then reuses the word at the hinges of his book: God watched to tear down, and he will watch to build and plant (Jeremiah 31:28); he watches over the exiles in Egypt for harm (Jeremiah 44:27). Daniel later borrows the very word to describe how God kept watch over the disaster of exile and brought it about (Daniel 9:14).

The same alert attention can be turned to any purpose. It describes:

  • a leopard poised over the towns, ready to tear anyone who ventures out (שָׁקַד in Jeremiah 5:6)
  • people who lie in wait for the chance to do wrong (Isaiah 29:20)
  • the disciple who waits attentively at wisdom's door day after day (Proverbs 8:34)
  • the watchman whose guarding of the city is useless unless God guards it too (Psalm 127:1)

Because the word describes commitment to an outcome rather than a mood, it is close to the ordinary Hebrew verbs for guarding and keeping (שָׁמַר) and for the lookout who scans the horizon (צָפָה). What sets this word apart is the note of sleeplessness: to watch this way is to stay awake over the matter.

Nuances

1ato keep watch over something with unsleeping care, whether to guard it, wait for it, or see it through to completion
Ezr 8:29Job 21:32Psa 127:1Pro 8:34Jer 1:12Jer 31:28 (2×)Jer 44:27Dan 9:14
1bto lie in wait, watching alertly for the chance to strike or do harm
Isa 29:20Jer 5:6
1cto lie awake, be unable to sleep
TranslatabilityDirect
Psa 102:7(8)

What scholars say about shaqad

The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH, the 18th edition of Gesenius, NIDOTTE, and TDOT) converge on a single verbal root meaning to be sleepless or wakeful and, by extension, to keep alert watch over something. HALOT and Gesenius (18th ed.) formally separate this verb from the homograph noun שָׁקֵד "almond" and its derived ornamental forms on the tabernacle lampstand. The verb occurs only in the simple active stem, about a dozen times, and is concentrated in Jeremiah (1:12; 5:6; 31:28; 44:27), where the participle with YHWH as subject becomes the signature idiom for God's sleepless oversight of his own word; Daniel 9:14 consciously borrows this Jeremianic usage. TDOT and NIDOTTE note the semantic overlap with שָׁמַר "keep, guard," צָפָה "look out," and עוּר "wake." The verb's comparative Semitic pedigree is thin: the most-cited cognate, Arabic šaqiḏa "to be sleepless," is phonologically imperfect, and Militarev and Kogan treat the verb as a largely Hebrew development, in contrast to the well-traveled culture-word noun for "almond" (Akkadian šiqdu, Ugaritic ṯqd). This asymmetry underlies the etymological dispute over the famous almond-branch wordplay in Jeremiah 1:11-12.

Where scholars disagree about shaqad

Whether the verb "to watch, be wakeful" and the noun "almond" are one root (so the almond is literally the "waker-tree" that blooms first in the year, making Jeremiah's pun etymologically real) or two separate words that happen to share three consonants (so the pun works only on their sound).

  • majorityTwo separate words of independent origin. The noun for "almond" traveled across the ancient Near East as a culture-word, while the verb has almost no secure cognates; their meeting in Jeremiah 1:11-12 is a brilliant play on sound, not a shared derivation.; HALOT, s.vv. שׁקד I and II; D. J. A. Clines, DCH, vol. 8, s.v. שׁקד; Gesenius' Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed. (2013), s.v. שׁקד; Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah (OTL, 1986), 102–103
  • minorityOne root. The almond is named the "waker" because it is the first tree to wake from winter, so the noun derives from the verb and Jeremiah's pun rests on a genuine shared meaning.; BDB, s.v. שָׁקַד (p. 1052); Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (1987), s.v. שקד; William Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia, 1986); Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20 (Anchor Bible 21A, 1999)
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. שָׁקַד (p. 1052)lexicon
  • HALOT, s.vv. שׁקד I and IIlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, DCH, vol. 8, s.v. שׁקדlexicon
  • Gesenius' Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed. (Springer, 2013), s.v. שׁקדlexicon
  • NIDOTTE (ed. VanGemeren), vol. 4, art. שׁקדlexicon
  • TDOT (Botterweck–Ringgren–Fabry), vol. XV, art. שָׁקַד (Sæbø)lexicon
  • William Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia, 1986)commentary
  • Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 1–20 (Anchor Bible 21A, 1999)commentary
  • Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah (OTL, 1986)commentary
  • William McKane, Jeremiah, vol. 1 (ICC, 1986)commentary
  • John J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia, 1993)commentary
  • Georg Sauer, "Mandelzweig und Kessel in Jer 1,11ff.," ZAW 78 (1966): 56–61article

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

All attested forms of שָׁקַד

qal participle m s absolute

שֹׁקֵד

Jer 1:12, Jer 5:6, Jer 44:27

qal perfect 1cs

שָׁקַדְתִּי

Psa 102:7, Jer 31:28

qal consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיִּשְׁקֹד

Dan 9:14

qal imperative 2mp

שִׁקְדוּ

Ezr 8:29

qal imperfect 1cs

אֶשְׁקֹד

Jer 31:28

qal imperfect 3ms

יִשְׁקוֹד

Job 21:32

qal infinitive-construct construct

שְׁקֹד

Pro 8:34

qal participle m p construct

שֹׁקְדֵי

Isa 29:20

qal perfect 3ms

שָׁקַד

Psa 127:1