StrongerBible

shatal

שָׁתַל

HebrewH8362planted, transplanted

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 1:3Psa 92:13(14)Jer 17:8Ezk 17:8Ezk 17:10Ezk 17:22Ezk 17:23Ezk 19:10Ezk 19:13Hos 9:13
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradesha-TAHLverb

What shatal means

to transplant: to set out an already-rooted shoot or young tree in a chosen, well-watered place

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is a poet's word for planting, never used of ordinary farming. It pictures the careful work of lifting a young, already-growing shoot and setting it into a prepared spot, almost always one with water nearby. That is what sets it apart from the common verb for planting: this word leans toward deliberate placement, the kind of move a gardener makes on purpose so the tree will take deep root and last.

Every one of its ten appearances is a picture rather than a description of real gardening. The thing planted is always someone: the faithful person rooted beside streams of water, the worshiper flourishing in God's house, Israel as a vine moved into rich soil and later dragged off into a dry wasteland, and finally a tender shoot that God himself promises to set on his holy mountain. In most of these the planter is unnamed but understood to be God, and in the two places where the planter is named outright it is God speaking in the first person.

Because the same picture runs through all ten verses, this is best read as a single idea worked out in different settings, not as several separate meanings. The one motif underneath them all is that God's people are not self-rooted; they are placed. Their fruitfulness depends on where they have been set and on whether they stay faithful there. The very word that promises a restored future for David's line is also the word that pictures that line uprooted and exiled, which is exactly the double edge a rare and vivid term can carry.

Psa 1:3Psa 92:13(14)Jer 17:8Ezk 17:8Ezk 17:10Ezk 17:22Ezk 17:23Ezk 19:10Ezk 19:13Hos 9:13

What scholars say about shatal

The standard lexica converge on a core gloss but differ on how sharply to draw the line from נטע. BDB heads the entry simply "transplant," notes the verb is exclusively poetic, and lists all ten attestations under that one sense, citing the Akkadian noun šitlu ("shoot, slip") and Aramaic cognates; the Gesenius tradition (Thesaurus 1488; 18th ed.) and TWOT (§2480) follow, stressing the careful placement of a sprig in prepared ground. Carpenter in NIDOTTE (§9278) makes the comparative case explicitly: while נטע is the general workhorse verb, שׁתל "connotes the careful relocating of an already-growing shoot or seedling into a more favorable, prepared environment"; Ringgren in TDOT treats it as the rarer, specifically poetic synonym for setting in an already-grown shoot. HALOT and DCH (Clines 8) hedge with a both-and gloss "plant, transplant," observing the synonymous parallelism with נטע (Jer 11:17 // 17:8) and warning against pressing the nuance. The comparative-Semitic evidence is the strongest empirical support for the transplant reading: the pan-Semitic noun (Akkadian šitlu, Aramaic/Syriac šetlā, Arabic šatla, glossed by Dozy as "what is uprooted from one place to be planted in another") names precisely a young plant destined for transplantation, and Nöldeke (ZDMG 57 [1903] 417) used the Punic attestation to defend the root as inherited Canaanite against Kautzsch's Aramaism claim. The Septuagint cuts the other way: it renders almost uniformly with φυτεύω (the same verb it uses for נטע) and never reaches for μεταφυτεύω ("transplant"), though it intensifies to καταφυτεύω at Ezek 17:22-23; the Vulgate alone catches transplantatum/transplantatur unevenly (Ps 1:3 iuxta Hebraeos, Jer 17:8, Ezek 19:13). Among exegetes, Dahood, Greenberg, Zimmerli, Block, Holladay, Janzen (on Ps 1), and Creach (CBQ 61 [1999]) press the transplant nuance; Kraus, Goldingay ("planted, perhaps transplanted"), and Gerstenberger keep to the cautious middle.

Where scholars disagree about shatal

Whether שָׁתַל carries a real, technical "transplant" sense (an already-rooted shoot deliberately moved to a prepared, watered site) or is simply the poetic synonym of the ordinary verb for planting.

  • majorityThe verb carries a genuine transplant nuance: it specifically names setting out an already-growing shoot in a chosen, well-watered place, supported by the pan-Semitic noun for a transplantable young plant and the verb's exclusively poetic, destination-marked usage.; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 1060; Carpenter, NIDOTTE §9278; Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, Anchor Bible 22
  • minorityThe transplant sense is real but not absolute: שׁתל and נטע often work as interchangeable poetic synonyms (compare Jer 11:17 with 17:8), so the word need not imply a prior location, and "plant" remains an adequate rendering.; Koehler, Baumgartner, and Stamm, HALOT 5:1670; Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8; Goldingay, Psalms, Volume 1: Psalms 1-41
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

  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 1060, s.v. שׁתלlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, and Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 5:1670, s.v. שׁתלlexicon
  • Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 8, s.v. שׁתלlexicon
  • Harris, Archer, and Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, §2480theological-dictionary
  • Carpenter, "שׁתל," in VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, §9278theological-dictionary
  • Ringgren, "נטע / שׁתל," in Botterweck, Ringgren, and Fabry, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. 9theological-dictionary
  • Greenberg, Ezekiel 1-20, Anchor Bible 22commentary
  • Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 1-24, NICOTcommentary
  • Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1, Hermeneiacommentary
  • Holladay, Jeremiah 1, Hermeneiacommentary
  • Andersen and Freedman, Hosea, Anchor Bible 24commentary
  • Macintosh, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Hosea, ICCcommentary
  • Goldingay, Psalms, Volume 1: Psalms 1-41, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalmscommentary
  • Creach, "Like a Tree Planted by the Temple Stream: The Portrait of the Righteous in Psalm 1:3," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 61 (1999)journal-article

All attested forms of שָׁתַל

qal passive-participle f s absolute

שְׁתוּלָה

Ezk 17:8, Ezk 17:10, Ezk 19:10, Ezk 19:13, Hos 9:13

qal passive-participle m s absolute

שָׁתוּל

Psa 1:3, Jer 17:8

qal consecutive-perfect 1cs

וְשָׁתַלְתִּי

Ezk 17:22

qal imperfect 1cs

אֶשְׁתֳּלֶ

Ezk 17:23

qal passive-participle m p absolute

שְׁתוּלִים

Psa 92:13