Hebrew word · H1056
בָּכָא
habakha'
of Baca
Outside this verse it appears only in the plural, bĕkāʾîm, for trees in the Valley of Rephaim near Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:23–24; 1 Chr 14:14–15). David is told to listen for "the sound of marching in the tops of the bĕkāʾîm". The two sound almost the same.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Outside this verse it appears only in the plural, bĕkāʾîm, for trees in the Valley of Rephaim near Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:23–24; 1 Chr 14:14–15). David is told to listen for "the sound of marching in the tops of the bĕkāʾîm". The old lexicons guess a balsam, mastic or similar resin-weeping shrub, and the tree's identity is uncertain (BDB, HALOT). It is spelled with a final aleph (א), while the verb "to weep" (בָּכָה, bākâ) ends in he (ה). The two sound almost the same.
- Against the English
KJV, BSB and ESV leave it untranslated as "Baca". WEB, YLT and NLT translate it "Weeping". "Baca" tells the reader nothing. "Weeping" commits to a pun as though it were the dictionary meaning.
- How it drifted
The Greek Septuagint (about 2nd century BC) translated it "valley of weeping" (κλαυθμών), and the Latin Vulgate followed with "vale of tears" (vallis lacrimarum). Medieval Latin devotion turned the phrase into a picture of earthly life as such (the Salve Regina's "in this vale of tears"). By then it no longer meant one stretch of road.
- Used elsewhere in the period
2 Sam 5:23–24 and 1 Chr 14:14–15 (the tree). The Septuagint of Ps 83:7 and of 1 Chr 14:14 sometimes renders the related word with "weeping". In Judges 2:1–5 a place is named Bochim, "Weepers", which shows Israelites did attach weeping meanings to place names.
Similar words
Where it appears
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 84:6 הַ֭בָּכָא <the> Baca
As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; even the autumn rain covers it with pools.
Here: "The Baca". The word has the article ("the"), so it is something more than a bare place name. It is spelled like the name of a tree that grows in dry ground (2 Sam 5:23–24), and it also sounds like bākâ, "to weep". Most likely this is a dry stretch of the road whose name also called up "weeping" in the hearer's mind.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.