Hebrew word · H181
אוּד
'ud
firebrand
A stick or log taken from a fire: a poker used for stirring the coals, or a half-burnt piece of wood, blackened and smoking. It occurs only three times: Amos 4:11, Isaiah 7:4 and Zechariah 3:2.
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
brand, fire brand
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
A stick or log taken from a fire: a poker used for stirring the coals, or a half-burnt piece of wood, blackened and smoking. It occurs only three times: Amos 4:11, Isaiah 7:4 and Zechariah 3:2.
- Against the English
"Firebrand" (KJV, BSB) was accurate in older English. Today it usually means a fiery agitator, a passionate radical. "Brand" (ESV, YLT) is obscure to most readers. "Burning stick" (WEB, NIV) or "charred stick" (NLT) gives the right picture.
- How it drifted
In English, "firebrand" moved from the literal "burning piece of wood" to the figurative "someone who stirs up trouble." The figurative sense is now the main one.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Isaiah 7:4 calls the kings Rezin and Pekah "two smoldering stumps of firebrands": spent, smoking ends that look threatening but have little left in them. Zechariah 3:2 borrows the phrase from Amos: "Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" There it refers to the high priest Joshua and the community back from exile.
From the study of Zechariah 3:2
- Range of meaning
“Firebrand, piece of firewood, half-burnt log.” It occurs only three times: Isa 7:4 (“two smoldering stumps of firebrands,” of kings who are nearly spent), Amos 4:11, and here. It is related to ʾēd/ʾēdîm, “calamity.”
- Against the English
KJV and ESV “brand” is accurate in older English (a burning or charred stick), but most modern readers hear “brand” as a trademark or a mark burned into skin. NIV's “burning stick” and WEB's “burning stick” are clearer. BSB's “firebrand” is also correct, though today “firebrand” mostly means an agitator.
- How it drifted
In English, “brand” meant “a burning piece of wood” (Old English brand, “fire, torch”). Through branding with hot irons it came to mean a mark of ownership, and then a commercial trademark. The original sense is now nearly forgotten.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Amos 4:11: “you were like a brand plucked out of the burning (kəʾûd muṣṣāl miśśərēpâ), yet you did not return to me.” The phrase is almost the same. The Septuagint translates dalos ezespasmenos ek pyros, “a firebrand torn out of fire.”
Where it appears
Isaiah · 1
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Isaiah 7:4 הָאוּדִ֛ים <the> pieces of firewood
and say to him: Calm down and be quiet. Do not be afraid or disheartened over these two smoldering stubs of firewood—over the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah.
Here: Sticks used to poke and stir a fire, charred at one end. The same word appears in 'a brand plucked from the fire' (Amos 4:11; Zechariah 3:2).
Amos · 1
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Amos 4:11 כְּא֖וּד like a piece of firewood
“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Here: "Like a fire-stick": a half-burnt stick or log, charred and still smoking. It is a picture of something that barely survived, not of anything heroic.
Zechariah · 1
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Zechariah 3:2 א֖וּד a piece of firewood
And the LORD said to Satan: “The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”
Here: A stick of firewood already charred and smoking. It was nearly consumed, and it is still marked by the burning. That fits the filthy clothes of verse 3.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.