Hebrew word · H2156

זְמוֹרָה

zemorah

branch

Zemorah: a branch, vine-shoot or cutting for propagation. Zar: an outsider or stranger: foreign, unauthorised, not belonging. It is used of foreign peoples, of 'strange fire' (Leviticus 10:1), of a 'strange woman', and of foreign gods (Deuteronomy 32:16; Psalm 44:20; 81:9; Isaiah 43:12).

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

branch, twig, shoot

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

From the study of Isaiah 17:10

Range of meaning

Zemorah: a branch, vine-shoot or cutting for propagation. Zar: an outsider or stranger: foreign, unauthorised, not belonging. It is used of foreign peoples, of 'strange fire' (Leviticus 10:1), of a 'strange woman', and of foreign gods (Deuteronomy 32:16; Psalm 44:20; 81:9; Isaiah 43:12).

Against the English

KJV has 'strange slips', BSB 'cuttings from exotic vines', WEB 'foreign seedlings' and NIV 'imported vines'. These give the horticultural sense. NASB's 'of a strange god' gives the religious one. The Hebrew can carry both at once.

How it drifted

'Exotic' and 'imported' make it sound like fancy gardening or trade. To an Israelite ear trained by Deuteronomy, zar in a charge of forgetting God strongly suggests 'a foreign god'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Deuteronomy 32:16 ('they made him jealous with strangers [zarim]') sits in the same Song that supplies 'Rock', 'salvation' and 'forgot' in this verse. Ezekiel 8:17 (the 'branch' held to the nose) may be a related cultic gesture with a vine-shoot, but its meaning is debated.

From the study of Ezekiel 8:17

Range of meaning

A cut shoot, branch or tendril, usually of the vine (from zamar, 'to prune'). It appears only five times: Numbers 13:23, Isaiah 17:10, Nahum 2:2 [Hebrew 2:3], Ezekiel 15:2 and here.

Against the English

English 'the branch' is accurate but tells us nothing about what the act was. NASB's 'twig' makes the object smaller. None of the versions can say what the gesture meant, because the Hebrew does not say either.

How it drifted

Some readers connect it with 'the Branch' as a messianic title. That title is a different word (tsemach, Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8) and has nothing to do with this verse.

Used elsewhere in the period

Isaiah 17:10 is suggestive: 'you plant pleasant plants and set out slips (zemorat) of a foreign god', usually taken as small ritual gardens for a dying-and-rising vegetation god. That would fit the Tammuz mourning in Ezekiel 8:14. In Ezekiel 15 the vine-wood is a figure for Jerusalem, good only for burning.

From the study of Ezekiel 15:2

Range of meaning

Branch, shoot or cutting, almost always of a grapevine. It is related to zāmar, "to prune" (Lev 25:3–4; Isa 5:6). Used for the branch carrying the giant grape cluster (Num 13:23), "slips of a foreign god" planted in a garden (Isa 17:10), the ruined "vine branches" of Israel (Nah 2:3 [2:2]), and the obscure "branch to the nose" (Ezek 8:17).

Against the English

BSB ("any other branch") and KJV ("or than a branch") make it a forest-tree branch, a second thing being compared. WEB and YLT ("the vine branch") keep its normal vine sense and read it as describing the vine itself.

Used elsewhere in the period

Its use is consistent with vines: Num 13:23; Isa 17:10; Nah 2:3. The Greek Septuagint renders it with klēma, the standard word for a vine-shoot (the same word Jesus uses in John 15:2–6).

Where it appears

Numbers · 1

  1. Numbers 13:23 זְמוֹרָה֙ a branch

    When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 17:10 וּזְמֹ֥רַת and [the] vine branch of

    For you have forgotten the God of your salvation and failed to remember the Rock of your refuge. Therefore, though you cultivate delightful plots and set out cuttings from exotic vines—

    Here: 'And a cutting of…': a slip or vine-shoot set in the ground to root. Compare the grape branch of Numbers 13:23 and the mysterious 'branch to the nose' of the idolatry scene in Ezekiel 8:17.

Ezekiel · 2

  1. Ezekiel 8:17 הַזְּמוֹרָ֖ה the branch

    “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see this? Is it not enough for the house of Judah to commit the abominations they are practicing here, that they must also fill the land with violence and continually provoke Me to anger? Look, they are even putting the branch to their nose!

    Here: A cut shoot, usually of a vine (Numbers 13:23, the spies' cluster of grapes). What 'the branch' means here is one of the famous puzzles of the book; see the debates.

  2. Ezekiel 15:2 הַזְּמוֹרָ֕ה the vine branch

    “Son of man, how does the wood of the vine surpass any other branch among the trees in the forest?

    Here: A vine-shoot or tendril, the kind of branch a vinedresser prunes (from zāmar, "to prune"). Elsewhere it nearly always means a vine branch. Most likely it restates "the vine" as a scrawny shoot. Some translations take it as the branches of the forest trees instead (see Debates).

Nahum · 1

  1. Nahum 2:2 וּזְמֹרֵיהֶ֖ם and branches their

    For the LORD will restore the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, though destroyers have laid them waste and ruined the branches of their vine.

    Here: A zemorah is the cutting or shoot of a vine (Num 13:23). It draws on the familiar picture of Israel as God's vine, here hacked back and ruined.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.