זָמִיר

From the study of Song of Songs 2:12

Range of meaning

Hebrew has two roots spelled z-m-r. (1) zmr I, 'to sing' or 'make music', which gives zamir / zemirah, 'song' (2 Sam 23:1 'the sweet singer of Israel', literally 'pleasant one of Israel's songs'; Isa 24:16; 25:5; Ps 95:2; 119:54; Job 35:10), and mizmor, 'psalm'. (2) zmr II, 'to prune' or 'trim' vines (Lev 25:3–4; Isa 5:6), which gives mazmerah, 'pruning knife' (Isa 2:4; 18:5), and zemorah, 'branch' or 'vine shoot'. The noun zamir in Song 2:12 can be read from either root.

Against the English

Most English versions (KJV, BSB, WEB, ESV, NIV, NRSV) choose 'singing'. KJV adds '[of birds]' in italics to make that reading explicit. NASB and the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation choose 'pruning'. Either choice gives up the other half of the sound-play.

How it drifted

This isn't drift so much as a forced choice. English has no single word that means both 'song' and 'pruning', so every translation loses half of what the Hebrew ear heard.

Used elsewhere in the period

The oldest translations take it as pruning. The Greek Septuagint has kairos tēs tomēs, 'time of cutting/pruning', and the Latin Vulgate has tempus putationis, 'time of pruning'. The Gezer Calendar, a 10th-century BC Hebrew farming list of the agricultural months, includes 'two months of zmr', usually understood as tending or pruning vines. This shows zmr was ordinary farming vocabulary in Israel, though in that list it falls in early summer. The 'song' sense is well attested in biblical poetry (see above).