Hebrew word · H2193

זָעַךְ

niz'akhu

to extinguish

To be extinguished, go out, of a flame. This form appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars generally treat it as another spelling of the more common dāʿak ("be put out, be snuffed out"). The z/d swap matches a known sound difference between Hebrew and Aramaic.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to extinguish, be extinct, be extinguished

1a) (Niphal) to be extinguished

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 Job 17:1

Range of meaning

To be extinguished, go out, of a flame. This form appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars generally treat it as another spelling of the more common dāʿak ("be put out, be snuffed out"). The z/d swap matches a known sound difference between Hebrew and Aramaic.

Against the English

BSB and NASB have "extinguished", and YLT "extinguished", which keep the fire image. KJV and WEB have "extinct", which in 1611 meant "put out" (of fire) but now suggests a species dying out. NIV's "cut short" drops the lamp picture entirely.

How it drifted

English "extinct" first meant "quenched, put out" (of flame). Its main modern sense, "no longer existing as a species", came later, so the KJV wording now hides the image of a lamp.

Used elsewhere in the period

Its counterpart dāʿak is used for a lamp going out as a sign of a life or household ending: "the lamp of the wicked will be put out" (Prov 13:9; 20:20; 24:20); "how often is the lamp of the wicked put out?" (Job 21:17); enemies "extinguished, quenched like a wick" (Isa 43:17). In the very next speech Bildad uses it against Job: "the light of the wicked is put out… his lamp above him is put out" (Job 18:5–6).

Where it appears

Job · 1

  1. Job 17:1 נִזְעָ֗כוּ they are extinguished

    “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me.

    Here: "Have been snuffed out", the word for a lamp or flame going out. This spelling occurs only here in the Bible. It is generally taken as another form of dāʿak, the usual verb for a lamp being put out. Job pictures his life as a lamp that has already gone dark.

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