Hebrew word · H2968

יָאַב

ya'aveti

to long

To long for or yearn. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its range has to be worked out from related words: Aramaic/Syriac y-ʾ-b "to long," and the Hebrew near-synonym tāʾab, "to long for" (Ps 119:40, 174), with the noun taʾăbâ, "longing" (Ps 119:20).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

(Qal) to long, long for, desire

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 Psalm 119:131

Range of meaning

To long for or yearn. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its range has to be worked out from related words: Aramaic/Syriac y-ʾ-b "to long," and the Hebrew near-synonym tāʾab, "to long for" (Ps 119:40, 174), with the noun taʾăbâ, "longing" (Ps 119:20).

Against the English

All major versions render it "long(ed)." That is accurate, but no translation can show that the Hebrew word is unique.

Used elsewhere in the period

Within this psalm it pairs with tāʾab: "I have longed for your precepts" (v. 40) and "I have longed for your salvation" (v. 174). Verse 20 says, "My soul is crushed with longing for your judgments." BDB and HALOT both treat yāʾab as a by-form of these words, possibly influenced by Aramaic.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 119:131 יָאָֽבְתִּי׃ I longed

    I open my mouth and pant, longing for Your commandments.

    Here: "I have longed." The verb appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. It is a rare word for yearning, related to Aramaic and to the near-synonym tāʾab ("long for") that the psalm uses in vv. 40 and 174. Choosing such a rare word gives the line's ending a strong, unusual sound.

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