Aramaic word · H3026

יְגַר

yegar

Jegar

Aramaic: a heap or cairn of stones, especially one piled up on purpose as a marker. In later Aramaic it is also used for a burial cairn or a mound of stones.

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

Aramaic of ra.mot gi.l.ad (רָמֹת "Ramoth" H7433)

§ Jegar-sahadutha = "witness heap"

the mound of stones raised as witness between Jacob and Laban, called by Jacob in Hebrew 'Galeed'

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 Genesis 31:47

Range of meaning

Aramaic: a heap or cairn of stones, especially one piled up on purpose as a marker. In later Aramaic it is also used for a burial cairn or a mound of stones.

Against the English

English Bibles transliterate it as 'Jegar' and leave it as part of a proper name, so English readers never see that it simply means 'heap'. Only footnotes, or paraphrases like the NLT, give the meaning.

How it drifted

No change in meaning. The problem is only that a transliterated name keeps its meaning hidden.

Used elsewhere in the period

Not found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Cognates exist in Syriac (yagrā, 'heap, cairn') and Jewish Aramaic. HALOT and BDB both classify it as Aramaic. It is the Aramaic counterpart of Hebrew gal, the word used in vv. 46, 48, 51–52.

Where it appears

Genesis · 2

  1. Genesis 31:47 יְגַ֖ר שָׂהֲדוּתָ֑א Jegar, Sahadutha

    Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.

    Here: This is where the verse switches into Aramaic. Yegar is the Aramaic word for a pile of stones; Syriac yagrā is the same word. It means the same thing as Hebrew gal.

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