Hebrew word · H3126

יוֹנֵק

kaiyonek

sapling

This is a participle of the verb yānaq, 'to suck' or 'to nurse'. Most often it is a nursing infant: Deut 32:25, 1 Sam 15:3, Lam 2:11, and Isa 11:8, where 'the nursing child (yônēq) will play over the cobra's hole'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

sucker, suckling, sapling, young plant

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 53:2

Range of meaning

This is a participle of the verb yānaq, 'to suck' or 'to nurse'. Most often it is a nursing infant: Deut 32:25, 1 Sam 15:3, Lam 2:11, and Isa 11:8, where 'the nursing child (yônēq) will play over the cobra's hole'. For plants it means a sucker-shoot, a tender growth that comes up from a root or stump and feeds on it. The related form yôneqet means 'shoots' or 'young branches' (Job 8:16; 14:7; Ps 80:11; Hos 14:6).

Against the English

'Tender plant' (KJV, WEB, YLT) and 'tender shoot' (BSB, NIV) catch the smallness. Modern ears can hear 'tender' as cherished or carefully tended, though. The Hebrew picture is a small dependent sprout that nobody planted on purpose. Gardeners often cut such suckers away.

How it drifted

In 1611 'tender' meant young, soft and easily damaged. Today it also suggests affection and care, which the Hebrew word does not.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint translates the word as paidion, 'little child', taking the infant sense. The Latin Vulgate has virgultum, 'shoot' or 'sapling'. Isaiah 11:1 uses different words (ḥōṭer, 'shoot'; nēṣer, 'branch') for the same idea: new growth from a stump that has been cut down.

Where it appears

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 53:2 כַּיּוֹנֵ֜ק like <the> shoot

    He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no stately form or majesty to attract us, no beauty that we should desire Him.

    Here: 'Like the suckling'. Literally a nursing infant (as in Isa 11:8). For plants it means a sucker, a shoot that springs up and draws its sap from a root or stump. The picture is of something small, dependent and easy to overlook.

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