Hebrew word · H3179

יָחַם

yachem

to conceive

To be hot or in heat, so to mate or conceive. It is related to ḥammah/ḥemah, "heat." Outside this verse it appears only in Genesis 30:38, 39, 41 and 31:10, about Jacob's flocks mating at the watering troughs.

Appears 6 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to be hot, conceive

1a) (Qal)

1a1) to be hot, become hot

1a2) to mate (of animals)

1a3) to be or become hot (fig. of anger)

1b) (Piel)

1b1) to conceive (sexually)

1b2) to be in heat (of animals)

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 51:5

Range of meaning

To be hot or in heat, so to mate or conceive. It is related to ḥammah/ḥemah, "heat." Outside this verse it appears only in Genesis 30:38, 39, 41 and 31:10, about Jacob's flocks mating at the watering troughs.

Against the English

Every English version says "conceived," which is correct but polite. The Hebrew word is bodily and frank, close to "when my mother grew warm with me." English loses that earthiness.

Used elsewhere in the period

Its only other uses describe animal breeding. The Septuagint renders it ekissēsen, from kissaō, "to crave" (as pregnant women crave food). That steers the line toward the mother's desire, and later interpreters picked up on this.

Where it appears

Genesis · 5

  1. Genesis 30:38 וַיֵּחַ֖מְנָה and they mated

    Then he set the peeled branches in the watering troughs in front of the flocks coming in to drink. So when the flocks were in heat and came to drink,

  2. Genesis 30:39 וַיֶּחֱמ֥וּ and they mated

    they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

  3. Genesis 30:41 יַחֵם֮ לְיַחְמֵ֖נָּה [the] being in heat of, to mate her

    Whenever the stronger females of the flock were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs, in full view of the animals, so that they would breed in front of the branches.

  4. Genesis 31:10 יַחֵ֣ם mated

    When the flocks were breeding, I saw in a dream that the streaked, spotted, and speckled males were mating with the females.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 51:5 יֶֽחֱמַ֥תְנִי she conceived me

    Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

    Here: "She conceived me." This is a rare and very physical word. Elsewhere it is used only of flocks mating "in heat" (Genesis 30–31). It takes the speaker back past his birth to the bodily moment his life began.

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