Hebrew word · H3295
יַעְרָה
beya'rat
honeycomb
Ya'rah means 'honeycomb'. It is rare: here, and in the related form ya'ar in Song 5:1 ('I ate my honeycomb with my honey'). It sounds almost identical to ya'ar, 'forest, thicket', and some lexicons connect the two, as comb found in the thicket.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) forest
1a) honeycomb (meton)
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 1 Samuel 14:27
- Range of meaning
Ya'rah means 'honeycomb'. It is rare: here, and in the related form ya'ar in Song 5:1 ('I ate my honeycomb with my honey'). It sounds almost identical to ya'ar, 'forest, thicket', and some lexicons connect the two, as comb found in the thicket.
- Against the English
English 'honeycomb' is accurate but loses the sound-play with 'forest' in vv. 25–26, which runs roughly 'they came into the ya'ar... he dipped into the ya'rah'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Song 5:1 (ya'ri). The Greek Septuagint seems to have struggled with ya'ar/ya'rah in vv. 25–26, where its wording differs from the Hebrew; see textual notes. Wild honey in rocks and woods is a stock feature of the land (Deut 32:13; Judg 14:8; Ps 81:16).
Where it appears
1 Samuel · 1
-
1 Samuel 14:27 בְּיַעְרַ֣ת in [the] honeycomb of
Jonathan, however, had not heard that his father had bound the people with the oath. So he reached out the end of the staff in his hand, dipped it into the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened.
Here: 'In the comb of.' Wild honeycomb. The word sounds like ya'ar, 'forest' (vv. 25–26), so the narrator plays on the sound: in the forest (ya'ar), the comb (ya'rah).
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.