Hebrew word · H3329

יָצִיא

umitzi'ov

offspring

Yatsi' ('one who comes out') occurs only here. Me'ah means inner organs, belly or womb, the inside of the body as the seat of feeling and as the source of offspring. 'Those who came out of his innards' means his own children, his own flesh and blood.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) coming forth

1a) offspring (subst)

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 2 Chronicles 32:21

Range of meaning

Yatsi' ('one who comes out') occurs only here. Me'ah means inner organs, belly or womb, the inside of the body as the seat of feeling and as the source of offspring. 'Those who came out of his innards' means his own children, his own flesh and blood. Compare Gen 15:4 ('one who will come out of your innards will be your heir'), 2 Sam 7:12, and David on Absalom in 2 Sam 16:11 ('my son, who came out of my innards, seeks my life').

Against the English

The KJV has 'they that came forth of his own bowels' and the WEB has 'those who came out of his own body'. The BSB, NIV and ESV say 'sons', which is clear but drops the idiom's sense that the betrayal came from his own body.

How it drifted

In 1611 'bowels' still meant the inner parts generally, including the womb and the seat of compassion. Today it means only the intestines, so the KJV wording can sound crude or confusing.

Used elsewhere in the period

2 Kgs 19:37 and Isa 37:38 name the killers: Adrammelech and Sharezer, 'his sons'. Babylonian Chronicle 1 records that in 681 BCE 'his son killed him in a rebellion'. Inscriptions of Esarhaddon, his successor, describe brothers fighting over the throne.

Where it appears

2 Chronicles · 1

  1. 2 Chronicles 32:21 וּמִֽיצִיאֵ֣י and some of [the] offspring<s> of

    and the LORD sent an angel who annihilated every mighty man of valor and every leader and commander in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he withdrew to his own land in disgrace. And when he entered the temple of his god, some of his own sons struck him down with the sword.

    Here: 'And some of those who came out of.' The word occurs only here in the Bible. The prefix 'from' marks a part of a group: 'some of'.

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