Hebrew word · H3391

יֶ֫רַח

yerach

month

"Month", meaning a lunar month. It is related to yareach, "moon". In Hebrew it is old or poetic (e.g., Deut 33:14; Job 3:6; 7:3). In prose it appears with the old month names in Kings (1 Kgs 6:1, 37, 38; 8:2), and once in Exodus 2:2 and 2 Kings 15:13.

Appears 12 times in 12 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) month (lunar cycle), moon

1a) month

1b) calendar month

Aramaic equivalent: ye.rach (יְרַח "month" H3393)

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 Kings 6:37

Range of meaning

"Month", meaning a lunar month. It is related to yareach, "moon". In Hebrew it is old or poetic (e.g., Deut 33:14; Job 3:6; 7:3). In prose it appears with the old month names in Kings (1 Kgs 6:1, 37, 38; 8:2), and once in Exodus 2:2 and 2 Kings 15:13. The ordinary Hebrew word for month is chodesh, literally "new (moon)".

Against the English

Every English version simply says "month". That is correct, but it hides that v. 38 uses both words side by side: "in the yerach Bul, that is the eighth chodesh". The narrator is translating an old calendar into the one his readers used.

Used elsewhere in the period

Phoenician inscriptions regularly use yrḥ for "month" before a month name. The Gezer Calendar uses yrḥ for its periods of the farming year. The usage therefore belongs to the shared Canaanite language of dates.

From the study of Exodus 2:2

Range of meaning

Month, specifically a lunar month. It is related to yareach, 'moon'. Much rarer than the standard word chodesh ('new [moon], month'), and found in poetry (Job 3:6; 7:3; Deut 33:14) and in older-style or northern prose (1 Kgs 6:37–38; 8:2, with old month names like Ziv and Ethanim).

Against the English

'Months' is correct. The lunar picture and the slightly old-fashioned feel of the word are lost in English.

Used elsewhere in the period

The same root yrḥ is used for 'month' in the Gezer Calendar (10th century BC), in Phoenician inscriptions and in Ugaritic, so it is an old, widely shared West Semitic word.

Similar words

Where it appears

Exodus · 1

  1. Exodus 2:2 יְרָחִֽים׃ months

    and she conceived and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him for three months.

    Here: 'Months'. The word is related to yareach, 'moon'. It is a less common, older-sounding word than the usual chodesh, and it counts time by the moon's cycles. Verse 3 shows that after this point the secret could no longer be kept.

Deuteronomy · 2

  1. Deuteronomy 21:13 יֶ֣רַח a month of

    and put aside the clothing of her captivity. After she has lived in your house a full month and mourned her father and mother, you may have relations with her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

  2. Deuteronomy 33:14 יְרָחִֽים׃ [the] months

    with the bountiful harvest from the sun and the abundant yield of the seasons,

1 Kings · 3

  1. 1 Kings 6:37 בְּיֶ֖רַח in [the] month of

    The foundation of the house of the LORD was laid in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign, in the month of Ziv.

    Here: "In the month of". This is the old word for "month", related to yareach, "moon". Outside poetry it occurs almost only with the old month names in this section of Kings. The usual word is chodesh, and the narrator uses that one when explaining the old names (6:1, 6:38, 8:2).

  2. 1 Kings 6:38 בְּיֶ֣רַח in [the] month of

    In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in every detail and according to every specification. So he built the temple in seven years.

  3. 1 Kings 8:2 בְּיֶ֥רַח in [the] month of

    And all the men of Israel came together to King Solomon at the feast in the seventh month, the month of Ethanim.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 15:13 יֶֽרַח־ a month of

    In the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah’s reign over Judah, Shallum son of Jabesh became king, and he reigned in Samaria one full month.

Job · 4

  1. Job 3:6 יְ֝רָחִ֗ים [the] months

    If only darkness had taken that night away! May it not appear among the days of the year; may it never be entered in any of the months.

  2. Job 7:3 יַרְחֵי־ months of

    So I am allotted months of futility, and nights of misery are appointed to me.

  3. Job 29:2 כְיַרְחֵי־ like months of

    “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me,

  4. Job 39:2 יְרָחִ֣ים [the] months

    Can you count the months they are pregnant? Do you know the time they give birth?

Zechariah · 1

  1. Zechariah 11:8 בְּיֶ֣רַח in a month

    And in one month I dismissed three shepherds. My soul grew impatient with the flock, and their souls also detested me.

    Here: A lunar month, named after the moon (yareaḥ). It sets a strikingly short span of time.

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