Hebrew word · H4995
נָא
na'
raw
Raw, uncooked, or underdone meat. It occurs only in this verse in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with an Arabic word meaning "raw, not done". It is not the same word as the common particle nāʾ ("please"), which is spelled the same.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
raw
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
- Range of meaning
Raw, uncooked, or underdone meat. It occurs only in this verse in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with an Arabic word meaning "raw, not done". It is not the same word as the common particle nāʾ ("please"), which is spelled the same.
- Against the English
Every major English version says "raw." That is right, but it may be slightly too narrow. Medieval Jewish interpretation (Rashi) took it as meat "not roasted as much as it needs", that is, half-done.
- Used elsewhere in the period
LXX translates it ōmon (raw); the Vulgate has crudum. Elsewhere the Bible's word for raw meat is ḥay, "living" flesh (1 Sam 2:15). Rashi on this verse explains nāʾ from the Arabic. Its link to blood matters: eating flesh with its lifeblood was already forbidden in Gen 9:4.
Where it appears
Exodus · 1
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Exodus 12:9 נָ֔א raw
Do not eat any of the meat raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over the fire—its head and legs and inner parts.
Here: Raw or underdone meat. The word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. It probably covers meat not cooked through, with blood still in it, as well as meat not cooked at all.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.