נֶ֫גֶב

From the study of Ezekiel 20:47

Range of meaning

The root means 'dry'. As a name it is the arid southern region of Judah around Beersheba. As a direction it means 'south' in general, because from inside Israel the Negev always lies to the south.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and YLT have 'the south'. BSB (and NIV, ESV) have 'the Negev'. With 'Negev', readers may picture only the southern desert. With 'south', readers may miss that the word is also a place name.

Used elsewhere in the period

In v.46 Ezekiel stacks three words for south: teman, darom (rare, and almost only in Ezekiel and Job) and negev. The piling-up stresses direction. In the Bible's mental map, armies from Mesopotamia came down through Syria from the north (Jer 1:14; 4:6; Ezek 26:7), so Judah lay at the southern end of their route.

From the study of Exodus 27:9

Range of meaning

Negev means "dry land", the arid south of Canaan, and came to be a general word for "south". Teyman comes from yamin, "right hand": a person in the ancient Near East oriented themselves facing east (toward sunrise), so the south was on their right. Teyman can also be a place name (Teman in Edom).

Against the English

KJV and WEB keep the doubled phrase ("south side southward"). BSB and most modern versions shorten it to "south side". Nothing important is lost, but the way the Hebrew stacks two words for south, one from the landscape and one from the body, disappears.

Used elsewhere in the period

The same pairing comes again in Exod 26:18; 36:23; 38:9, and in Ezekiel's temple vision (Ezek 47:19; 48:28). It looks like a fixed technical phrase for building directions. Orienting by facing east is common in Semitic languages (compare Arabic yaman, "Yemen", the southern land).

From the study of Ezekiel 40:2

Range of meaning

The noun's primary sense is the dry country of southern Judah, the Negev, from a root meaning "parched". From there it came to mean the direction "south". With min, "from", it means "on the south side" or "southward".

Against the English

BSB has "southern slope". KJV and YLT have "on the south", WEB has "to the south", and ESV has "to the south". NLT reframes it as Ezekiel looking "toward the south".

Used elsewhere in the period

Ezekiel 20:46–47 (21:2–3 in Hebrew) speaks of "the forest of the Negev". In Hebrew, min with a direction regularly means "on that side" (e.g. Joshua 15:21 and many boundary lists). The Septuagint's ἀπέναντι, "opposite", suggests that its Hebrew text read minneged.