נֵד

From the study of Joshua 3:16

Range of meaning

A heap or mound. In every biblical use it means water piled up and held in place against its nature. It appears only a handful of times and almost always in poetry.

Against the English

KJV, WEB, ESV and NASB keep 'heap'. BSB ('backed up as far upstream as') and NLT ('backing up') turn it into a description of water flow, which is clear but loses the image and the echo of earlier texts.

Used elsewhere in the period

Exod 15:8 ('the floods stood upright like a heap', נִצְּבוּ כְמוֹ־נֵד), Ps 78:13 ('he made the waters stand like a heap'), Ps 33:7 ('he gathers the waters of the sea as a heap'), and Josh 3:13, 16. Each passage is about God mastering the waters, at the Red Sea or at creation. The Greek Septuagint renders it here with pēgma, 'a congealed or solidified mass'.

From the study of Psalm 33:7

Range of meaning

A heap or mound, a standing mass. In the Bible it is used almost only of water standing up unnaturally: Exod 15:8 ('the floods stood up like a heap'), Josh 3:13, 16 (the Jordan 'stood up in one heap'), Ps 78:13 ('he made the waters stand like a heap'). Isa 17:11 ('the harvest is a heap', a disputed text) may show the farming sense behind it.

Against the English

KJV, WEB, ESV and NASB have 'as a heap'. BSB's 'piles up' keeps the picture but drops the 'like'. NIV ('into jars') and RSV/NRSV ('as in a bottle') follow the other vowel reading, nōd, 'skin bottle' (H4997, as in Ps 56:8, 'put my tears in your bottle'). NLT leaves the image out.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint (Ps 32:7 in its numbering) has ὡς ἀσκόν, 'as a wineskin', so it read nōd. Sirach 39:17 seems to echo this verse in its Greek form: 'at his word the water stood like a heap (θημωνιά)… the storerooms of waters at the word of his mouth.' That suggests the 'heap' reading was known in the second century BC. HALOT and BDB list this verse under nēd 'heap', and note the alternative.

From the study of Psalm 78:13

Range of meaning

A heap or mound. It is rare and almost technical: in the Hebrew Bible it describes only waters held back by God (Exodus 15:8; Joshua 3:13, 16; Psalm 33:7; Psalm 78:13). Most lexicons (BDB, HALOT) connect it with the idea of a raised-up mass.

Against the English

KJV, WEB and YLT have 'heap' and BSB has 'wall'. 'Wall' brings in a different word from Exodus 14:22, 29 ('the waters were a wall [ḥômâ] to them'). The picture is close, but in this psalm the word is the mound-word from Exodus 15:8, not the masonry wall of Exodus 14.

How it drifted

Today 'heap' suggests a loose, untidy pile (a heap of laundry). The Hebrew picture is a firm, upright mass of water standing like a dam or mound.

Used elsewhere in the period

Exodus 15:8 (sea), Joshua 3:13, 16 (the Jordan 'stood up in one heap'), Psalm 33:7 (God 'gathers the waters of the sea like a heap'). In Psalm 33:7 and here, the Greek Septuagint reads 'like a wineskin', apparently from different vowels on similar consonants.