Hebrew word · H5215

נִיר

nir

fallow ground

A noun meaning ground that has been broken up by the plough and made fit for crops, often land cleared and cultivated for the first time. A related verb nîr means 'to break up (new ground)'. It sounds the same as nîr/nēr, 'lamp' (H5216), but is a different word.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

tillable or untilled or fallow ground

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 Proverbs 13:23

Range of meaning

A noun meaning ground that has been broken up by the plough and made fit for crops, often land cleared and cultivated for the first time. A related verb nîr means 'to break up (new ground)'. It sounds the same as nîr/nēr, 'lamp' (H5216), but is a different word.

Against the English

KJV and YLT say 'tillage' (accurate). BSB, ESV and NASB say 'fallow ground'. NIV says 'unplowed field', which points the opposite way from the Hebrew.

How it drifted

In older English 'fallow' meant ploughed land, and the KJV tradition used it that way in Jer 4:3 and Hos 10:12, 'break up your fallow ground'. Today 'fallow' means land left idle and unplanted, so readers picture empty, unused land. NIV's 'unplowed' follows that modern sense.

Used elsewhere in the period

Jer 4:3 and Hos 10:12 put the verb and noun together, nîrû lākhem nîr, 'break up for yourselves new ground', a call to prepare the soil before sowing. HALOT and BDB give 'tillable/newly broken land'. The Vulgate's novalia is the Latin term for newly cleared land.

Where it appears

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 13:23 נִ֣יר [the] unplowed ground of

    Abundant food is in the fallow ground of the poor, but without justice it is swept away.

    Here: Ground that has been broken up with the plough and brought into cultivation, often land newly cleared. The picture is a poor family's hard-won plot. The line has no verb, so it reads as a bare statement: 'plenty of food: the tilled plot of the poor.'

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 4:3 נִ֑יר unplowed ground

    For this is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your unplowed ground, and do not sow among the thorns.

    Here: The noun from the same root as the verb, so the line literally says 'break up for yourselves a breaking-up', a deliberate echo. It means a field that is not yet ready for seed and has to be opened up first.

Hosea · 1

  1. Hosea 10:12 נִ֑יר unplowed ground

    Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of loving devotion; break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the LORD until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain.

    Here: Ground that has gone unworked, has hardened, and perhaps grown over with thorns (the same phrase appears in Jer 4:3). It must be broken open before seed can take. The verb and noun are the same word ("break up a breaking"), which drives the point home.

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