Hebrew word · H5440
סָבַךְ
yesubakhu
to interweave
Passive participle of סָבַךְ, 'to interweave, entwine'. Related nouns mean thicket (סְבָךְ, Genesis 22:13, the ram caught in the thicket; Isaiah 9:18, 'thickets of the forest' set on fire).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to interweave
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to interweave
1a2) interwoven (participle)
1b) (Pual) to be interwoven
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
Passive participle of סָבַךְ, 'to interweave, entwine'. Related nouns mean thicket (סְבָךְ, Genesis 22:13, the ram caught in the thicket; Isaiah 9:18, 'thickets of the forest' set on fire).
- Against the English
ESV/NASB-type renderings ('like tangled thorns') make the enemy the thorns. BSB and NIV ('entangled as with/among thorns') make the enemy something caught in thorns. The Hebrew grammar favours the first: they are the tangle.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 8:17: the godless man's roots 'are entwined (yesubbakhu) around the stone heap'. Isaiah 9:18 [MT 9:17]: wickedness 'burns like fire, it consumes briers and thorns, it kindles the thickets of the forest'. That is the same picture of tangled growth set alight.
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 8:17 יְסֻבָּ֑כוּ they are interwoven
His roots wrap around the rock heap; he looks for a home among the stones.
Nahum · 1
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Nahum 1:10 סְבֻכִ֔ים interwoven
For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.
Here: 'Matted together', the knot of thorny branches you cannot push through. The enemy is pictured as the tangle itself: dense and hard to get at.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.