Hebrew word · H5599

סָפִיחַ

safiach

aftergrowth

Grain that comes up by itself from kernels that fell during the previous harvest. It is grown without ploughing or sowing (BDB, HALOT).

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

growth from spilled kernels, after-growth, volunteer plants

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 Isaiah 37:30

Range of meaning

Grain that comes up by itself from kernels that fell during the previous harvest. It is grown without ploughing or sowing (BDB, HALOT).

Against the English

KJV 'such as groweth of itself,' BSB 'what grows on its own,' YLT 'self-sown grain.' All are accurate. Most English readers will not see what it implies: the crop is thin and patchy, and the fields were not sown.

Used elsewhere in the period

Lev 25:5, 11 uses the same word for what grows in the sabbatical and jubilee years, when sowing was forbidden. Job 14:19 uses a related form for what a flood washes away. In 2 Kgs 19:29 it appears in the identical saying.

Where it appears

Leviticus · 2

  1. Leviticus 25:5 סְפִ֤יחַ [the] self-sown grain of

    You are not to reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untended vines. The land must have a year of complete rest.

  2. Leviticus 25:11 סְפִיחֶ֔יהָ self-sown grain its

    The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee for you; you are not to sow the land or reap its aftergrowth or harvest the untended vines.

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 19:29 סָפִ֔יחַ self-sown grain

    And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Job · 1

  1. Job 14:19 סְפִיחֶ֥יהָ overflowings its

    as water wears away the stones and torrents wash away the soil, so You destroy a man’s hope.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 37:30 סָפִ֔יחַ self-sown grain

    And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

    Here: Grain that comes up by itself from seed spilled at the last harvest, with no ploughing or sowing. It is a thin, uneven crop, the kind people ate in a sabbatical year (Lev 25:5, 11).

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