Hebrew word · H5770

עִין

avon

to watch

A verb made from the noun ʿayin, 'eye', meaning 'to eye, look at'. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its meaning has to come from the root word and the context. The major lexicons give 'eye (with suspicion/envy)' (BDB) and 'look at with envy or suspicion' (HALOT).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to eye, look at

1a) (Qal) to eye, look at

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 1 Samuel 18:9

Range of meaning

A verb made from the noun ʿayin, 'eye', meaning 'to eye, look at'. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so its meaning has to come from the root word and the context. The major lexicons give 'eye (with suspicion/envy)' (BDB) and 'look at with envy or suspicion' (HALOT). The neutral idea is 'watch', but the context gives it a hostile, begrudging, suspicious tone.

Against the English

KJV, YLT and ESV keep the vivid verb 'eyed', which is the closest match to the Hebrew picture. WEB's 'watched' is accurate but loses the hostile tone. BSB and NLT ('kept a jealous eye on') and NASB ('looked at ... with suspicion') spell out the emotion, which is defensible from context but chooses one shade, envy or suspicion, when the Hebrew holds both.

Used elsewhere in the period

It occurs nowhere else in biblical Hebrew. Greek manuscripts that have the verse render it hypoblepomenos, 'looking at from under the brows', i.e. suspiciously or askance. The Vulgate paraphrases: Saul did 'not look on David with straight (right) eyes'. In biblical Hebrew the 'eye' is the seat of how you regard someone. A 'bad/evil eye' (ʿayin rāʿāh) means grudging envy or meanness (Deut 15:9; Prov 23:6; 28:22), an idea later developed in Jewish and Mediterranean belief about the 'evil eye'.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 18:9 עוֹיֵ֣ן looking at

    And from that day forward Saul kept a jealous eye on David.

    Here: A verb formed from the noun 'eye' (ʿayin), found only here in the Bible. It is a participle, so the action is continuous: Saul 'was eyeing' David. In context this is a hostile, suspicious, envious watching, picking up 'the thing was evil in his eyes' from v. 8.

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