Hebrew word · H5779
עוּץ
'utzu
to plan
The verb means to plan, deliberate, decide in council, and is a rare by-form of the common yaʿats. It occurs only here and in Judges 19:30. The noun covers advice given, a decision reached in council, a strategy, a settled purpose. Its tone is political and military far more often than personal.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Qal) to counsel, plan
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
The verb means to plan, deliberate, decide in council, and is a rare by-form of the common yaʿats. It occurs only here and in Judges 19:30. The noun covers advice given, a decision reached in council, a strategy, a settled purpose. Its tone is political and military far more often than personal.
- Against the English
KJV's "take counsel together" sounds to modern ears like getting advice or consulting someone. The Hebrew means hatching a plan, here a war plan. BSB and NASB's "devise a plan" and NIV's "devise your strategy" catch this better.
- How it drifted
In older English "counsel" meant a plan or design as well as advice. Over time it narrowed toward advice and counselling, so the KJV wording now leans in the wrong direction.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Judges 19:30 pairs the same two verbs, ʿutsu and dabberu ("take counsel and speak"), for a tribal council deciding on war. That makes "plan … speak" sound like a war council's procedure. Isaiah uses ʿetsah again and again to set human plans against the LORD's plan: 5:19; 7:5 (Aram "has planned evil against you"); 14:24–27 ("the plan that is planned concerning the whole earth … the LORD of hosts has planned, and who will annul it?"); 30:1; 46:10 ("my counsel shall stand"). Psalm 33:10–11 uses the same pairing: "The LORD frustrates the counsel of the nations … the counsel of the LORD stands forever."
Where it appears
Judges · 1
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Judges 19:30 עֻ֥צוּ take counsel
And everyone who saw it said, “Nothing like this has been seen or done from the day the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt until this day. Think it over, take counsel, and speak up!”
Isaiah · 1
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Isaiah 8:10 עֻ֥צוּ plan
Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; state a proposal, but it will not happen. For God is with us.”
Here: A plural command addressed to the hostile nations of verse 9: "Go on, make your plans!" It is a taunt, not advice. The command concedes they will plot, and the rest of the line says the plot is already doomed.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.