Hebrew word · H6161

עֲרֻבָּה

'arubah

pledge

From ʿ-r-b, "to stand surety, give in pledge, exchange." ʿArubbah appears only here and in Prov 17:18 ("surety"). Related words: ʿeravon, the pledge Judah gives Tamar (Gen 38:17–20), and Judah's "I will be surety for him" (Gen 43:9).

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

pledge, token, bond, surety, thing exchanged

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 17:18

Range of meaning

From ʿ-r-b, "to stand surety, give in pledge, exchange." ʿArubbah appears only here and in Prov 17:18 ("surety"). Related words: ʿeravon, the pledge Judah gives Tamar (Gen 38:17–20), and Judah's "I will be surety for him" (Gen 43:9). The basic idea is an object or guarantee that stands for a person's word or presence.

Against the English

KJV and YLT have "pledge," ESV "token," NIV and BSB "assurance," and WEB, NASB and NLT "news" or "report." "News" makes it easy to read and loses the idea of a physical guarantee.

How it drifted

In modern English "pledge" suggests a promise or a donation commitment. In ancient Israel it was a concrete item handed over as security or proof.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Septuagint (where present) reads instead "and you will find out whatever they need," apparently a paraphrase or a different text. Rabbinic tradition (Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 9b; Shabbat 56a) read ʿarubbatam as conditional divorce documents. On that reading soldiers gave these so their wives would be free to remarry if the husbands went missing in battle. That is a later legal interpretation, not the plain sense.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 17:18 עֲרֻבָּתָ֖ם pledge their

    Take also these ten portions of cheese to the commander of their unit. Check on the welfare of your brothers and bring back an assurance from them.

    Here: "Their pledge / token." This is something from the brothers that Jesse can trust. It could be a sign that they are alive and got the supplies, or an item tied to a pledge. The exact sense is debated.

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 17:18 עֲ֝רֻבָּ֗ה a pledge

    A man lacking judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor.

    Here: The noun comes from the same root as the verb, so the phrase reads 'pledging a pledge'. The repetition stresses that he has fully bound himself.

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