Hebrew word · H6165
עָרַג
ta'arog
to long for
Biblical Hebrew uses the verb only three times: twice in this verse and once in Joel 1:20. Its exact meaning has to come from context and from early translators. The lexicons (BDB, HALOT) give 'long for, pant after', and HALOT marks this as uncertain.
Appears 3 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Qal) to long for, pant after
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
Biblical Hebrew uses the verb only three times: twice in this verse and once in Joel 1:20. Its exact meaning has to come from context and from early translators. The lexicons (BDB, HALOT) give 'long for, pant after', and HALOT marks this as uncertain. Joel 1:20 is decisive for the sense: 'even the beasts of the field ta'arog toward you, because the channels of water (afiqei mayim) are dried up'. The verb names how an animal reacts when water fails: desperate craving, probably with the sounds that go with it.
- Against the English
'Pant' (KJV, ESV, NIV, NASB, WEB) captures the physical side: an animal breathing hard from heat and thirst. 'Long for' (BSB in the second half, NLT) captures the desire but loses the body. The Jewish Publication Society's translation chooses a sound, 'cry'. No single English word covers it all. The point is a craving felt in the body, heard as well as felt.
- How it drifted
There is little drift. The main risk is that English 'pant' brings to mind breathlessness after exercise, or even romantic eagerness, when the picture is an animal in drought distress.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Joel 1:20 uses the same verb, the same 'channels of water' and the same 'toward you'. Either the two texts share a stock image or one echoes the other. The Greek Septuagint renders it epipothei, 'yearns intensely'. The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi took it as the special word for the call of a deer, in the way other verbs name a lion's roar or an ox's low. Jerome's translation from the Hebrew linked it to 'arugah, 'garden bed', and produced 'as a garden bed prepared for streams of water'.
Where it appears
Psalms · 2
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Psalm 42:1 תַּעֲרֹ֥ג תַעֲרֹ֖ג [which] it pants, it pants
For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.
Here: A very rare verb, found only here and in Joel 1:20, where animals use it toward God because the stream-beds have dried up. It means intense longing, and may also include the sound the animal makes (panting or calling). The verb form describes ongoing action: the deer keeps on longing.
Joel · 1
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Joel 1:20 תַּעֲר֣וֹג it pants
Even the beasts of the field pant for You, for the streams of water have dried up, and fire has consumed the open pastures.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.