Hebrew word · H6627

צֵאָה

tze'atekha

excrement

As vowelled, צֵא is the ordinary singular command of yāṣāʾ, 'to go out': 'Go out! Get out!' (Gen 19:14; 2 Sam 16:7, Shimei's 'Get out, get out!'). The alternative reads it as a form of the noun ṣēʾâ / ṣōʾâ, 'excrement, filth' (Deut 23:13 [Heb 14]; Isa 28:8; 36:12).

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

filth, human excrement, excrement, faeces

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 30:22

Range of meaning

As vowelled, צֵא is the ordinary singular command of yāṣāʾ, 'to go out': 'Go out! Get out!' (Gen 19:14; 2 Sam 16:7, Shimei's 'Get out, get out!'). The alternative reads it as a form of the noun ṣēʾâ / ṣōʾâ, 'excrement, filth' (Deut 23:13 [Heb 14]; Isa 28:8; 36:12).

Against the English

KJV 'Get thee hence', BSB/ESV/NASB 'Be gone!', YLT 'Go out', NIV 'Away with you!' all take it as a command. Translations that read 'Filth!' or 'Dung!' follow the noun reading.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Vulgate has 'egredere, dices ei' ('Go out, you will say to it'). The Septuagint appears to have 'like dung you will thrust them out', which supports the noun reading. Elsewhere the noun is spelled with a final -â (צֵאָה, צֹאָה), so reading it here requires taking the form as shortened.

Where it appears

Deuteronomy · 1

  1. Deuteronomy 23:13 צֵאָתֶֽךָ׃ excrement your

    And you must have a digging tool in your equipment so that when you relieve yourself you can dig a hole and cover up your excrement.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 30:22 צֵ֖א filth

    So you will desecrate your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, saying to them, “Be gone!”

    Here: As vowelled in the Hebrew text, this is most naturally the command 'Go out!' / 'Out!' from yāṣāʾ, 'to go out'. The supplied data takes it as a noun, 'excrement/filth', a reading the Greek translators seem to have shared. See textual notes.

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 4:12 צֵאַ֣ת [the] excrement of

    And you shall eat the food as you would a barley cake, after you bake it over dried human excrement in the sight of the people.”

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