Hebrew word · H6778

צַמּוּק

tzimukim

cluster

Dried grapes, raisins, probably pressed into clusters or cakes (root tsmq, 'to shrivel, dry up', Hos 9:14 'dry breasts'). Found only in Samuel and Chronicles: 1 Sam 25:18; 30:12; 2 Sam 16:1; 1 Chr 12:41.

Appears 4 times in 4 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

bunch of raisins, raisin-bunch

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 2 Samuel 16:1

Range of meaning

Dried grapes, raisins, probably pressed into clusters or cakes (root tsmq, 'to shrivel, dry up', Hos 9:14 'dry breasts'). Found only in Samuel and Chronicles: 1 Sam 25:18; 30:12; 2 Sam 16:1; 1 Chr 12:41.

Against the English

KJV/YLT 'bunches of raisins', WEB/BSB 'clusters of raisins', NIV 'cakes of raisins'. All are close; the exact form (bunch vs. pressed cake) is uncertain.

Used elsewhere in the period

Every occurrence is in a scene where food is brought to David or his men in a crisis (Abigail, the starving Egyptian, the supporters at Hebron in 1 Chr 12:40), so the word belongs to a recurring motif of provisions for David on the move.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 2

  1. 1 Samuel 25:18 צִמֻּקִ֖ים bunches of raisins

    Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys

  2. 1 Samuel 30:12 צִמֻּקִים֙ bunches of raisins

    a piece of a fig cake and two clusters of raisins. So he ate and was revived, for he had not had any food or water for three days and three nights.

2 Samuel · 1

  1. 2 Samuel 16:1 צִמּוּקִ֛ים bunches of raisins

    When David had gone a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a pair of saddled donkeys loaded with two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred clusters of raisins, a hundred summer fruits, and a skin of wine.

    Here: From a root meaning 'to shrivel, dry up': dried grapes, probably pressed into clusters or cakes. Compact, high-energy food that keeps on a march.

1 Chronicles · 1

  1. 1 Chronicles 12:40 וְצִמּוּקִ֧ים and bunches of raisins

    And their neighbors from as far away as Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali came bringing food on donkeys, camels, mules, and oxen—abundant supplies of flour, fig cakes and raisin cakes, wine and oil, oxen and sheep. Indeed, there was joy in Israel.

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