Hebrew word · H6977

קְוֻצּוֹת

kevtztzotav

lock

Locks, tresses: the hanging lengths of a man's hair. The word occurs only in Song 5:2 and 5:11. The root is uncertain. Some connect it to a root meaning 'cut off' or 'end' (the ends of the hair), others to Arabic quṣṣa, 'forelock'.

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

What it means

lock, locks of hair

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 Song of Songs 5:11

Range of meaning

Locks, tresses: the hanging lengths of a man's hair. The word occurs only in Song 5:2 and 5:11. The root is uncertain. Some connect it to a root meaning 'cut off' or 'end' (the ends of the hair), others to Arabic quṣṣa, 'forelock'.

Against the English

'Locks' (KJV, ESV, YLT) or simply 'hair' (BSB, WEB, NIV). Both are fine. 'Hair' loses the sense of separate hanging tresses.

Used elsewhere in the period

Song 5:2: 'my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.' Rabbinic interpretation played on its likeness to qots, a 'thorn' or the tiny tip of a written letter (b. Eruvin 21b, below).

Where it appears

Song of Songs · 2

  1. Song of Songs 5:2 קְוֻּצּוֹתַ֖י locks my

    I sleep, but my heart is awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.”

    Here: Locks or curls of hair. The word occurs only here and in 5:11, where she praises his locks as 'wavy, black as a raven'.

  2. Song of Songs 5:11 קְוּצּוֹתָיו֙ locks his

    His head is purest gold; his hair is wavy and black as a raven.

    Here: His locks or tresses of hair. The word appears only here and in 5:2, where he stood at her door saying his 'locks' were wet with night dew. Now she describes the same locks.

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