Hebrew word · H7059
קָמַט
vatikmeteni
to seize
A very rare verb. It appears only here (passive) and in Job 16:8 (active, where Job says God has "seized" or "shriveled" him). BDB and HALOT give "seize, grasp", with the passive "be snatched away". Related words in later Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac mean "to wrinkle, fold, compress".
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to seize
1a) (Qal) to seize
1b) (Pual) to be snatched away prematurely
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
A very rare verb. It appears only here (passive) and in Job 16:8 (active, where Job says God has "seized" or "shriveled" him). BDB and HALOT give "seize, grasp", with the passive "be snatched away". Related words in later Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac mean "to wrinkle, fold, compress". This has led some scholars to suggest "shrivel" or "be crushed together".
- Against the English
BSB, WEB, NASB and ESV have "snatched away". NIV has "carried off". KJV and YLT have "cut down". "Cut down" pictures a felled tree or a sword stroke, which is not in the verb. "Snatched" keeps the idea of sudden seizure.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 16:8 is the only other biblical use. Later Hebrew (Mishnaic and Talmudic) uses the root for wrinkling or folding. The Talmud (b. Ḥagigah 13b–14a) plays on that sense when it applies this verse to generations "compressed" or cut off before creation. That is a later rabbinic reading, not the plain sense. The Greek Septuagint renders it "they were seized" (synelēmphthēsan).
Where it appears
Job · 2
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Job 16:8 וַֽ֭תִּקְמְטֵנִי and you have seized me
You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.
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Job 22:16 קֻמְּט֥וּ they were snatched away
They were snatched away before their time, and their foundations were swept away by a flood.
Here: A rare verb in a passive form: "they were seized / snatched up". It may also carry the sense "shriveled, crushed together". Either way it shows people taken by force. They did not die gradually or naturally.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.