Hebrew word · H717
אָרָה
ve'aruha
to pluck
To pluck or gather produce. It occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible: here, and Song of Songs 5:1, 'I have gathered (ʾārîtî) my myrrh with my spice.' Cognates in later Hebrew and Aramaic concern picking fruit (HALOT).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to pluck, gather
1a) (Qal) to pluck (grapes)
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
To pluck or gather produce. It occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible: here, and Song of Songs 5:1, 'I have gathered (ʾārîtî) my myrrh with my spice.' Cognates in later Hebrew and Aramaic concern picking fruit (HALOT).
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'pluck it' is literal. BSB/ESV 'pick (pluck) its fruit' and NIV 'pick its grapes' spell out the object. The Hebrew says simply 'gather it', with the vine standing for its crop.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The LXX has trygōsin, 'they harvest grapes'; the Vulgate has vindemiant, 'they gather the vintage'. Both ancient translators heard grape-harvest language.
Where it appears
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 80:12 וְ֝אָר֗וּהָ and they have plucked it
Why have You broken down its walls, so that all who pass by pick its fruit?
Here: 'And they have gathered it (its fruit)': a rare harvesting verb. The 'and' here marks the result of the breach: once the wall is down, anyone can strip the vine.
Song of Songs · 1
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Song of Songs 5:1 אָרִ֤יתִי I have gathered
I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink; drink freely, O beloved.
Here: "I have plucked." A rare harvest verb, used elsewhere only in Psalm 80:12 [Heb. 80:13] for passers-by stripping grapes from a vine. Here the lover gathers the yield of the garden he was invited into.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.