Hebrew word · H7171

קֶ֫רֶץ

keretz

stinging fly

It occurs only here. The verb קרץ means 'to pinch, nip off, squeeze': Job 33:6 'I too was pinched off from clay'. Of the eyes or lips it means 'to narrow, wink' (Prov 6:13; 16:30; Ps 35:19). The noun would then mean 'something that nips or pinches'.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) nipping, nipper, stinger

1a) nipping or stinging insect, gadfly

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 Jeremiah 46:20

Range of meaning

It occurs only here. The verb קרץ means 'to pinch, nip off, squeeze': Job 33:6 'I too was pinched off from clay'. Of the eyes or lips it means 'to narrow, wink' (Prov 6:13; 16:30; Ps 35:19). The noun would then mean 'something that nips or pinches'. Proposed meanings: (1) a stinging insect such as a gadfly or horsefly (HALOT, supported by an Arabic cognate meaning 'to nip, bite'); (2) 'destruction, a cutting off' (older Jewish and Christian interpreters, KJV); (3) 'a piece torn off, a detachment' of troops (LXX).

Against the English

BSB and NIV have 'gadfly', ESV 'biting fly', NASB and NLT 'horsefly'. KJV and WEB have the abstract 'destruction'. YLT has 'rending', following the root 'to nip, tear'.

How it drifted

The KJV's 'destruction' follows medieval Jewish commentators who took the root as 'cutting off'. When study of related languages and of the image itself pointed to an insect, modern translations moved to 'fly'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Septuagint (Jer 26:20 in its numbering): ἀπόσπασμα, 'something torn off, a detachment'. Vulgate: 'stimulator', 'one who goads, a goader', which already keeps the cattle picture. Ancient writers knew the gadfly as the insect that drives cattle mad: Greek oistros, as in the myth of Io, the woman turned into a heifer and chased by a gadfly.

Where it appears

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 46:20 קֶ֥רֶץ a gadfly

    Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly from the north is coming against her.

    Here: The word occurs only here. It comes from a root meaning 'to pinch, nip, squeeze'. Most modern scholars take it as an insect that nips, such as a gadfly or horsefly, the kind that makes cattle bolt in panic. Older readings took it as 'destruction' or 'a cutting off'.

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