Hebrew word · H7796
שֹׂרֵק
sorek
of Sorek
A place name, the Wadi Sorek (modern Nahal Soreq / Wadi es-Sarar). It is spelled and pronounced like the noun soreq / soreqah (H8321), 'choice vine', a high-quality red grape (Isa 5:2; Jer 2:21; Gen 49:11).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
Combined with na.chal (נַ֫חַל " Valley" H5158J)
§ Sorek = "choice vines"
a wadi in Palestine in which Delilah lived
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 place name, the Wadi Sorek (modern Nahal Soreq / Wadi es-Sarar). It is spelled and pronounced like the noun soreq / soreqah (H8321), 'choice vine', a high-quality red grape (Isa 5:2; Jer 2:21; Gen 49:11).
- Against the English
English versions simply transliterate it as 'Sorek', so the reader misses the vine meaning entirely.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The vine word appears in the Song of the Vineyard (Isa 5:2, 'he planted it with choice vines') and in Jer 2:21 ('I planted you a choice vine'). The region was vine country: Samson passed through 'the vineyards of Timnah' (Judg 14:5). Eusebius's Onomasticon (4th century AD) mentions a village called Kaphar Sorek near Zorah.
Where it appears
Judges · 1
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Judges 16:4 שֹׂרֵ֑ק Sorek
Some time later, Samson fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.
Here: The name of the wadi. It sounds the same as the Hebrew word for a choice red grapevine (soreq). Samson was a Nazirite, sworn off grapes, so the name carries a quiet irony.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.