שִׂיחַ

From the study of Genesis 21:15

Range of meaning

A shrub or bush, especially the wild, low vegetation of dry steppe land. Genesis 2:5 ('no shrub of the field', siaḥ hassadeh); Job 30:4, 7 (outcasts 'pluck saltwort among the bushes' and 'bray among the bushes').

Against the English

'Bushes' and 'shrubs' are both accurate. NLT's 'in the shade of a bush' makes explicit the purpose of 'under'.

Used elsewhere in the period

The LXX surprisingly translates it as elatē, usually 'fir' or 'pine', an odd choice for the Negev. The Vulgate makes it general: 'one of the trees that were there'.

From the study of Genesis 2:5

Range of meaning

Siach is a rare word for bush or scrub, the hardy growth of dry land (Gen 21:15; Job 30:4, 7). Esev covers low green plants: grass, herbs, and especially grain and food crops (Gen 1:11–12, 29–30; 3:18; Exod 9:22, 25; Deut 11:15). "Of the field" (sadeh) places both in the open land outside a settlement.

Against the English

KJV/WEB "plant… herb" and BSB/NASB "shrub… plant" are general botanical words. To a modern ear "herb" means basil or parsley. NLT's "wild plants nor grains" makes an interpretation explicit, one many Hebrew scholars accept.

How it drifted

"Herb" in 1611 meant any non-woody green plant. Since then it has narrowed to culinary and medicinal plants.

Used elsewhere in the period

Gen 3:18 uses exactly the phrase "esev of the field" for the food the man will eat by the sweat of his brow, next to "thorns and thistles". Umberto Cassuto (Commentary on Genesis I) and others argue that 2:5 deliberately names these two kinds, wild scrub and cultivated grain, because they belong to the world the rest of the story will describe. The Septuagint renders the pair as chlōron agrou ("green growth of the field") and chorton agrou ("grass/fodder of the field").