Hebrew word · H8250

שִׁקּוּי

veshikuyai

drink

Drink, something drunk, the act of watering. From shaqah, 'to give drink, irrigate'. Used in Hosea 2:5 (2:7 Hebrew), 'my oil and my drink', and in Psalm 102:9 (102:10 Hebrew), 'I mingle my drink with weeping'.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

drink, refreshment

Also means: shiq.quv (שִׁקֻּו "drink" H8249)

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 Proverbs 3:8

Range of meaning

Drink, something drunk, the act of watering. From shaqah, 'to give drink, irrigate'. Used in Hosea 2:5 (2:7 Hebrew), 'my oil and my drink', and in Psalm 102:9 (102:10 Hebrew), 'I mingle my drink with weeping'.

Against the English

BSB, ESV and NASB have 'refreshment', WEB and NIV 'nourishment', KJV 'marrow', YLT 'moistening', NLT 'strength'. YLT is closest to the root. 'Refreshment' gives the effect. KJV's 'marrow' is interpretive and not the word's meaning.

How it drifted

KJV's 'marrow' probably comes from the idea in Job 21:24, where 'the marrow of his bones is watered' (the same root, shaqah). The translators gave the result of the watering, not the watering itself. Readers of the KJV can easily assume the Hebrew says 'marrow'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Job 21:24 (marrow of the bones 'watered', from shaqah) is the closest idiom. Contrast Proverbs 17:22: 'a crushed spirit dries up the bones'. Psalm 32:3–4: bones wasting, vitality 'turned as in the drought of summer'. The Septuagint has epimeleia, 'care, attention'. Vulgate: inrigatio, 'irrigation, watering'.

Similar words

Where it appears

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 3:8 וְ֝שִׁקּ֗וּי and refreshment

    This will bring healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.

    Here: From shaqah, 'to give drink, to water' (used of watering fields and flocks). The picture is bones being watered, moistened and given life. In Hebrew thought dry bones mean sickness, despair or death, and moist bones mean vigour.

Hosea · 1

  1. Hosea 2:5 וְשִׁקּוּיָֽי׃ and drinks my

    For their mother has played the harlot and has conceived them in disgrace. For she thought, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and linen, oil and drink.’

    Here: 'And my drinks,' a rare plural word for beverages. Here it probably includes wine, which caps the list with life's pleasures.

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