Hebrew word · H8257

שָׁקַע

vatishka'

to sink

To sink, settle, subside, go down. Used of fire dying down (Num 11:2), of Babylon sinking like a stone into the river (Jer 51:64), of water settling (Ezek 32:14 has the causative, "make their waters clear/settle").

Appears 6 times in 6 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to sink, sink down, subside

1a) (Qal) to sink

1b) (Niphal) to sink, collapse

1c)(Hiphil) to sink down, cause to settle

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 Amos 8:8

Range of meaning

To sink, settle, subside, go down. Used of fire dying down (Num 11:2), of Babylon sinking like a stone into the river (Jer 51:64), of water settling (Ezek 32:14 has the causative, "make their waters clear/settle").

Against the English

KJV "drowned" implies people perishing in water. The Hebrew describes the land, or the river it is compared to, sinking back down.

How it drifted

In the KJV's time "drown" could also mean "submerge, sink under water" (of things as well as people). Today it means almost only death by water.

Used elsewhere in the period

Amos 9:5 uses the same verb in the same simile ("sinks like the Nile of Egypt"). The Ketiv/Qere difference here (written ונשקה, read ונשקעה) is a known scribal correction.

From the study of Numbers 11:2

Range of meaning

To sink or sink down; to subside; in another form, to make something settle (as stirred water settles clear). It is rare, used only about six times.

Against the English

BSB, NIV and ESV have 'died down', NASB 'died out', WEB 'abated', and KJV and YLT 'was quenched'. 'Quenched' suggests putting a fire out, usually with water. The Hebrew pictures the fire sinking or falling back.

Used elsewhere in the period

It describes the land rising and 'sinking like the Nile of Egypt' (Amos 8:8; 9:5), Babylon 'sinking' never to rise (Jer 51:64), and God making Egypt's waters 'settle' (Ezek 32:14). This is its only use with fire. Early Jewish interpretation (Sifre Numbers 85, followed by Rashi) took the verb literally: the fire sank into the ground where it stood instead of going back to heaven.

Where it appears

Numbers · 1

  1. Numbers 11:2 וַתִּשְׁקַ֖ע and it died out

    And the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the LORD, and the fire died down.

    Here: Literally the fire 'sank'. The verb is used for the Nile falling back, for Babylon sinking, and for stirred water settling. The fire drops and settles down. Nothing in the word says it was put out with water.

Job · 1

  1. Job 41:1 תַּשְׁקִ֥יעַ will you hold down?

    “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 51:64 תִּשְׁקַ֨ע it will sink

    Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will grow weary.’” Here end the words of Jeremiah.

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 32:14 אַשְׁקִ֣יעַ I will make settle

    Then I will let her waters settle and will make her rivers flow like oil,’ declares the Lord GOD.

Amos · 2

  1. Amos 8:8 וְנִשְׁקְעָ֖ה and it will sink

    Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

    Here: "And it will sink back down," the way the Nile falls after its annual flood. The word is about subsiding, not drowning. The written text lacks the ayin, and the reading tradition supplies it.

  2. Amos 9:5 וְשָׁקְעָ֖ה and it sinks

    The Lord GOD of Hosts, He who touches the earth and it melts, and all its dwellers mourn—all the land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt—

    Here: Going down, settling back, as floodwaters subside. Together with 'rises' it gives a picture of up-and-down heaving, which suits an earthquake.

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