Hebrew word · H8363

שָׁתִיל

kishtilei

shoot

Shatil occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. From shatal, 'to transplant', it means a slip or young shoot meant to be set out as a new plant. Zayit is the olive tree and its fruit.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

plant, cutting, transplanted shoot, slip

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 Psalm 128:3

Range of meaning

Shatil occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. From shatal, 'to transplant', it means a slip or young shoot meant to be set out as a new plant. Zayit is the olive tree and its fruit.

Against the English

KJV "olive plants" makes modern readers think of potted plants or nursery stock. "Shoots" (BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV) is better. NLT's "vigorous young olive trees" gets the vigor but loses the picture of shoots growing around the parent tree.

How it drifted

In 1611 'plant' commonly meant a young shoot or sapling (compare 'plant' as a cutting). The word has since come to mean any small potted or garden plant.

Used elsewhere in the period

Olives were usually propagated from the suckers that sprout around the base of an old trunk, and these could be transplanted (Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel). The olive symbolizes lasting, God-given vitality: 'I am like a green olive tree in the house of God' (Ps 52:8); 'his splendor shall be like the olive' (Hos 14:6); Israel as 'a green olive tree' (Jer 11:16). The verb shatal describes the righteous 'transplanted by streams of water' (Ps 1:3) and 'planted in the house of the LORD' (Ps 92:13).

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 128:3 כִּשְׁתִלֵ֣י [will be] like shoots of

    Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table.

    Here: "Like shoots of." This noun occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. It comes from the verb "to transplant" (Ps 1:3; 92:13), so it means young shoots that spring up around a tree and are later set out as new trees.

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