Hebrew word · H8629
תֵּ֫קַע
beteka'
blast
A blast or blowing. The noun appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Its verb taqa' means to thrust or drive in (a tent peg, Judges 4:21; a dagger, Judges 3:21), to clap the hands (Psalm 47:1), and very often to blow a horn or trumpet (Joshua 6; Judges 7:18–22).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
sound, blast (of horn), trumpet blast
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 blast or blowing. The noun appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Its verb taqa' means to thrust or drive in (a tent peg, Judges 4:21; a dagger, Judges 3:21), to clap the hands (Psalm 47:1), and very often to blow a horn or trumpet (Joshua 6; Judges 7:18–22).
- Against the English
'Sound' (BSB, KJV) is a soft word. Teqa is the forceful act of blowing, a burst, so NLT's 'blast' is closer.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The same root gives the later rabbinic term teqi'ah, the long steady blast in the shofar calls of Rosh Hashanah (the New Year). The Septuagint has ēchos, 'sound, noise'.
Where it appears
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 150:3 בְּתֵ֣קַע with a blast of
Praise Him with the sound of the horn; praise Him with the harp and lyre.
Here: The prefix 'with' marks the instrument used to praise. Teqa means a thrust or blast, the sharp burst of air driven into a horn. This is the only place in the Bible where the noun appears, but its verb (taqa', 'to blow/strike') is the usual word for sounding a horn.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.