יָרַק
to spit
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘and Inf. abs.’
Form
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular 1 time (33%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute 1 time (33%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (33%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 3 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3417 appears — 2 distinct verses across 2 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 1 verse
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
ירק — transliterated yârâq — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to spit.” The Hebrew Bible uses it only 2 verses. Its uses cluster heavily in Numbers (50% of all occurrences). It first appears in Numbers 12:14. From the same root come ירוק and ירק. See the sense tree, 2-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3417 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,179
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,179 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Numbers 1 verse 50%
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 50%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 2 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 100%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Spit 2×
- American Standard Version†: Spit 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Had but spit 1×, Spit 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Spit 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3417 across 3† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3417 across 3† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3417 across 2† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3417 across 3† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 1 sense the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
ירק I (√ of foll.
ירק II spit (Ethiopic ወረቀ id.
Qal
- Pf. and Inf. abs. יָרֹק יָרַק בְּפָנֶיהָ Nu 12:14; 3 fs. consec. וְיָֽרְקָה בְּפָנָיו Dt 25:9; both, as token of contempt. Cf. רָקַק, רֹק. e.g. Numbers 12:14
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
I. (√ of foll.; NH Hiph.; Aramaic Aph. אוֹרִיק grow green; ܝܺܪܶܩ be pale, and deriv.; Assyrian arâḳu, grow pale (of face), arḳu, yellow, green, etc., DlHWB 243; Arabic وَرَقٌ leaf, وَرَقَ put forth leaves, cf. وُرْقَةٌ ash-colour, أَوْرَقُ dusky-white, of camel, وَرِقٌ silver coin LagBN 30; Sab. ורק gold (כתם וורק), HalÉS, JAs. Déc. 1874, Nos. 47, 97 DHMVOJ i. 26 f., and Ethiopic ወርቅ: gold, both from colour according to DHM Di).
I. vb. spit (Ethiopic ወረቀ id.; according to LagBN 200 ii. ירק is not separate √; cf. יֵרָקֹן, and Arabic يَرَقَانٌ robigo)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
יָרַק I
- (b. h.) to spit, v. רָקַק, רוּק.
יְרַק
- Targ. Y. Deut. XXV, 9 תִּירוֹק.—Yeb. 39ᵇ ויַרְקַת וכ׳ and she spat before him &c. (Y. ib. XII, 13ᵃ top ורָקַת).—V. רְקַק, רוּק.
יָרַק II
- (b. h.) to be light-colored, pale, green, yellow.
- 1. to become green, pallid, pale. Sot. III, 4 פניה מוֹרִיקוֹת her face grew pale (sickly); Sifré Num. 8; Tosef. Sot. III, 3; a. fr.
- 2. to make pale, cause to fade. Ber. 44ᵇ כל ירק חי מוֹרִיק vegetable eaten raw makes pale. Gen. R. s. 13 (ref. to ארקא, Jer. X, 11) כנגד … שהיא מוֹרֶקֶת וכ׳ the earth is called arka, corresponding to the season of Tebeth which causes her fruits to fade. e.g. Jeremiah 10:11
- 3. to make shine (like gold, bronze &c.; cmp. ירקרק Ps. LXVIII, 14). Ib. s. 43; Yalk. Gen. 73 (ref. to וירק, Gen. XIV, 14) בכלי זיין הוֹרִיקָן he made them glisten with armor; באבנים … ה׳ with jewels; בפרשת שוטרים הוריקן he made them bright (courageous) by reading the section (Deut. XX, 1—9); Ned. 32ᵃ הוריקן בזהב; הוריקן בתורה (Var. הֵרִיקָן מן התורה, v. רִיק).—ה׳ פנים כנגד (cmp. כִּרְכֵּם) to turn a brazen face against, to defy, oppose. Gen. R. l. c.; Yalk. l. c. הן הוֹרִיקוּ פ׳ וכ׳ they opposed Abraham. Ib. אברהם ה׳ פ׳ וכ׳ Abraham defied them. e.g. Psalms 68:14
יְרַק ²
- , Af. אוֹרִיק same, to become pale &c. Targ. Y. Num. XXXI, 18 אפהא מוֹרִיקַן her face grew pale. Targ. Ps. CXIII, 9 מוֹרִיקָא looking pale (with envy; Ms. מוֹדִיקָא, v. דּוּק).
יֶרֶק
- preced. wds.) green, herb. Peah III, 4, v. מַלְבֵּן. Maasr. IV, 5, v. זֵיר. Ib. יַרְקָהּ פטור its herb (foliage) is exempt from tithes. Ber. 36ᵃ מין י׳ הוא it is a species of herb, opp. אילן; a. fr.—Pl. יְרָקוֹת. Ib. VI, 1. Pes. II, 6 ואלו י׳ וכ׳ and these are the (bitter) herbs which may be used as maror. R. Hash. I, 1 ר"ה … לנטיעה ולי׳ a new year as regards … the planting (of trees) and (the tithes from) herbs; a. fr.—יַרְקוֹת חמור (Var. יְרִיקַת, יְרוֹקֶת) ass-herbs, the large-leaved cucumis agrestis (v. Löw Pfl. p. 333). Ohol. VIII, 1 (cmp. Tosef. ib. XIII, 5).—2) name of a species of green-fish. Y. B. Mets. II, beg. 8ᵇ, opp. to לכיס (v. יָרוֹקָא).
קִדָּה
- (b. h.)
- 1. cassia, bark of the tree called cassia (v. Sm. Ant. s. v.) Ker. 5ᵃ; Y. Shek. VI, beg. 49ᶜ.
- 2. ק׳ לבנה white Ḳiddah, a tree. Kil. I, 8; Erub. 34ᵇ
- 3. name of a seasoning plant. Ib. הקנים והק׳ וכ׳ (Var. והקִידִּין pl.) seasoning reeds, Ḳiddah, and Urbanin belong to the vegetable class (ירק). Ib. ק׳ לחוד ק׳ לבנה לחוד Ḳiddah and white Ḳ. are different species.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms H3417 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/יָרְקָ֖ה | Verb, Qal, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular | Deuteronomy 25:9 | 1 |
| יָרַק֙ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Numbers 12:14 | 1 |
| יָרֹ֤ק | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute | Numbers 12:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3417, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 2 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
