יָקַע
ya.qa
to dislocate/hang
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Yāqaʿ (יָקַע): Displacement and Suspension in Biblical Hebrew The Hebrew verb yāqaʿ carries a dual semantic range encompassing both physical dislocation and suspension. With eight recorded occurrences in the Bible, this relatively rare word denotes actions involving disruption of normal positioning—either by forcefully displacing something from its proper place or by hanging or suspending an object. The word's core meaning centers on breaking the continuity or stability of a thing's location, whether temporarily (as in hanging) or permanently (as in dislocation). The limited frequency of yāqaʿ in biblical texts suggests its use was reserved for specific contexts where this particular semantic shade—combining elements of displacement and suspension—was essential to the narrative or legal meaning. Rather than employing more common verbs for falling, breaking, or hanging, biblical writers selected yāqaʿ when the precise notion of something being wrenched or hung out of its natural state required emphasis. This specificity indicates the word held particular importance in contexts where the manner of displacement or suspension, not merely its fact, mattered to the meaning.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
8 total occurrences across the text
Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”
Ezekiel 23:17The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution. She was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.
Ezekiel 23:18So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister.
2 Samuel 21:6let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh.” The king said, “I will give them.”
Genesis 32:25When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled.
Numbers 25:4Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to Yahweh before the sun, that the fierce anger of Yahweh may turn away from Israel.”
2 Samuel 21:9He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before Yahweh, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.
2 Samuel 21:13and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son. They also gathered the bones of those who were hanged.