נרד

Forms

נֵרְדְּ (nērd) noun, masculine^[2][3] With suffix נִרְדִּי, plural נְרָדִים (Song of Songs 4:13).^[4][5] The word ends in two consonants, which Biblical Hebrew does not otherwise allow.^[6]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Proto-Indo-Aryan *narda- (“spikenard”), the Old Indic form that Noonan reconstructs behind Sanskrit नलद (nálada).^[6][7][5] The plant grows in the Himalayas, and it came with the trade in the aromatic oil, probably by way of Persia.^[6][5][4] Related forms are Aramaic נִרְדָּא (nirdā), Akkadian lardu, and with the consonants reversed Sabaean rnd.^[8][9][4][6] Klein mentions an Indo-Iranian source and the view that the Sanskrit word itself is a Sanskritised Greek one, though he follows Mayrhofer in deriving the Semitic forms from Old Indic.^[8]

Ancient Greek νάρδος (nárdos) and Latin nardus belong to the same group.^[5][6] BDB and Beekes take the Greek word to have come through the Semites, Beekes from Phoenician, while Noonan derives it, like the Hebrew word, from Old Indic.^[4][10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found only in the Song of Songs, three times, in lists of aromatics: “while the king was on his couch, nirdî nāṯan rêḥô, my nard gave its scent” (Song of Songs 1:12), and twice in the description of the beloved as a garden (4:13–14).^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Nard is the oil crushed from the hairy rhizomes of spikenard, Nardostachys jatamansi.^[6][5] The Septuagint, the Vulgate and the Peshitta keep the word, as νάρδος, nardus and nrdyn, while the Targum has the Aramaic form in Song of Songs 1:12 and another word in 4:13–14.^[6] Rabbinic Hebrew knows it as an aromatic herb, which Jastrow identifies as valerian.^[11] Modern Hebrew נרד (nerd) can also mean lavender.^[7]

Timeline

• Biblical Hebrew poetry – three times in the Song of Songs (1:12, 4:13–14).^[2][6]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint keeps it as νάρδος.^[12][2]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – once in a non-biblical scroll from Qumran (4Q206).^[13][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. spikenard, nard: the fragrant oil of an Indian plant, and the plant.^[5][15][6]

Descendants

• Modern Hebrew נרד (nerd)^[7]

References

1. ^ Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (2021), BHSA: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Amstelodamensis, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2021, github.com/ETCBC/bhsa
2. ^ a b c d Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
3. ^ Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. נֵרְדְּ
5. ^ a b c d e f Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. נֵרְדְּ
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 154
7. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. נֵרְדְּ
9. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. lardu
10. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. νάρδος
11. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. נֵרְדְּ
12. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
13. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
14. ^ Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
15. ^ de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. נֵרְדְּ