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shebanq

צהב ṣ-h-b – to gleam

Semantic Fields: Colours   
Author(s): John E. Hartley
First published: 2026-05-20
Citation: John E. Hartley, צהב ṣ-h-b – to gleam,
               Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database (sahd-online.com), 2026

Introduction

Grammatical type: verb.
Occurrences: 1x HB (0/0/1); 1x Sir; 0x Qum; 0x Inscr. (Total: 2x).

  • Ketubim: Ezra 8:27;
  • Sira: 10:10A.

7. Conclusion

A.1 צהב may be glossed with ‘be bright, shine, polish, burnish’. It describes polished copper. Over time the lexeme came to denote the colour ‘yellow, reddish yellow’, possibly in LBHeb. When it gained this sense, ירק, which had covered the ‘yellow-green’ span, became limited to ‘green’. Besides serving as a colour lexeme in Rabbinic Heb., the root also conveys the sense of ‘mock, grieve, make angry’, possibly by metonymy.

For this entry, see further John E. Hartley, The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Colour Lexemes (2010), 135-138 (Printed publications).

Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database