Loved
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יְדִיד denotes a beloved person, dear friend, or one who is loved. The local Hebrew index currently counts about nine occurrences, including forms and related naming expressions associated with Solomon/Jedidiah, Benjamin, Israel or Judah, temple poetry, royal song, and a beloved recipient of rest.
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Full entry for יְדִיד (H3039) · Open the biblical lexicon
יְדִיד denotes a beloved person, dear friend, or one who is loved. The local Hebrew index currently counts about nine occurrences, including forms and related naming expressions associated with Solomon/Jedidiah, Benjamin, Israel or Judah, temple poetry, royal song, and a beloved recipient of rest.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Your beloved (2), A love (1), for my beloved (1), has My beloved (1), lovely (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 33:12. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (5), Isaiah (2), Deuteronomy (1), Jeremiah (1).
יְדִיד denotes a beloved person, dear friend, or one who is loved. The local Hebrew index currently counts about nine occurrences, including forms and related naming expressions associated with Solomon/Jedidiah, Benjamin, Israel or Judah, temple poetry, royal song, and a beloved recipient of rest. Because the contexts differ, the noun should not be made into one technical status of covenant election.
Psalm 45’s title calls the poem a song of loves or beloved ones, and the psalm celebrates a royal wedding. Hebrews 1:8-9 later quotes Psalm 45:6-7 concerning the Son. That quotation gives the royal psalm a direct Christological reception, but the title’s יְדִידוֹת does not itself identify the king as Christ or establish a “beloved-king” lexical type.
Isaiah 5:1 introduces a song concerning the prophet’s beloved and his vineyard, then identifies the vineyard as Israel and Judah. Jeremiah 11:15 uses a feminine beloved expression within an accusation against the people in the Lord’s house. The affectionate address intensifies the covenant crisis, but it does not by itself prove that the relationship remains unchanged or that judgment cannot bring severe rupture.
Psalm 127:2 has a difficult final clause commonly translated either that God gives sleep to his beloved or gives to his beloved during sleep. Both readings contrast anxious toil with God’s gift. The verse does not explain whether the beloved earned or did not earn rest, so that theological contrast should not be built from the noun.
For teaching, יְדִיד provides tender language of affection in several covenantal, royal, and poetic settings. New Testament “beloved” language for Jesus and believers is a meaningful canonical parallel, while the Greek passages must state how that belovedness is grounded.
יְדִיד (yedid) appears about 9 times in the local Hebrew index. Its theological center is the intimate covenant-love relationship between YHWH and his people: Israel as YHWH's yedidah (Jer 11:15, 12:7), Benjamin as yedid-YHWH (Deut 33:12), Solomon as Jedidiah/yedidyah (2 Sam 12:25), the Temple as yedidot (lovely/beloved, Ps 84:1), the king's wedding as shir yedidot (Ps 45:1), and YHWH's gift of sleep to his yedid (Ps 127:2). Isaiah 5:1 addresses YHWH as 'my beloved' (yedidi) in the vineyard parable.
My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses to the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.
Shir yedidot — the song of the beloved ones: 'my heart bubbles up with a good word; I speak my poem to the king; my tongue is the pen of a skilled scribe.' The Psalm's superscription calls it a shir yedidot — a wedding song, a song of loves, a song for the beloved king. The king's attributes (v. 2-5: beautiful, gracious, mighty, righteous), his eternal throne (v.
6-7: 'Your throne, O God, is forever'), and his anointing with oil of gladness above his companions (v. 7) make the Psalm point beyond any earthly king. Hebrews 1:8-9 applies v. 6-7 to the Son: 'But of the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.' The beloved-king of Psalm 45 is a type of the ultimate yedid.
I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
YHWH as the prophet's yedid: 'I will sing for my yedid (beloved) a shir yedidi (song of my beloved) about his vineyard.' Isaiah addresses YHWH as his yedid — the intimate friend, the beloved on whose behalf the prophet speaks. The vineyard parable (v. 1-7) is YHWH's lament over Israel: he planted the vineyard with care (v. 1-2), expected grapes (v. 2), and got wild grapes.
The lament ends with the allegory broken open (v. 7): 'For the vineyard of YHWH of hosts is the house of Israel.' The yedid-language makes the covenant failure a betrayal of love, not merely a legal breach.
What right has My beloved in My house, having carried out so many evil schemes? Can consecrated meat avert your doom? When you are wicked, then you rejoice.
YHWH's yedidah in covenant crisis: 'what has my yedidah to do in my house when she has done many vile things (zimmot harabbah)?' The feminine yedidah is Israel — the beloved bride who has been unfaithful. YHWH still uses the love-name (yedidah) even in the accusation: the relationship is not abandoned, but the covenant-terms have been violated. This is the yedid-word in its most painful register: the beloved who has betrayed the love they were given.
Jeremiah 12:7 continues: 'I have forsaken my house; I have abandoned my yedidah; I have given the beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.'
Concerning Benjamin he said: “May the beloved of the Lord rest secure in Him; God shields him all day long, and upon His shoulders he rests.”
Benjamin as YHWH's yedid: 'of Benjamin he said: the beloved of YHWH (yedid YHWH) shall dwell in safety beside him; the Most High (El Elyon) surrounds him all day long; and he dwells between his shoulders (ben keteiphav).' Moses's tribal blessing gives Benjamin the yedid-designation: YHWH's beloved who dwells in safety under divine protection. The 'dwelling between his shoulders' likely refers to the location of the Temple on Benjamin's tribal border — Benjamin as yedid YHWH is the tribe whose territory holds the ark of YHWH.
The yedid-designation is both relational (YHWH loves Benjamin) and covenantal (Benjamin's land holds YHWH's house).
In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for bread to eat—for He gives sleep to His beloved.
YHWH gives sleep to his yedid: 'for he gives to his beloved (yedido) sleep.' Psalm 127's anti-anxiety meditation is a yedid-gift: what the anxious toiler cannot achieve through early rising and late working, YHWH gives as a gift to those he loves. The sleep (shenah, H8142) is the sleep of the nuach (rest) that YHWH gives — it is not earned, it is given. The yedid's rest is YHWH's free gift of love.
Compare Psalm 23:2 (the shepherd leads beside the waters of rest): the beloved sheep lies down not by effort but by the shepherd's gift.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Beloved as object of exclusive divine affection; denotes intimate, chosen relationship rather than general love
Beloved as object of exclusive divine affection; denotes intimate, chosen relationship rather than general love
loved BDB: beloved Usage: amiable, (well-) beloved, loves.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
יְדִיד is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
יְדִיד names a beloved or dearly loved person in a small set of varied texts. Benjamin is called the beloved of the Lord, Solomon receives the name Jedidiah, prophetic texts use beloved language amid covenant accusation, and Psalms use the word family in royal, temple, and rest imagery. These uses reveal genuine affection but do not form one uniform legal or covenant status.
Psalm 45 receives explicit Christological interpretation when Hebrews 1:8-9 quotes verses 6-7 of the Son. The quotation concerns the royal throne and righteous rule; it does not make every use of יְדִיד a prediction of Jesus. At Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, the Father calls him the beloved Son using Greek ἀγαπητός. That language belongs to the Gospel scenes and their scriptural echoes, not to a simple replacement in which Jesus, rather than Israel, is now “the yedid.”
Ephesians 5:1 addresses believers as beloved children and calls them to walk in love as Christ loved them. This gives Christians a clear New Testament basis for beloved identity and imitation. The claim rests on union with Christ and apostolic teaching, not on a lexical status transferred automatically from H3039.
Ps.45.1
יְדִיד is associated with being beloved or dear and appears in personal, poetic, and naming contexts. Jedidiah means beloved of the Lord in 2 Samuel 12:25. The plural יְדִידוֹת appears in the title of Psalm 45 and in the description of the Lord’s dwellings in Psalm 84, where translation depends on syntax and context. The noun overlaps semantically with other Hebrew love terms such as אָהַב and דּוֹד without being reducible to a rigid distinction between “the beloved person” and “love action.
” The Septuagint may use ἀγαπητός in key passages, providing a translation bridge rather than a one-to-one theological identity.
Hebrews 1:8-9 quotes Psalm 45:6-7 concerning the Son, giving the royal wedding psalm an explicit place in New Testament Christology. Matthew 3:17 and 17:5 call Jesus the beloved Son, and Ephesians 5:1 addresses believers as beloved children who should imitate God and walk in love. Jude likewise addresses called people as loved by God and kept for Jesus Christ.
These passages develop beloved language through their own claims. They do not state that H3039 is transferred from Israel to Jesus and then to believers, nor does the Greek perfect form alone prove a complete doctrine of preservation.
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