To bear young ; causatively, to beget ; medically, to act as midwife ; specifically, to show lineage
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יָלַד is the common Hebrew verb for bearing, begetting, bringing forth, or being born, with the participant and stem determining the sense. The local Hebrew artifact currently indexes about 500 occurrences.
Reader summary
Full entry for יָלַד (H3205) · Open the biblical lexicon
יָלַד is the common Hebrew verb for bearing, begetting, bringing forth, or being born, with the participant and stem determining the sense. The local Hebrew artifact currently indexes about 500 occurrences.
The BSB source-word alignment has 496 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include was the father of (102), bore (20), were born (19), and gave birth to (17), he had become the father of (17).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 3:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Genesis (170), 1 Chronicles (117), Isaiah (24), Jeremiah (23).
יָלַד is the common Hebrew verb for bearing, begetting, bringing forth, or being born, with the participant and stem determining the sense. The local Hebrew artifact currently indexes about 500 occurrences. Genealogies and birth narratives use it for ordinary descent, while poetry and prophecy can extend birth imagery to royal installation, corporate restoration, sudden emergence, or anguish. The shared verb does not make all these events one theological process.
Psalm 2:7 uses begetting language in a royal decree: the Lord declares the Davidic king his son “today.” In its immediate setting this concerns royal sonship and enthronement. Acts 13:33 and Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5 quote the verse in relation to Jesus, but their uses must be read separately; the Hebrew verb itself does not teach the Son’s eternal generation or identify resurrection as literal divine birth.
Isaiah 7:14 says the young woman will conceive and bear a son named Immanuel. The Hebrew עַלְמָה means young woman and does not by itself specify virginity, while Matthew 1:22-23 quotes the Septuagint’s παρθένος and identifies fulfillment in Jesus’ virginal conception. Isaiah 9:6 announces a child born and son given with exalted royal names. Those titles are central to Christian interpretation, but the passive birth verb itself does not “open into divine identity.”
Isaiah 66:7-8 portrays Zion bringing forth children or a nation with astonishing suddenness. John 3 uses Greek birth language for birth from above by the Spirit. The two passages may be compared within a wider restoration theology, but John does not identify individual new birth as participation in Isaiah 66’s H3205 event.
For teaching, יָלַד helps trace genealogies, promised births, royal sonship, national restoration, and the real human birth of Jesus while keeping each context distinct.
יָלַד (yalad) is indexed in the local Hebrew artifact at about 500 OT occurrences. The genealogical lists of Genesis (chapters 5, 10-11, 25, 36) use yalad as their structural verb. The patriarchal narratives use it for the miraculous births of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The birth announcements of Judges and Samuel (Samson, Samuel) prepare for the prophetic birth announcements of Isaiah.
Psalm 2 uses it for the divine begetting of the royal son. Isaiah uses it for the Immanuel sign (7:14), the birth of the messianic child (9:6), and the eschatological birth of the new covenant people (66:7-8). The word traces the covenant line from Adam to the Son.
I will proclaim the decree spoken to Me by the Lord: “You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.
The divine yalad of the royal Son: 'today I have yĕlidtîkha (begotten you).' The enthronement decree establishes the Davidic king as son of YHWH through the royal yalad. The 'today' (hayom) is the day of installation, not a past eternal generation — it is a covenant-historical declaration. Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5 quote Psalm 2:7 as fulfilled in Christ's resurrection and exaltation: 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you' is applied to the day of his raising from the dead — the resurrection as the ultimate royal enthronement.
Acts 13:33 makes the same connection.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The yulad gift: 'a child is born (yulad) to us.' The passive emphasizes the gift-nature: this child comes to us, not from us. The name-cluster (Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace) expands exponentially beyond what any human birth could contain. El Gibbor (Mighty God) applies to YHWH elsewhere in Isaiah (10:21); Avi Ad (Father of Eternity/Everlasting Father) stretches human fatherhood to divine scope.
The yalad of this child opens immediately into divine identity — the birth is the beginning of the story, not its limits.
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.
The sign-yalad: the almah conceives and yalad Immanuel (God with us). The context is the Syro-Ephraimite crisis — a sign given to the house of David that YHWH has not abandoned his covenant. The yalad here carries the weight of divine faithfulness: before the threatening kings' plots mature, the sign of the child will come. Matthew 1:23 sees the ultimate Immanuel in Jesus — 'which means God with us' — where the yalad of the sign becomes the incarnation.
Who has heard of such as this? Who has seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be delivered in an instant? Yet as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.
The eschatological yalad of a nation in a day: Zion yalads before labor, the nation is brought forth at once. The impossibility of natural birth (nations do not come in a day) is inverted in the eschatological yalad — the new covenant people born in the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2) is exactly this: a people yalad suddenly, in one day, by divine action. The eschatological yalad of Isaiah 66 is the background for Jesus' 'you must be born again' (John 3:3) — the new birth from above is the individual experience of the nation's eschatological yalad.
So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.
The covenant-birth yalad: Sarah yalads Isaac at the appointed time (moed, H4150) which God had spoken. The yalad follows the promise, the long wait, the impossibility, and the divine appointment. The pattern — promise, delay, birth at God's time — is the template for every subsequent covenant-birth: Samson, Samuel, John the Baptist, Jesus. The yalad at the moed is not coincidental; it is the fulfillment of the divine word on the divine schedule.
Abraham's faith was accounted as righteousness (Gen 15:6) precisely because he believed the yalad-promise when all natural evidence was against it.
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. Encompasses entire reproductive spectrum: biological bearing, paternal generation, midwifery assistance, and genealogical declaration of lineage.
How the stem changes the meaning of this verb across the biblical text.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 500 lexical occurrence verses.
יָלַד is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
יָלַד structures genealogies and birth narratives and also supplies poetic images of royal sonship and corporate restoration. Isaac’s promised birth, Psalm 2’s royal decree, Isaiah’s child announcements, and Zion’s sudden labor all use birth language for different claims. Teachers should trace promise through these passages without asserting that the lexeme itself makes every birth miraculous or messianic.
The New Testament explicitly quotes Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 7:14 in relation to Jesus. Acts 13 places Psalm 2 within Paul’s proclamation of God raising up Jesus, while Hebrews uses it in arguments about the Son’s superiority and priesthood. These quotations establish Christological reception, but “begetting” should not be equated simplistically with the resurrection or used to deny the Son’s preexistence.
John 3 and 1 John speak of birth from God through Greek γεννάω vocabulary. That is genuine conceptual continuity with biblical birth imagery. It is not an individual-level H3205 fulfillment of Isaiah 66:8 unless a stronger textual link is established.
Ps.2.7
יָלַד occurs across stems: Qal commonly describes a mother bearing, Hiphil commonly describes begetting or causing birth, and passive stems describe being born. Usage is more important than assigning rigid maternal and paternal meanings in every form. תּוֹלְדוֹת is related to the birth/descent word family and structures Genesis with accounts of generations, but the formulas contain more than genealogical “birth chains.
” Greek γεννάω and τίκτω overlap with parts of the Hebrew range without preserving a complete double-sided theology in every New Testament occurrence.
Matthew 1:22-23 quotes Isaiah 7:14 and locates its fulfillment in Jesus’ virginal conception and birth. Acts 13:33 and Hebrews 1:5 and 5:5 quote Psalm 2:7 within distinct arguments about Jesus as the promised Son, risen Messiah, and appointed high priest. John 3:3-8 and 1 John 5:1 use birth-from-God language for believers. Revelation 12 uses birth imagery in an apocalyptic vision drawing on several scriptural traditions.
These texts form a rich canonical network, but they should not be collapsed into one “yalad theology” in which incarnation, resurrection, and regeneration are the same birth event.
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