1. delight, desirable thing, preciousness — A masculine noun denoting something desirable, delightful, or precious — used attributively to describe objects of aesthetic or emotional value. Appears in contexts of desirable/pleasant things: 'vessels of desire/delight' (2 Chr 36:19; Dan 11:8), 'land of delight' (Mal 3:12; Zech 7:14), and 'all precious/pleasant stones' (Isa 54:12). The multilingual evidence shows a unified semantic field: eng: desire/delight, spa: deseo/deleite/delicia, arb: مُشْتَهُونَ / بَهِيٌّ / بَهجَةٍ (all in the semantic range of beauty/desirability), kor: 아름다운/기쁜 (beautiful/joyful), hin: मनभावन/मनोहर/सुंदर (attractive/beautiful), swa: kupendeza/zuri (pleasing/fine). The three clusters are not semantically distinct — 'desire', 'delight', and 'delight' overlap entirely as facets of the same quality of preciousness or desirability. 6×
AR["البَهْجَةِ","بَهجَةٍ","بَهِيٌّ","مُشْتَهُونَ"]·ben["কামনার","মনোরম","মনোরম-এর","মনোরমের"]·DE["[חמד]","[חמד]"]·EN["delight","desire","of-delight"]·FR["[חמד]","[חמד]"]·heb["חמד"]·HI["मनभावन","मनभावने","मनोहर","सुंदर"]·ID["pilihan","yang-diinginkan","yang-indah"]·IT["[חמד]","desiderio"]·jav["bagus","ingkang-endah","pilihan","sae"]·KO["기쁜","기쁜의","아름다운"]·PT["deleite","delícia","desejo"]·RU["вожделенных","всех","желанных","прекрасные","прекрасный"]·ES["deleite","delicia","deseo"]·SW["kupendeza","ya-kupendeza","zuri"]·TR["arzulanan","guzel","güzel"]·urd["خوبصورت","پسندیدہ","پیاری"]
Senses
BDB / Lexicon Reference
† חֶ֫מֶד n.[m.] desire, delight—abs. ח׳ Am 5:11 + 4 times; only after a cstr.; כַּרְמֵי־ח׳ נְטַעְתֶּם Am 5:11 vineyards of desire (i.e. delightful vineyards) have ye planted; so read also Is 27:2 (for MT כֶּרֶם חֶמֶר) Codd. ℌ 𝔊 van d. H. Lo Hi Ew De Di Che Du; so of fields שְׂדֵי ח׳ Is 32:12; elsewhere of young men בַּחוּרֵי ח׳ Ez 23:6, 12, 23 desirable young men = fine, attractive, young men.