Black Seed in the Bible: The Honest Case for Isaiah 28
Ask whether black seed is in the Bible and you will get a confident yes almost everywhere you look, usually pointing at Isaiah 28. The honest answer is more interesting: there is a seed in Isaiah 28, the Hebrew word for it is qetsach, and the identification of that word with Nigella sativa — black seed, kalonji, black cumin — is probable and widely held, but it is a translation judgement rather than a settled fact. Nine major English Bibles render the same word four different ways. And the passage itself is a parable about threshing, not a text about health. This article sets out what is actually there.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed Ethiopian black seed oil.
The Short Answer
- The candidate passage is Isaiah 28:25 and 28:27. The Hebrew word is qetsach (קֶצַח), Strong's H7100.
- Qetsach occurs exactly three times in the whole Hebrew Bible — once in 28:25 and twice in 28:27 — and nowhere else.
- The identification with Nigella sativa is probable, not certain. Brown-Driver-Briggs, the standard Hebrew lexicon, glosses qetsach as "black cumin (Nigella sativa Linn.)".
- Two ancient translations support it: the Septuagint uses melanthion (μελάνθιον), "black flower", and the Latin Vulgate uses gith.
- English Bibles disagree. Of nine major versions checked for this article, KJV says "fitches", NIV, NET and NABRE say "caraway", ESV, NASB 1995 and NRSVUE say "dill", and CSB and NLT say "black cumin".
- Isaiah 28:23–29 is an agricultural parable about sowing and threshing. Nobody in it is taking the seed for their health, and no medicinal property is described.
- So: a good case that the Bible names the plant; no case at all that the Bible endorses it as a remedy. Sidr & Stone's oil is independently verified at 2.67% thymoquinone per batch by Analytice, an ISO-accredited French laboratory — which is the kind of claim that can actually be checked.
Is Black Seed in the Bible? The Direct Answer
Probably, in one passage. Isaiah 28:25 and 28:27 use the Hebrew noun qetsach, which the standard Hebrew lexicon glosses as black cumin, Nigella sativa. The word appears three times in total and nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. English translations render it as fitches, caraway, dill or black cumin, so the reading is well supported but not unanimous.
That is the whole of it. There is no second passage, no oil, and no health statement. Anyone who tells you the Bible recommends black seed oil has gone considerably further than the text does.
| Reference | Occurrences of qetsach | What the verse describes |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah 28:25 | 1 | The farmer levels the ground, then scatters qetsach and sows cumin |
| Isaiah 28:27 | 2 | Qetsach is not threshed with a sledge; it is beaten out with a stick |
| Everywhere else in the Hebrew Bible | 0 | The word does not occur |
What Isaiah 28 Actually Says
The passage runs from verse 23 to verse 29 and is a short lesson in farming used to make a point about divine wisdom. The farmer does not plough forever; he levels the ground, then sows each crop where it belongs. Then comes the part that matters here — threshing. In the Christian Standard Bible, which renders qetsach as black cumin:
"Certainly black cumin is not threshed with a threshing board, and a cart wheel is not rolled over the cumin. But black cumin is beaten out with a stick, and cumin with a rod."
— Isaiah 28:27, CSB
The King James Version of the same verse begins, "For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument." The point in either rendering is the same: heavy threshing gear would destroy a small delicate seed, so it is beaten out gently instead. The prophet's argument is that God's dealings are similarly proportionate — measured to what is being handled, not applied uniformly. That is the entire function of the seed in the passage.
It is worth sitting with how ordinary this is. The seed appears because it was a normal field crop that any listener in eighth-century Judah would have known how to harvest. Its presence tells us the plant was grown and eaten. It tells us nothing else.
Why Translators Disagree: Fitches, Caraway, Dill or Black Cumin
A word that appears only three times gives translators very little to work with. There is no second context to cross-check against, no cognate usage elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, and the only internal clue is that qetsach is paired with kammon (cumin) and threshed gently. Every English rendering below is a scholar's best judgement, and they do not converge.
| Translation | Renders qetsach as | Plant that implies |
|---|---|---|
| King James Version | fitches | Vetch (Vicia), a legume |
| New International Version | caraway | Carum carvi, an umbellifer |
| New English Translation | caraway | Carum carvi |
| New American Bible (Revised Edition) | caraway | Carum carvi |
| English Standard Version | dill | Anethum graveolens, an umbellifer |
| New American Standard Bible 1995 | dill | Anethum graveolens |
| New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition | dill | Anethum graveolens |
| Christian Standard Bible | black cumin | Nigella sativa, a buttercup relative |
| New Living Translation | black cumin | Nigella sativa |
Note how far apart those are botanically: vetch is a legume, caraway and dill belong to the carrot family, and Nigella sativa is in the buttercup family. "Fitches" is also a false friend — the KJV uses the same English word at Ezekiel 4:9 for an entirely different Hebrew word, kussemet, which modern versions render as spelt.
"Black cumin" is itself a slippery English name. It is used for Nigella sativa and also, in South Asian usage, for Bunium persicum, a quite different umbellifer. If the naming tangle interests you, our guide to the Nigella sativa plant sets out the botany.
The Ancient Witnesses: Melanthion and Gith
The strongest evidence for the black-seed reading is not modern at all. It comes from two translations made when the plant was still an everyday crop in the same part of the world.
The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible produced from the third century BC onwards, renders qetsach as melanthion (μελάνθιον) in all three places. The word means "black flower", and it is the name Greek botanical writers used for Nigella. Brenton's nineteenth-century English of the Septuagint renders it "black poppy", which is a rendering of a rendering and rather less useful than the Greek itself.
The Latin Vulgate, Jerome's translation from the late fourth century, uses gith: "seret gith et cyminum sparget" in 28:25, and "non enim in serris triturabitur gith" in 28:27. Gith is the Latin name for Nigella. Brown-Driver-Briggs cites both the Septuagint's melanthion and the Vulgate's gith when it glosses qetsach as black cumin.
Two independent ancient traditions, working closer to the plant than any modern committee, both landed on Nigella. That is a genuinely good argument. It is not the same thing as proof, and the English versions that chose dill or caraway were not being careless — they were weighting the pairing with cumin and the Mediterranean spice trade more heavily than the ancient versions.
What the Passage Does Not Say
Three objections are worth putting plainly, because they are the ones a careful reader will raise.
"If it's only probable, why mention the Bible at all?" Because the evidence is genuinely good and readers deserve to see its actual shape rather than a flat yes or a flat no. A probable identification supported by two ancient translations and the standard lexicon is worth knowing about. Dressing it up as certainty is what makes it worthless.
"Doesn't 'the Bible mentions it' imply the Bible recommends it?" No, and this is the important one. Isaiah 28 mentions wheat, barley, spelt and cumin in the same breath. Nobody claims Isaiah endorses spelt as a remedy. The seed is in the passage because it was a crop, and the passage is about threshing technique as an image of proportionate wisdom.
"Isn't a translation argument just picking the version that suits you?" It would be, which is why all nine renderings are in the table above — including the seven that do not say black cumin. If we were cherry-picking we would have quoted the CSB and stopped.
| Statement | Supported by Isaiah 28? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A seed called qetsach appears in Isaiah 28:25 and 28:27 | Yes | Three occurrences — the only ones in the Hebrew Bible |
| Qetsach is most likely Nigella sativa | Probable, not certain | Septuagint melanthion, Vulgate gith, Brown-Driver-Briggs "black cumin" — but seven of nine English versions say otherwise |
| The Bible describes the seed as medicinal | No | The passage is about sowing and threshing; no property of the seed is described |
| The Bible endorses black seed oil | No | No oil appears in the passage; the seed is a field crop in a parable |
| You can check all of this yourself | Yes | Strong's H7100, three verses, nine English versions — all publicly available |
The same discipline applies on the Islamic side of the seed's history, where the sources are often misattributed in the opposite direction — see our piece on black seed in the Quran, and the fuller treatment of the black seed in the hadith.
What Actually Tells You Anything About a Bottle
Scripture, in any tradition, tells you that a plant was known and used. It cannot tell you what is inside a particular bottle three thousand years later. That is a laboratory question, and it is where the useful evidence lives.
It matters more than it sounds. A 2022 analysis in Nutrients by Khaikin and colleagues measured thymoquinone in eleven commercial black seed products and found a range from 3.08 to 809.4 mg per 100 g — a spread of more than 260-fold between the weakest and the strongest. "Black seed oil" is not one thing. Two bottles bearing the same words on the front can differ by two orders of magnitude in the compound the research is actually about.
For a fuller walkthrough of what separates a verifiable bottle from a marketed one, see our guide to high-quality black seed oil.
Why Sidr & Stone
An article arguing that a claim is only worth what you can check should be checkable itself. Here is what we publish about our own oil.
- Independently verified 2.67% thymoquinone, tested per batch
- Tested by Analytice, an ISO-accredited French laboratory, with a Certificate of Analysis you can actually see
- Organically grown Ethiopian highland Nigella sativa — selected after a 36-supplier evaluation
- Cold-pressed below 40°C to protect the heat-sensitive thymoquinone
- 100% pure — a single ingredient, nothing added
- Unrefined, which preserves the oil's natural integrity
- Bottled in matte black UV-protective glass
- Halal certified
- 10% of profits to charity
- Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the strongest or the purest black seed oil, and we will not tell you the Bible recommends it. What we will say is that our thymoquinone figure is 2.67%, independently verified per batch, and the certificate is there to read.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is black seed mentioned in the Bible?
Probably, in Isaiah 28:25 and 28:27, where the Hebrew word qetsach appears. Brown-Driver-Briggs glosses it as black cumin, Nigella sativa, and the Septuagint and Vulgate support that reading — but several major English versions render it as caraway or dill instead.
What does the Hebrew word qetsach mean?
Qetsach (קֶצַח), Strong's H7100, is a noun for a small dark pungent seed used as a condiment. It occurs three times in the Hebrew Bible, all within Isaiah 28:25–27, which is why its precise identification is debated.
Why does the King James Version say "fitches"?
"Fitches" is an archaic English word for vetch, a legume. It reflects a seventeenth-century judgement about the plant that later translators did not follow. Confusingly, the KJV also uses "fitches" at Ezekiel 4:9 for a different Hebrew word, kussemet, usually rendered spelt.
Which Bible translations say black cumin?
Of the nine major English versions checked for this article, the Christian Standard Bible and the New Living Translation render qetsach as "black cumin". The NIV, NET and NABRE say "caraway"; the ESV, NASB 1995 and NRSVUE say "dill"; the KJV says "fitches".
Does Isaiah 28 say black seed is a medicine?
No. Isaiah 28:23–29 is an agricultural parable about sowing and threshing, used to illustrate proportionate wisdom. The seed appears alongside cumin, wheat, barley and spelt as an ordinary crop. No medicinal property is mentioned anywhere in the passage.
What did the Septuagint and Vulgate call it?
The Septuagint uses melanthion (μελάνθιον), "black flower", the Greek botanical name associated with Nigella. The Latin Vulgate uses gith, the Latin name for the same plant. Both are cited by Brown-Driver-Briggs in support of the black cumin reading.
Is black seed the same as the seed in Islamic tradition?
Both traditions point to the same plant, Nigella sativa, though by different names and in very different kinds of text. In the Islamic sources the seed appears in hadith rather than in the Qur'an, which is a distinction worth keeping straight in its own right.
Is black seed oil a medicine?
No. Black seed oil is a food supplement, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history and an interesting body of research around thymoquinone, and can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine — but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any black seed oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
The case for black seed in the Bible rests on one passage, one Hebrew word used three times, and two ancient translations that both reached for the name of the same plant. That is a decent case. It is not a certain one, and the honest way to hold it is as a probable identification rather than a proof — which is exactly how the lexicons hold it, and exactly why nine English Bibles produced four different answers.
What the passage certainly does not do is make a health claim. Isaiah's farmer beats the seed out with a stick because heavy gear would ruin it. That is a lesson about proportion, and the seed is the illustration, not the subject. Anyone selling an oil on the strength of Isaiah 28 has read past the verse they are quoting.
The claims worth making about a bottle are the measurable ones. Our cold-pressed Ethiopian black seed oil — independently verified at 2.67% thymoquinone — is available now, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Shop Sidr & Stone Cold-Pressed Ethiopian Black Seed Oil — Verified 2.67% Thymoquinone →
Disclaimer: This article describes the biblical and lexical evidence for identifying the Hebrew qetsach with Nigella sativa at the time of writing. Translation renderings were checked against the published English versions named; scholarly identification of ancient plant names is provisional and may be revised. Black seed oil is a food supplement, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.