A SPROUT, a shoot — what comes up out of the ground; from tsamach, 'to sprout.' The image is a cut stump putting out green: something small rising where something great was felled. Jeremiah promises David a tsemach tsaddiq, a 'righteous Branch' (23:5), against the backdrop of a royal house whose cedars have just been cut down and burned (22:7). By the post-exilic prophets it has hardened into an outright title — Zechariah's 'my servant, the BRANCH' (3:8) and 'a man whose name is Branch' (6:12) — and it runs alongside Isaiah's netser, the 'shoot' from the stump of Jesse. English keeps 'Branch' by tradition, though NWT's 'sprout' is the more exact botany. The same oracle is spoken a second time in Jeremiah 33, where the name it carries is given to the CITY instead of the man. → first discussed at Jer 23:5