הֲפוּגָה
ha.phu.gah
cessation
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Hapugah (הֲפוּגָה): A Rare Biblical Term for Cessation The Hebrew word *hapugah* appears only once in the biblical text, making it one of Scripture's most obscure terms. Its definition as "cessation"—meaning a stopping or interruption of something—indicates the word describes the act or state of something coming to an end. The singular occurrence in the biblical corpus means that understanding this word's precise nuance and application depends entirely on its single contextual usage, without the benefit of multiple instances that would typically clarify a term's range of meaning. The rarity of *hapugah* presents a particular challenge for biblical interpretation. Words that appear only once, called "hapax legomena," often leave translators and scholars with limited information about their exact connotations or whether they were in common use or were specialized, archaic, or regional in nature. For a general audience, what matters most is recognizing that this term denotes some form of stopping or pause, though its specific theological or practical significance depends on examining the particular verse in which it appears.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
1 total occurrence across the text