עִיף
a.yeph
be faint
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
ExploredThe Hebrew word עִיף (ayeph, H5888) carries a definition of "be faint" and falls within the semantic domain of Body & Health. This indicates that the word is linked to physical well-being, possibly describing a state of weakness or exhaustion. The five instances of this word in the Bible suggest that it is not a commonly used term, implying that it may convey a specific emphasis or nuance in its contexts. Given its definition, it is likely that the word ayeph describes a physical state of being, which may be temporary or ongoing. This word might be used to contrast energy and fatigue, strength and weakness. To understand its significance, further examination of its occurrences in the Bible is necessary. As a relatively rare term, ayeph likely holds an important role in conveying the nuances of human experience and physical state in biblical contexts.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
5 total occurrences across the text
For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”
Judges 4:21Then Jael Heber’s wife took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand, and went softly to him, and struck the pin into his temples, and it pierced through into the ground, for he was in a deep sleep; so he fainted and died.
1 Samuel 14:28Then one of the people answered, and said, “Your father directly commanded the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’ ” So the people were faint.
1 Samuel 14:31They struck the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon. The people were very faint;
2 Samuel 21:15The Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. David grew faint;