Etymologically
Log in

חרץ

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 06:55. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: ḥāraṣ[1]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: imperfect yērråṣ[2]

Forms

חָרַץ (ḥāraṣ) verb[1] Qal perfect חָרַץ, imperfect יֶחֱרַץ, passive participle חָרוּץ, plural חֲרוּצִים; niphal participle נֶחֱרָצָה, נֶחֱרֶצֶת “decreed”.[3][4] MACULA counts 10 occurrences.[1]

Etymology

The verb “to cut, decide” is inherited Semitic, with Akkadian ḫarāṣu (“to cut in, deduct, make clear”), which also means “to determine”, and Arabic حَرَصَ (ḥaraṣa, “to split, scrape off”).[3][5][6][7] HALOT also compares Ugaritic ḥrṣ and an Ethiopic verb, and Gesenius–Buhl the Old Aramaic noun חרץ (ḥrṣ, “moat”) of the Zakkur inscription.[3][8] BDB and Klein cite Phoenician ḥrṣ, which Klein glosses “to engrave”.[4][9] The development from “to cut” to “to decide” is the same in Akkadian.[3][4] HALOT relates it to חָרַשׁ (ḥāraš, “to plough, engrave”) and חָרַת (ḥāraṯ, “to engrave”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is rare and missing from the archaic poems.[1] Its first use in the canon is an idiom: on the night of the Passover lōʾ yeḥĕraṣ-keleḇ ləšōnô “not a dog shall move its tongue” against the Israelites (Exodus 11:7), that is, none shall threaten them.[1][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides “to point the tongue” (Exodus 11:7, Joshua 10:21), HALOT gives the qal “to fix, determine”: the king's sentence (1 Kings 20:40), destruction (Isaiah 10:22), the days of a man's life (Job 14:5).[3] The niphal participle neḥĕrāṣâ “what is decreed” joins kālâ “destruction” in Isaiah 10:23 and 28:22, and the phrase returns in Daniel 9:26–27 and 11:36.[3][1] The Septuagint renders the decree by Ancient Greek συντέλεια (suntéleia) and the dog's tongue by γρύζω (grúzō) “to mutter”.[1][10] The niphal is commoner in the Dead Sea Scrolls than in the Bible.[3][11] In Rabbinic Hebrew the verb means to dig a trench or cut a groove, and Modern Hebrew חָרַץ (kharáts) keeps “to cut” and “to decide”.[12][13]

Timeline

  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – the dog's tongue of Exodus 11:7 and the king's sentence of 1 Kings 20:40.[1][3]
  • Late Biblical Hebrew – the decreed end in Daniel 9:26–27 and 11:36, taking up Isaiah 10:23.[1][3]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it as Ancient Greek συντέλεια (suntéleia).[14][1]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 28 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls, among them the Community Rule and the War Scroll.[15][11]

Meanings

Verb

  1. qal with lāšôn: to move or point the tongue, to threaten.[3]
  2. qal: to decide, fix, determine a sentence or a term.[3][4]
  3. qal passive participle: decided, determined.[4]
  4. niphal participle: what is decreed, a decreed end.[3]

Word family

  • חָרוּץ (ḥārûṣ)
  • חָרִיץ (ḥārîṣ)

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew חָרַץ (kharáts)[13]
  • חָרַשׁ (ḥāraš)
  • חָרַת (ḥāraṯ)

Usage notes

MACULA separates the one imperfect תֶּחֱרָץ of 2 Samuel 5:24 (Strong 2782a): David is to “act quickly” when he hears marching in the trees.[16][1] HALOT and Gesenius–Buhl treat it as a separate root, comparing Arabic حَرِصَ (ḥariṣa, “to covet, be eager”).[1][16][8] The Biblical Aramaic noun חֲרַץ “hip, loins” (Daniel 5:6) has the same consonants.[17][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  2. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. חרץ I
  4. ^ a b c d e Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. חָרַץ
  5. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. ḫarāṣu
  6. ^ von Soden, Wolfram (1965–1981), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 323
  7. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 547
  8. ^ a b Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. חרץ
  9. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. חרץ I
  10. ^ Tov, Emanuel; Kraft, Robert A. (1987), CATSS Parallel Aligned Hebrew and Greek Texts of Jewish Scripture, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania (Oxford Text Archive 1111)
  11. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
  12. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. חָרַץ
  13. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  14. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  15. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  16. ^ a b Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. חרץ II
  17. ^ Kaufman, Stephen A., ed., Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, cal.huc.edu, p. s.v. ḥrṣ