to hold yourself in: to keep a strong feeling or an urge from breaking out
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This verb always turns the action back on the person doing it, so it means holding yourself in, never holding somebody else back. The pressure is already there and rising: tears, rage, longing, a cry that wants out. The word names the effort of keeping the lid down.
The Bible puts that effort in three settings:
a person keeping a feeling from showing in front of other people, as Joseph does at his own table and Haman does on the way home
God staying still and not stepping in, which the prophets treat as something to protest rather than to admire
a man pushing past his own hesitation in order to act, which is how Saul explains a sacrifice he had no right to offer
Because the strain is the whole point, the word tends to show up right at its breaking point. Joseph manages it in one chapter and gives way in the next. Isaiah sets it beside keeping quiet (חָשָׁה) and then has God announce that the silence is over. Other Hebrew verbs cover holding back something outside yourself, whether by shutting it in (עָצַר) or by withholding what you could have handed over (חָשַׂךְ); this one stays inside the person.
Nuances
1ato keep a surging feeling from showing in front of other people
Gen 43:31Gen 45:1Est 5:10
1bof God: to hold back from acting, staying silent while his people wait
Isa 42:14*Isa 63:15*Isa 64:12(11)
1cto force yourself past your own hesitation and go ahead anyway
Every single use is about holding in something rising from inside a person, never about holding back an outside thing. Joseph washes his face and steadies himself before his brothers can see him break, and Haman swallows his fury the whole way home.Gen 43:31Est 5:10
It carries the strain of the effort, so it often shows up at the point where the effort collapses. Joseph finally cannot keep it in and clears the room before he weeps.Gen 45:1
The prophets use it for God's long silence, treating that silence as costly self-control he has chosen and is being begged to end.Isa 42:14Isa 63:15Isa 64:12
Once the pressure runs the other way: Saul says he pushed himself past his own reluctance and went ahead with the offering, often rendered "I forced myself".1Sa 13:12
Both
Both describe a person deliberately keeping words or feelings shut inside, and both tend to appear at the limit of what a person can manage. Joseph can hold himself in no longer, the officials in Job's memory stop talking and put a hand over the mouth, one of Job's friends asks who could possibly hold his words back, and Jeremiah tries to keep the message in until it burns like a fire in his bones.Gen 45:1Gen 43:31Job 29:9Job 4:2Jer 20:9
Both can put God in the position of the one holding back, withholding for a season and then letting go, so both stand behind Israel's complaint that heaven has gone quiet or shut.Isa 42:14Job 12:15Deu 11:17
It shuts off a supply at the source so nothing can come out: the sky closed against rain, a womb closed against childbirth, water held back until the land dries up.Deu 11:171Ki 8:35Gen 16:2Gen 20:18Isa 66:9Job 12:15
It halts a disaster already in motion. This is the standard word for a plague being stopped in mid sweep once someone intervenes.Num 25:82Sa 24:25Psa 106:30
It keeps a person physically in one place, whether that is a host pressing a visitor to stay, a prophet who is not free to leave the guard court, or a king locked in prison.Jdg 13:15Jer 33:1Jer 36:5Neh 6:102Ki 17:4
Paired with the word for strength it means keeping hold of power that could slip away, and it usually appears in the negative, rendered "retained no strength".1Ch 29:142Ch 13:20Dan 10:8Dan 11:6
חָשַׂךְwithholds what you could have handed over, such as sparing a life or holding back a blow, rather than containing what is already rising in you
Holding in a feeling that is pressing to get out. Joseph washes his face and masters himself before he can speak to his brothers (Genesis 43:31), and then reaches the point where he cannot hold himself in any longer (Genesis 45:1). Haman swallows his fury on the way home after passing Mordecai (Esther 5:10).Gen 43:31Gen 45:1Est 5:10
It can describe warmth itself being kept back from someone rather than words. The prayer of Isaiah 63:15 asks God why the stirring of his heart and his compassion are being held in from the one praying.Isa 63:15
The same self-control language can point the other way, toward pushing past your own hesitation and acting. Saul explains that he made himself go ahead with the offering, rendered "I forced myself" (1 Samuel 13:12).1Sa 13:12
Both
Both name holding back from acting, and the two sit side by side in the same sentence as one thought. In Isaiah 42:14 God says he has stayed quiet and held himself in for a long time, and Isaiah 64:12 asks him whether he will go on holding himself in and staying quiet.Isa 42:14Isa 64:12
In both verses the one holding back is God, and the restraint is a decision with an end in sight rather than weakness. Isaiah 42:14 goes straight on to say that he will now cry out like a woman in labor, and the question in Isaiah 64:12 is pressed in the hope that he will finally break off his silence.Isa 42:14Isa 64:12
Plain quiet: not speaking when speaking is possible. There is a time to be quiet and a time to talk (Ecclesiastes 3:7); the men who find the abandoned camp admit they cannot stay quiet on a day of good news (2 Kings 7:9); Jerusalem's watchmen are never to fall quiet (Isaiah 62:6); and the psalmist begs God not to stay quiet toward him (Psalm 28:1).Ecc 3:72Ki 7:9Isa 62:6Psa 28:1
It also covers making other people quiet, not just keeping quiet yourself. Elisha twice tells the prophets' companions to drop the subject, rendered "be quiet" (2 Kings 2:3,2 Kings 2:5), and the Levites hush the weeping crowd on a holy day (Nehemiah 8:11).2Ki 2:32Ki 2:5Neh 8:11
The quiet shades into sitting still and doing nothing while a chance slips by. The scouts scold their tribe for staying put instead of going up to take the land (Judges 18:9), and the king of Israel points out that they are doing nothing about Ramoth Gilead (1 Kings 22:3).Jdg 18:91Ki 22:3
It stretches past human speech to any noise dying away: when God calms the storm at sea, the waves themselves grow quiet (Psalm 107:29).Psa 107:29
aphaq in the other biblical languages
ἀνέχωGreek“to endure”the Greek verb for bearing with something or holding out under it, where this word is about clamping down on what is rising inside you
What is held back is the speaker's own feeling, not another person's behavior. It is the effort of keeping grief or fury from breaking out in front of others: Joseph pushing down tears before his brothers, Haman swallowing his rage and walking home.Gen 43:31Est 5:10
It is used of God holding himself in, staying silent and unmoving while his people suffer, and the prophet protests that silence and asks him to stop holding back.Isa 42:14Isa 63:15Isa 64:12
It can turn the other way and mean forcing yourself past your own reluctance, holding steady long enough to do the thing you dread. Saul uses it to excuse an offering he says he made himself go through with.1Sa 13:12
Both
Both name a holding on rather than a letting go, under pressure that pushes the other way, and both are pictured as having a limit. Joseph reaches the point where he can hold in no longer; Jesus asks how long he must go on bearing with an unbelieving generation.Gen 45:1Mat 17:17
The two words meet in translation. When early Greek translators of the Old Testament needed wording for Isaiah's question of whether God would keep holding back, they used this Greek verb, and the New Testament uses it the same way for a patience being asked to stretch a little further.Isa 64:122Co 11:1
What is borne is other people. This is the word for putting up with the faults and failures of the people you live alongside, and it is asked of Christians as a standing habit rather than a single hard moment.Eph 4:2Col 3:13
It covers sitting still for what someone says. It asks whether listeners will give a hearing to teaching, to a case in court, or to a letter they may not want, whether the message is true or false.2Ti 4:3Heb 13:22Act 18:14
It describes taking mistreatment without hitting back. Insults, exploitation, and open persecution are absorbed rather than answered, and that absorbing is counted as faithfulness.1Co 4:122Co 11:202Th 1:4
ἐγκρατεύομαιGreek“to self-control”the Greek word for practicing self-control as a settled discipline, where this word is a single strained moment of holding back
Belongs to a scene of pressure, where someone swallows what is welling up right then: Joseph steadies himself before he can speak to his brothers, and Haman keeps his fury behind his teeth all the way home.Gen 43:31Est 5:10
Is used of God holding back his own response, staying silent and seeming to keep his pity to himself while his people wait for him to act.Isa 42:14Isa 63:15Isa 64:12
Can turn the other way and describe pushing past one's own hesitation: Saul excuses himself by saying he made himself go ahead and offer the sacrifice.1Sa 13:12
Both
Both describe a person keeping a strong inner pull from turning into action, holding composure rather than letting the feeling decide what happens next.Gen 43:311Co 9:25
The Greek word is the natural Greek for the Hebrew one, and both are heard most sharply at the point where the holding gives way: the Hebrew word tells of Joseph reaching the moment he could no longer keep himself in, and the same story in Greek uses this Greek verb, which Paul in turn uses of people who find they cannot keep desire in check.Gen 45:11Co 7:9
Names a trained, ongoing discipline rather than a single act of holding back: Paul points to the athlete who keeps every appetite in hand through a whole season of training for one prize.1Co 9:25
Treats self-control as a settled ability a person either has or lacks, so that lacking it changes how someone should order a life: Paul tells those who cannot manage it that they should marry rather than stay single.1Co 7:9
What scholars say about aphaq
The verb is attested only in the hithpael, seven times, and the lexica agree on the sense: BDB "restrain oneself," HALOT "to control oneself," DCH the same, with BDB and HALOT both flagging the reversed nuance "compel oneself" at 1 Samuel 13:12. The root is commonly connected with אָפִיק "channel, stream bed," on the view that the underlying notion is holding or containing, though the derivation is not certain and a cognate sense "be strong" has also been proposed; the etymological question does not affect the agreed meaning of the attested forms. Commentators on the Joseph narrative note the deliberate pairing of Genesis 43:31 with 45:1, where the same verb marks first the success and then the collapse of Joseph's composure (Westermann). In Isaiah the verb belongs to the complaint over divine silence, standing with חָשָׁה and חָרַשׁ in 42:14 and 64:12 (Blenkinsopp); at 63:15 the plural subject (God's compassion) and the interrogative syntax of the surrounding lines leave translators divided over whether the clause is a question or an assertion.
Sources
BDB, s.v. אָפַקlexicon
HALOT, s.v. אפקlexicon
DCH, s.v. אפקlexicon
Claus Westermann, Genesis 37-50: A Commentarycommentary
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55 (Anchor Yale Bible 19A)commentary