to writhe: to twist and convulse with pain, terror, or grief, whether in the body, the heart, or the shaking ground
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
The picture under this verb is a body twisting in pain, like a woman doubled over in labor. From that one image the word reaches in several directions, but the core stays the same: something is wrenched and convulsing, not calm.
It is used for the writhing of physical agony and for the shudder of sheer terror, and the Bible moves freely between the two, because dread can knot the body the way pain does. Whole nations writhe when they hear a report of disaster, and the heart twists inside a frightened person.
The same verb describes the natural world heaving: mountains, seas, and the earth itself convulse when God appears, the way a person doubles over before something overwhelming. At its most violent it pictures a storm whirling and breaking down on the heads of the guilty, a twisting fury that does not let up.
Nuances
1ato writhe in pain, often pictured as the convulsing of a woman in labor
Isa 13:8Isa 26:17Isa 26:18Jer 5:22Ezk 30:16 (2×)Mic 4:10Zec 9:5
1bto tremble or shake in terror, said of people, nations, and the earth before God
1cto be in inner anguish, the heart twisting with grief or dread
1Sa 31:3*1Ch 10:3*Job 15:20Psa 55:4(5)Jer 5:3*
1dto whirl down violently, used of a storm of judgment breaking on the guilty
Jer 23:19 (2×)Jer 30:23Hos 11:6*
2
to bring forth: to give birth, or to be born, the labor-writhing carried through to the child it produces
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
When the writhing of labor is followed all the way to its result, the same verb means to bring a child to birth, and in its passive forms, to be born. The act and its outcome share one word because in this language the pangs and the birth are not really separable.
It is used of a mother in travail and of the child she bears, but also reaches into poetry: Wisdom is brought forth before the world is made, the earth and the hills are brought forth by God, and a person looks back to the day they were born. God himself is named as the one who gave a people birth.
The word can stretch to ordinary production as well, as when a wind is said to bring forth rain. The thread holding all of this together is generation: something new is brought into being, with effort, out of what came before.
2cto beget or give birth to, said of God bringing a people or a person into being
Deu 32:18Isa 51:2*
2dto bring forth or produce, used figuratively of what something generates
Pro 25:23*
3
to dance: to whirl in a circling festal dance
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
The same idea of turning and twisting turns festive here. Instead of a body convulsing in pain, it is a body whirling in celebration, the circling motion of a dance.
It appears in the account of the young women of Shiloh coming out to dance at a yearly festival. The word names the whirling movement itself, the turning of the dance rather than the music or the song.
Jdg 21:21Jdg 21:23
4
to wait, to wait longingly or in hope for someone
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested
In a handful of places the verb means to wait, and especially to wait with longing or hope. Some scholars connect this to the writhing sense, as if the waiting were a kind of inner straining toward what one hopes for; others treat it as a separate word that only looks the same.
The clearest cases tell someone to be still before the LORD and wait for him, and describe people waiting until the delay grew embarrassing. Because the form can overlap with another common verb for waiting, and because the link to the writhing sense is debated, the boundaries of this meaning are genuinely uncertain.
Pictures pain that twists from inside, like the contractions of a woman in labor: anguish that doubles a person over rather than mere outward shaking.Isa 26:17Isa 13:8Isa 26:18
Used literally of giving birth and of being brought forth, so it carries the imagery of birth that pure trembling does not.Isa 66:7Mic 4:10Job 15:7Pro 8:24
Can describe a whirling, writhing motion such as a dance or the spinning of a whirlwind, a sense of twisting movement absent from the partner word.Jdg 21:21Jer 23:19
Both
Both describe whole peoples seized with dread at what God does, the inward anguish and the outward shaking named together in the same breath.Deu 2:25Psa 77:16
Describes the visible quaking of the physical world: the earth, mountains, and heavens shaking under God's presence or anger.Psa 18:7Isa 13:13Jol 2:10Amo 8:8
Used of being stirred up or agitated into restless commotion, including anger, so it reaches beyond fear to general disturbance.2Sa 7:10Pro 29:9Ezk 16:43
Names the outward bodily trembling itself: people shaking where they stand, or told to tremble and be still.Exo 15:14Mic 7:17Psa 4:4
חוּלHul is a biblical name written exactly like חוּל, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
This is the ordinary word for a woman writhing in labor, and prophets reach for it when they want a picture of terror that cannot be stopped or hurried.Isa 26:17Isa 66:7Isa 13:8
It reaches past the pain of birth to the fact of being born, so it can say the mountains and the earth were brought forth before the world began, and that God himself gave Israel birth.Psa 90:2Pro 8:25Deu 32:18
It names what someone feels inside rather than what is happening to their body: a heart in anguish within the chest, or a wicked man in torment every day he lives.Psa 55:4Job 15:20
Because the ache of waiting feels like this, the word can mean the waiting itself, and English Bibles render it "waited" or "wait patiently" with no trace of shaking left.Gen 8:10Jdg 3:25Psa 37:7
It also covers whirling round in a circle, which is why it can describe girls coming out to dance at a festival and a storm spinning down onto the heads of the wicked.Jdg 21:21Jer 23:19
Both
Jeremiah sets the two side by side in a single question about God's power: the sea heaves against a boundary it cannot cross, and the hearers are asked why they do not shake in fear before the God who set that boundary.Jer 5:22
Both can describe the ground itself shaking when God shows up in anger or in power, so either word can carry the shudder of the earth before him.2Sa 22:8Psa 18:7Psa 29:8Psa 97:4Psa 114:7
Both are used of water in violent motion at the edge of chaos, whether a river tossing its flood or the deep waters shuddering at the sight of God.Jer 46:7Psa 77:16
Fits a flood surging up and throwing its water around, a river in spate rather than a body in distress. Egypt on the march is pictured as the Nile rising and tossing its waters over the land.Jer 46:7Jer 46:8
When people are the subject, it is always about losing their footing, never about pain. Those made to drink the cup of judgment stagger like drunks, and the powerful are jolted out of place at midnight and gone.Jer 25:16Job 34:20
Names trembling and shuddering in dread, the way peoples and the whole earth shake before God. The motion is fear, not the pangs of bringing a child to birth.Deu 2:25Psa 96:9Jer 5:22
Covers a wider sweep of twisting, whirling motion, from the spinning of festival dancers to anxiously waiting on the LORD. None of this touches the idea of a loan or a pledge.Jdg 21:21Psa 37:7
Both
Both can picture the writhing labor of childbirth, the mother twisting in pain as she brings forth. It is the one place these otherwise separate words meet.Sng 8:5Psa 7:14Isa 26:17Isa 66:7
Names taking or holding something as a pledge for a debt, the legal act of binding a person by a security he leaves behind. This is the home of the word and has nothing to do with twisting or trembling.Exo 22:26Job 22:6Pro 20:16
Forbids seizing the very tools a poor person lives by, the millstone that grinds his bread, as the thing held in pledge. The whole concern is the loaned property, not any bodily pain.Deu 24:6
carries the labor picture all the way through to its result, so the same word covers bringing a child forth and being brought forth, including God bringing a people and the earth itself into beingIsa 66:8Pro 8:25Deu 32:18Job 39:1
turns festive: the whirling of young women in a circling dance at a yearly celebration, the same twisting motion with all the pain taken out of itJdg 21:21Jdg 21:23
stretches as far as waiting, whether standing still before the LORD in hope or hanging on until the delay becomes embarrassingPsa 37:7Gen 8:10Jdg 3:25
is said of the natural world and not only of people: mountains, the deeps, and the earth heave and convulse when God shows upHab 3:10Psa 77:16Psa 114:7
pictures a storm of judgment whirling down on the heads of the guilty, where the twisting is violent motion coming at someone rather than pain being feltJer 23:19Jer 30:23
Both
both live in the same image, a woman doubling over in labor, and Micah puts them back to back: the city is gripped by this anguish, then told to writhe and pushMic 4:9Mic 4:10Jer 6:24Isa 26:17
both are used above all for whole nations and their kings buckling when word of God's judgment reaches them, not for private illnessExo 15:14Jer 50:43Deu 2:25Jol 2:6
both can also describe one person's own suffering, with no army on the way and nothing being bornJob 6:10Job 15:20Psa 55:4
names the anguish as a thing in its own right, so the text can say it seized people or came upon them, arriving from outside like an attacker taking holdExo 15:14Psa 48:6Jer 22:23Mic 4:9
can be stacked with other named troubles in the same breath, standing next to slack hands and the word for being caught in a tight spot as one more item in a fixed report of panicJer 6:24Jer 50:43
stays inside pain and dread in every one of its seven appearances, never reaching out to a motion, a birth, a dance, or a wait, and in one place it drops even the childbirth comparison and names plain bodily pain that shows no mercyJob 6:10Exo 15:14
Most often it is the writhing of a woman in labor: a body twisted by pain it cannot hold back.Isa 26:17Isa 66:7Job 39:1
It carries terror. Nations and armies double over when disaster comes at them, and the labor image is turned on them directly.Isa 13:8Jol 2:6Jer 5:22
It is what the earth itself does before God: shuddering, shaking, unable to stand steady.Psa 96:9Psa 114:7Psa 29:8
It can be the whirl of a storm, a wind that swirls down onto the heads of the wicked.Jer 23:19Jer 30:23
It stretches to the bringing forth of life, birth told from the labor side of it, including the making of the world in poetry.Pro 8:24Pro 8:25Psa 90:2
At its quietest it is not motion at all but strained waiting, holding on for God while everything in you pulls.Psa 37:7
Both
Both belong to the same picture of a body turning in a circle: the daughters of Shiloh come out to whirl, and what they whirl in is the round dance.Jdg 21:21
It names the celebration as an occasion, a round dance you can arrive with or come home to, rather than what any one body is doing.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:34
It travels with instruments and singing: women coming out to meet a returning army with tambourines and dances.Exo 15:201Sa 18:6
It becomes the setting people quote: the refrain about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands is remembered as what was sung "in the dances".1Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
Every one of its scenes is a glad public spectacle, never pain or fear, even where the gladness is badly misplaced or where the dance is famous enough to be named.Exo 32:19Sng 6:13
ḥul in the other biblical languages
ὠδίνωGreek“be in labor”the Greek verb for being in labor pains, which carries the same image of writhing toward birth
Pictures a physical twisting or writhing at its core, from the pangs of a woman in labor to the whirling of a festival dance, so its range runs far past anguish.Isa 66:7Jdg 21:21
Stretches to the shaking of the natural world, the whole earth and the mountains trembling before God.Psa 96:9Psa 97:4
Both
Both can describe a person seized by intense pain or anguish, the Greek word rendering the grip of torment and the Hebrew word the writhing agony of labor.Luk 16:24Isa 26:17
Names the felt distress itself, an inward anguish or torment with no bodily motion in view: the sharp grief of parting from a loved one.Act 20:38Luk 2:48
Carries the conscious torment of the afterlife, the suffering of a soul aware of its own pain.Luk 16:24Luk 16:25
What scholars say about ḥul
The standard lexica treat I חיל/חול as a single polysemous root meaning to whirl or writhe, from which radiate the senses of writhing in pain, trembling in dread, the convulsions of labor and so giving birth (also passively, to be brought forth), and the whirling of a festal dance (BDB; HALOT; DCH). The semantic center is a twisting, convulsive motion that the language applies indifferently to body, emotion, and earth. The harder problem is the apparent homonyms: many lexicographers separate II חיל "to wait, await" (e.g. Genesis 8:10;Psalm 37:7;Job 35:14) and a III חיל "to be firm, endure" (sometimes invoked for Job 20:21;Psalm 10:5), debating whether "wait" is an independent root or a metaphorical extension of writhing in longing. The motherhood imagery and the participle forms (e.g. Deuteronomy 32:18;Psalm 90:2) figure in theological discussion of divine generative language (TDOT, s.v. חיל/חול). Verses such as 2 Samuel 3:29,Lamentations 4:6,Jeremiah 5:3, and Micah 1:12 are textually or semantically contested and are not confidently classified here.
Where scholars disagree about ḥul
Whether the senses traditionally listed under this entry belong to one polysemous root or to two or three unrelated homonyms, especially whether "to wait" (and a possible "to be firm, endure") is the same word as "to writhe."
contestedOne ancient polysemous root "to whirl, writhe," from which the senses of pain, trembling, birth, dance, and even waiting (as straining longing) all extend.; BDB, s.v. חיל, חול
contestedA distinct homonym II חיל "to wait, await," and in some analyses a further III חיל "to be firm, endure," kept separate from the writhing root.; HALOT, s.v. חיל I and II; DCH, s.v. חיל I, חיל II
Sources
HALOT, s.v. חיל I and IIlexicon
BDB, s.v. חיל, חולlexicon
DCH, s.v. חיל I, חיל IIlexicon
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), s.v. חיל/חולdictionary