StrongerBible

ḥoph

חוֹף

HebrewH2348shore, haven, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 49:13 (2×)Deu 1:7Jos 9:1Jdg 5:17Jer 47:7Ezk 25:16
Root family
Word studyKHOFnoun

What ḥoph means

seashore: the band of land running along the sea, whether as a place to settle, a coastal region of a country, or a beach where ships put in

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a rare word, used only seven times, and it never stands alone: it is always the shore of something. Six times it is the shore of the sea, and once, in Genesis 49:13, it is a shore for ships. What it pictures is the strip of ground beside the water, seen from the land looking out.

When the writers survey the promised land, it names a region. Deuteronomy 1:7 and Joshua 9:1 both run through the country's zones, the hill country, the lowland, the south, and then the seacoast, so the word marks off the whole western strip beside the Mediterranean rather than the narrow line the waves reach. Prophecy against Philistia uses it the same way in Jeremiah 47:7 and Ezekiel 25:16, where the seacoast is a territory under judgment.

In poetry it becomes a place a people lives. Zebulun settles at the shore of the seas and Asher stays by the coast, which is worth noticing in a nation whose story runs mostly inland. Genesis 49:13 then presses further: Zebulun will be a shore for ships, a beach boats can put in at, which most English Bibles render "a haven for ships."

Hebrew has other ways to speak of a seaside, and the differences matter. The commonest is a word for a lip or edge (שָׂפָה), the sea's lip. Another word (אִי) reaches past the near shore to the far coastlands and the peoples living on them. This word stays close in: the ground where the water stops.

Nuances

1athe seashore as a place to live: the water's edge where a tribe settles down
TranslatabilityDirect
Gen 49:13 (2×)Jdg 5:17
1bthe seacoast as a region: the coastal strip of a country, named alongside its hill country and lowland
Deu 1:7Jos 9:1Jer 47:7Ezk 25:16
1ca shore where ships come in: a beach that serves as a landing place, a haven
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
Gen 49:13 (2×)

What scholars say about ḥoph

BDB, HALOT, and DCH all treat חוֹף as a single noun meaning shore or coast, with BDB tracing it to a proposed root meaning to wash or cover; the derivation is uncertain and has no bearing on the attested sense. The noun occurs seven times and always governs a following noun: six times with יָם (Genesis 49:13; Deuteronomy 1:7; Joshua 9:1; Judges 5:17; Jeremiah 47:7; Ezekiel 25:16) and once, in Genesis 49:13b, with אֳנִיּוֹת, which HALOT glosses as a beach where ships land and which the ancient and modern versions render as a haven. In Deuteronomy 1:7 and Joshua 9:1 the word functions as one term in a stereotyped catalogue of the land's geographical zones alongside הָהָר and הַשְּׁפֵלָה, so its referent there is the Mediterranean coastal plain rather than the waterline itself; the same regional reference governs the Philistine oracles of Jeremiah 47:7 and Ezekiel 25:16. Commentators on Genesis 49:13 (Westermann, Wenham) discuss at length the historical tension between the maritime portrait of Zebulun here, echoed for Asher in Judges 5:17, and the inland allotments of Joshua 19, but that is a question of tribal geography and of the antiquity of the tribal poems, not of the noun's meaning. No live lexical disagreement attaches to the word itself.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. חוֹףlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. חוֹףlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. חוֹףlexicon
  • Claus Westermann, Genesis 37-50 (Continental Commentary), on Genesis 49:13commentary
  • Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary 2), on Genesis 49:13commentary

All attested forms of חוֹף

m s construct

חוֹף, לְחוֹף, וּבְחוֹף

Jos 9:1, Jer 47:7, Ezk 25:16, Gen 49:13, Gen 49:13, Jdg 5:17, Deu 1:7