StrongerBible

ḥor

חֹר

HebrewH2356hole, cave, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Sa 14:112Ki 12:9(10)Job 30:6Sng 5:4Ezk 8:7Nam 2:12(13)Zec 14:12
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyKHOREnoun

What ḥor means

a hole: an opening or hollow, whether bored through a surface or worn into the ground

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a plain, workaday word, and nothing in it tells you how big the hole is. That comes entirely from the setting. A priest bores one in the lid of a chest so worshippers can drop their money in. A prophet is told to dig at one in a wall until it opens into a hidden room. A lover reaches a hand through the one in a door, and the woman inside is undone by it. In each case the word names an opening, and the interest lies in what passes through it.

The other half of its range is a hole in the ground. When soldiers sweep through the countryside, people go into them: the Philistines jeer that the Hebrews are creeping out of the holes they hid in, and Job describes outcasts living in holes of dirt and rock. Animals use them too, the snake a child will one day play beside and the lion that drags its kill home. Hebrew has grander words available, one for a cave you can walk into (מְעָרָה) and one for a beast's proper lair (מְעֹנָה). This one stays small and unglamorous: a gap, not a chamber.

One use sits slightly apart. Zechariah pictures a plague in which people rot while still standing, and their eyes rot in their holes. English says "sockets," and the Hebrew is doing exactly what English does, naming the hollow that holds a thing rather than the thing itself.

It helps to notice what the word is not. It is not a doorway (פֶּתַח), the opening a building is designed around and people walk through on purpose. A hole is what is left when something is bored, broken, dug, or simply never filled in.

Nuances

1aan opening through a solid surface: a hole bored, cut, or broken through a lid, a door, or a wall
TranslatabilityDirect
2Ki 12:9(10)Sng 5:4Ezk 8:7
1ba hollow in the ground or rock that people crawl into for shelter or to hide
1Sa 14:11Job 30:6Isa 42:22
1can animal's burrow or lair
Isa 11:8Nam 2:12(13)
1dthe socket that holds an eye
TranslatabilityDirect
Zec 14:12

What scholars say about ḥor

BDB and HALOT print the fuller spelling חוּר and the shorter חֹר as one noun, derived from the root meaning "to bore" or "dig through," and gloss it "hole." The lexica organize the occurrences by referent rather than by any semantic development: an aperture in a manufactured surface (2 Kings 12:9; Song of Songs 5:4; Ezekiel 8:7), a subterranean refuge or dwelling (1 Samuel 14:11; Job 30:6), an animal's burrow or lair (Isaiah 11:8; Nahum 2:12), and the orbit of the eye (Zechariah 14:12). DCH catalogues the same distribution. Isaiah 42:22 is the single crux: the consonantal text admits both a locative reading, "in holes," and the noun "young men," and the ancient versions diverge, though the parallel with "prison houses" in the same line favours the locative sense adopted here. No live disagreement attaches to the basic sense of the noun.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. חוֹרlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. חֹרlexicon
  • DCH, s.v. חֹרlexicon

All attested forms of חֹר

m s absolute

חֹר

2Ki 12:9, Sng 5:4, Ezk 8:7

m p absolute

חֹרִים

1Sa 14:11

m p construct

חֹרֵי

Job 30:6

m p construct

חֹרֵיהֶן

Zec 14:12

m p construct

חֹרָיו

Nam 2:12