ḥaḥ

Every major critical lexicon treats חָח as a single head-entry for a metal hook or ring, subdivided by referent rather than split into homonyms. BDB groups the seven occurrences under three headings: a ring in the nose or jaws of a beast (Ezekiel 29:4; 38:4), figuratively of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:28 // Isaiah 37:29); an ornament (Exodus 35:22); and hooks or rings serving as fetters for captives (Ezekiel 19:4, 9). HALOT and DCH keep the same single lemma with contextual specification. Gesenius, in the 18th German edition edited by Donner, supplies the philological rationale that ties this noun to the longer חוֹחַ: no verbal root of suitable meaning exists, so the noun is primary, and its declension oscillates between hollow and geminate patterns, which allows חָח and חוֹחַ to be read as byforms of one biliteral base carrying the notion "sharp, piercing" (so also Klein, who groups the two under a common consonantal base). BDB accordingly cross-refers חוֹחַ at 2 Chronicles 33:11 to חָח, and Gesenius glosses חוֹחַ at Job 40:26 (English 41:2) as equivalent to it. The distribution is clean: חָח is used exclusively of metal, in imperial and captivity contexts, while חוֹחַ is normally the plant and encroaches on this word's territory only in two late texts. On the prophetic passages the commentators are agreed that a literal nose or lip ring stands behind the figure, and the Neo-Assyrian iconographic parallels are decisive: reliefs from Khorsabad and Nineveh, and Esarhaddon's Zincirli stele, depict captive rulers led by a cord attached to a ring through the lip. Cogan and Tadmor read 2 Kings 19:28 as that iconography turned against Sennacherib, the paired מֶתֶג completing the picture of a beast under tack, and Blenkinsopp reads the Isaiah parallel identically. Zimmerli, Greenberg and Block take Ezekiel 29:4 as the hooking of the Nile crocodile, the tannin under whose figure Pharaoh is drawn, and Ezekiel 38:4 as the same act performed on Gog; the Job poet's question at 40:26 whether a man could pierce Leviathan's jaw is the deliberate counterpoint, since the act no man can perform is precisely the one God performs (Clines). Ezekiel 19:4 and 19:9 are the least determinate: the instrumental בַּחַחִים is read by some as nose rings continuing the lion figure and by others as fetters on a human prisoner, and the versions divide between hooks and chains accordingly. Exodus 35:22 is the only non-hook occurrence and the only genuinely disputed referent: the lexica gloss it variously as a ring, a clasp, or a buckle, no commentator on the tabernacle-gold list identifies it with confidence, and it stands there beside נֶזֶם, טַבַּעַת and the equally unidentified כּוּמָז.