StrongerBible

ḥatav

חָטַב

HebrewH2404“hewer of wood, cut wood, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 19:5Deu 29:11(10)Jos 9:21Jos 9:23Jos 9:272Ch 2:10(9)Psa 144:12Jer 46:22Ezk 39:10
Root family
Word studykhah-TAHVverb

What ḥatav means

to cut wood: to fell trees and gather timber or firewood, and so to cut something into shape.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This verb is narrow on purpose. Hebrew has a broad word for cutting something off or cutting it down (כָּרַת) and a separate word for hewing stone out of a quarry (חָצַב); this one is the axe in the forest, and its object is almost always wood. Deuteronomy 19:5 gives the scene in miniature: two men go out to the woods to cut timber, the axe head slips off the handle, and a law about accidental death follows from it.

In most of its appearances the word is not describing an action so much as naming a person by his work. "Woodcutters" is a job, and in four passages it is half of a fixed pair, woodcutters and water drawers. That pairing is shorthand for the bottom of the labor ladder, the people who fetch the two things every household needs and who own none of it. Joshua 9 assigns the Gibeonites to that station permanently as the price of their deception. Deuteronomy 29:11 uses the same phrase for the opposite effect: it reaches down to the lowest worker in the camp in order to say that the covenant includes even him.

One passage pulls the word away from firewood entirely. In Psalm 144:12 the daughters of a blessed people are compared to corner pillars shaped for a palace, and the cutting in view is fine finishing rather than rough chopping. Scholars are not fully agreed on what that picture is, which is why English versions differ there more than anywhere else the word appears.

Nuances

1ato cut wood: to fell trees and gather timber or firewood, and, of a person, to do that work for a living.
Deu 19:52Ch 2:10(9)Jer 46:22Ezk 39:10
1ba woodcutter in the set phrase "woodcutters and water drawers", which names the lowest and most menial rank of servants.
Deu 29:11(10)Jos 9:21Jos 9:23Jos 9:27
1cto be cut and shaped, said of pillars finished the way a palace's are.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
Psa 144:12

What scholars say about ḥatav

The standard lexica treat חטב as a single qal verb meaning "to chop or gather wood," with the participle functioning substantivally as "wood-cutter" (BDB, HALOT, DCH, s.v.). Eight of the nine attestations are qal; five of those are the participle, four of which stand in the stereotyped merism חֹטְבֵי עֵצִים וְשֹׁאֲבֵי מַיִם (Josh 9:21, 23, 27; cf. the singular chain in Deut 29:10 MT / 29:11 EVV), widely analyzed as a formulaic designation for a servile labor class rather than an ad hoc description of two tasks. Commentators on Joshua 9 read the assignment as an etiology for the status of the Gibeonites at the central sanctuary (Nelson, Joshua, OTL), while Deut 29:10-11 deploys the same pair inclusively, as the lower terminus of a merism running from tribal heads down to resident aliens (Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS). The remaining occurrence, the pual feminine plural participle מְחֻטָּבוֹת in Ps 144:12, is the crux: BDB glosses it "carved(?)" with an explicit query, and proposals range from literal cutting to shape, to ornamentation by association with the disputed noun חֲטֻבוֹת of Prov 7:16, the LXX rendering κεκαλλωπισμέναι pointing in the latter direction. No etymological or lexical debate touches the qal, whose sense is secure.

Sources

  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. חטבlexicon
  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. חטבlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. חטבlexicon
  • Richard D. Nelson, Joshua: A Commentary, Old Testament Library (1997)commentary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (1996)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of חָטַב

qal participle m p construct

חֹטְבֵי

Jos 9:21, Jos 9:23, Jos 9:27, Jer 46:22

pual passive-participle f p absolute

מְחֻטָּבוֹת

Psa 144:12

qal imperfect 3mp

יַחְטְבוּ

Ezk 39:10

qal infinitive-construct construct

חְטֹב

Deu 19:5

qal participle m p absolute

חֹטְבִים

2Ch 2:10

qal participle m s construct

חֹטֵב

Deu 29:11