to whet to a sharp edge; used in the Bible only of sharpening the tongue at someone, the way a dog growls before it bites
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
The picture behind this word is an edge being put on something, the way a blade is honed. Hebrew puts it to work in one vivid, fixed expression: someone whets a tongue at another person. The tongue is the weapon, and the sharpening is the low sound that comes just before the bite.
Both times the phrase appears it is denied, and both times the point is total safety. On the night of the last plague in Egypt, not one dog would sharpen its tongue against an Israelite. After the long day of fighting at Gibeon, Israel's soldiers came back to camp and no one so much as sharpened a tongue against them. Because the idiom names the smallest possible act of hostility, denying it denies everything larger.
That same edge is what stands behind the word's other and far more common use, where a matter is not sharpened but cut through and settled. A closely related Hebrew word (חָרוּץ) names both a sharp threshing tool and a settled decision, which shows how naturally the one idea led to the other.
Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
2
to settle a matter by cutting it off: to decide, determine, or decree, so that the outcome is fixed and cannot be reopened
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
When a matter is decided, it is cut away from every other possibility. English works the same way: the word "decide" comes from an older word meaning to cut off. Hebrew hears that same edge here, and this is what the word most often does in the Bible. A verdict is announced, a limit is set, a sentence is passed, and nothing is left open. Another Hebrew verb (גָּזַר) travels the same road from cutting to decreeing.
The word does not simply mean "to choose". It carries finality, which is why it gathers in three settings:
a king or judge announcing a sentence the guilty party cannot argue away
a limit fixed in advance on a human life, past which no one can go
a coming ruin announced by God as already settled, and therefore certain
That last use is the most common. In Isaiah and Daniel one short phrase, "a full end, and one decreed", names the disaster ahead as a matter already closed, so the prophets can speak of it as good as done. The finality is the whole force of the word: the point is not that God has made up his mind but that the case is shut.
Nuances
2ato pass sentence: to pronounce the verdict in a case
1Ki 20:40
2bto fix a limit in advance that cannot be crossed
Job 14:5
2cto decree a coming ruin, announced as already settled and so certain to arrive
Isa 10:22Isa 10:23Isa 28:22Dan 9:26Dan 9:27Dan 11:36
2dto act on a decision at once: to move without hesitating
pictures the decree as something cut, which is why the same root also names a sharp toolIsa 10:23
Both
both present the outcome as fixed by someone with the power to fix itIsa 28:22
Only decreed
"decree" in English suggests a formal written order issued by an authority, while the Hebrew verb says only that the matter has been settled
“decided”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“growl”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“move (the tongue)”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ḥarats differs from similar Hebrew words
גָּזַרalso travels from cutting to deciding, but keeps the literal act in view: it is the word for cutting something in two, so its decree is a matter severed rather than a matter closed.
Is the standard word for what God has already fixed in advance and will not revise: a set span of days, a full end settled upon the land, desolations already appointed.Job 14:5Isa 10:23Isa 28:22Dan 9:26Dan 11:36
Pairs the settled verdict with a measured quantity, so that even a remnant that survives is part of what was decided beforehand.Isa 10:22Dan 9:27
Pictures a sharp, decisive movement rather than a division: no dog sharpens its tongue against Israel, and David is told to move quickly at the sound in the treetops.Exo 11:7Jos 10:212Sa 5:24
Both
Both can mean to settle a matter by a binding decision, so that a person's word stands: what was decided against Vashti, and the king who pronounces his own sentence.Est 2:1Job 22:281Ki 20:40
Both reach that sense of deciding through the picture of cutting, where settling a case means separating it cleanly from every other possible outcome.1Ki 3:26Job 14:5
Describes an actual physical cut: a sword ordered to split a living child in two, timber felled beside the Jordan, the sea divided into parts.1Ki 3:252Ki 6:4Psa 136:13
Carries the sense of being "cut off": severed from the land of the living, from God's care, from the worshipping community, from the flock in the fold.Isa 53:8Psa 88:52Ch 26:21Hab 3:17
Voices the despair of people who feel themselves finished and beyond reach, saying they are cut off and their hope is gone.Lam 3:54Ezk 37:11
חָרוּץgrows from the same root and names things rather than actions: a sharp threshing tool, and the settled decision itself rather than the act of settling it.
Puts a named agent behind the decision, saying who fixed the outcome: the king's own words sentence himself, and God sets the boundary of a human life.1Ki 20:40Job 14:5
Applies the sharpening to speech: not even a dog will whet its tongue against Israel, and no one wags a tongue against Joshua's returning army.Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
Carries the sense of moving at once on a decision, the signal in the treetops telling David to strike without hesitating.2Sa 5:24
Both
Both reach the idea of a settled decision that cannot be reopened: one names the place where the verdict falls, the other announces the ruin as already decreed and therefore certain.Jol 3:14Isa 10:23Dan 9:27
Both keep the picture of a cutting edge behind whatever they describe, whether it is the studded board that slices grain loose or the whetting of a tongue before it bites.Isa 28:27Exo 11:7
Names a sharp thing rather than an action: the heavy toothed sledge dragged over grain, and the jagged pieces of pottery that mark the mud where a monster drags itself.Isa 41:15Amo 1:3Job 41:30
Describes a kind of person, the keen and hard-working one whom Proverbs sets against the lazy; this word is a character label, which the verb never is.Pro 10:4Pro 12:24Pro 13:4Pro 21:5
Serves as a poetic name for gold, the metal itself, weighed against wisdom or piled up as a city's wealth.Pro 3:14Pro 8:19Zec 9:3
Names something cut into a surface: a defensive ditch dug around the rebuilt city, and an animal whose body has been cut about and so may not be brought to the altar.Dan 9:25Lev 22:22
יָעַץthe advising and planning that leads up to a decision, where this word is the moment the matter is closed.
Names the moment a case is closed: a sentence is pronounced and the matter is no longer open to argument. When the prophet traps Ahab into judging his own conduct, the king has "decided" his own verdict and cannot take it back.1Ki 20:40
Fixes a boundary in advance that cannot be crossed, such as the measured span of a human life or the exact extent of a coming ruin.Job 14:5Isa 10:22
Speaks of a ruin as already decreed and therefore certain to arrive, with no deliberation in view and no one left to consult.Isa 28:22Dan 9:27Dan 11:36
Can mean acting on a decision at once, moving promptly rather than weighing options: David is told to stir himself the moment he hears the sound in the trees.2Sa 5:24
Carries a second, quite different picture: whetting the tongue at someone, the way a dog growls before it bites. Both times it appears this way, the point is that not even the slightest hostile sound was made against Israel.Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
Both
Both can name a purpose that is already fixed, so that the outcome is treated as settled and beyond reversing.Isa 10:23Isa 14:24
Both are used of what God has determined against a nation, announced ahead of time as good as done.Dan 9:26Jer 50:45
Both are used of people and not only of God: a person can settle a matter or set a course, and the text weighs whether the human decision was a sound one.1Ki 20:402Sa 16:23
Covers the giving of advice itself: one person telling another what course to take, which the hearer is still free to accept or refuse. Jethro advises Moses, and Rehoboam hears the elders out before rejecting them.Exo 18:191Ki 12:61Ki 12:8
Names a standing role, the adviser attached to a king or a city, listed alongside other officials as a recognized office.Isa 3:31Ch 27:33Isa 1:26
Describes a group conferring together to reach a decision, a joint process with several voices rather than one person's ruling.1Ch 13:12Ch 30:22Ch 32:3
Can turn hostile and mean plotting: a scheme worked out together against someone, which is why English Bibles sometimes render it "conspire" or "devise" rather than "advise".Psa 83:3Isa 7:5Nam 1:11
Comes with its own wisdom teaching about the worth of advice, weighing how much counsel a person should seek and from how many people.Pro 11:14Pro 15:22Pro 24:6
חֹקthe fixed limit or statute that results, the thing laid down rather than the act of laying it down; the two stand side by side in Job 14:5.
It is the act of settling a matter rather than the settlement that stands afterward: a person pronounces the verdict, or moves at once because the matter is now closed.1Ki 20:402Sa 5:24
In the prophets it settles almost entirely on ruin: a destruction already decided and now on its way, which is why it is so often rendered "determined" beside words for an end or a full stop.Isa 10:22Isa 28:22Dan 9:27
It keeps a physical edge to it, sharpening or cutting, which survives in the picture of a dog that will not so much as sharpen its tongue at Israel.Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
Both
Both describe a life already fixed by God and closed to appeal. Job sets them side by side in one line: the days are decided, and the limits set for them cannot be crossed.Job 14:5
Both belong to the language of a ruler's binding decision, from opposite ends of it: one is the ruling that stands from that day on, the other is the sentence the moment it is pronounced.1Sa 30:251Ki 20:40
It is the ordinary word for a standing rule of life: the body of statutes Israel is given to learn, keep, and pass on. Nothing in the other word ever names a written or taught body of law.Deu 4:8Psa 119:33
It can name a fixed allowance rather than a rule: the regular share of food or income due to someone, what English Bibles call a "portion" or "allotment".Gen 47:22Pro 30:8
It can be a boundary built into the world itself, a limit the sea and the heavens are held to permanently, with no lawgiving or courtroom in view.Jer 5:22Pro 8:29Psa 148:6
ḥarats in the other biblical languages
συντέμνωGreek“to cut short”the Greek verb for cutting short, used when Paul quotes Isaiah's announcement of a swift and settled end in Romans 9:28.
Keeps a plainly physical use that the Greek word never has: whetting a tongue to a sharp edge, so that not even a dog makes a sound against Israel and not one man snarls at the people of Israel.Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
Ordinary people are its subject as often as God is. A man passes sentence on his own case with it, and David is told to move on the decision at once when he hears the sound in the treetops.1Ki 20:402Sa 5:24
Fixes a measure or a boundary in advance: a person's days are settled and the number of his months set, a limit he cannot cross.Job 14:5
In the prophets its settled form hardens into a near title, "what is decreed", standing almost on its own for the ruin God has fixed and will pour out at the appointed time.Isa 28:22Dan 9:27Dan 11:36
Both
The Greek verb is how Isaiah's decreed end reaches the New Testament: Paul is quoting the very passage where the Hebrew word announces a destruction already settled, so the two words carry one announcement across the two languages.Isa 10:22Rom 9:28
Both speak of a sentence God executes over a whole land rather than a private ruling in one person's case, and in both the outcome is treated as already fixed before it arrives.Isa 28:22Rom 9:28
The picture is one of shortening: the sentence is cut down so that it is over quickly. Paul sets the word beside "bringing to an end", and the pair says the Lord will finish his word on the earth without a drawn out delay, so brevity belongs to the verb as much as firmness does.Rom 9:28
What is cut is the spoken word itself, and the cutting happens as the Lord carries it out, not at the moment he settles it. The verb describes the execution of a sentence already announced.Rom 9:28
ὁρίζωGreek“to determine”the Greek verb for marking out a boundary and so appointing something in advance, which covers the fixed and decreed side of the Hebrew word but not its picture of a cutting edge.
Holds on to a physical picture of a sharp edge: at the exodus not one dog will sharpen its tongue against Israel, and in Joshua no one so much as whets a tongue against the people, meaning not a sound of threat is raised.Exo 11:7Jos 10:21
Settles most often on a sentence of ruin, in a near fixed phrase for a destruction already decided and now unstoppable, running from Isaiah through Daniel.Isa 10:23Isa 28:22Dan 9:27Dan 11:36
Can mean acting decisively in the moment rather than deciding beforehand: at the sound in the treetops David is to move at once.2Sa 5:24
Both
Both name a decision already made, so that a set time is fixed and no longer open: the days of a human life are counted out, and God names a certain day and calls it "Today".Job 14:5Heb 4:7
Both describe God settling how history ends, so that what follows is carried out because it was decided: a fixed measure of destruction is poured out, and a day is fixed on which the world will be judged.Dan 9:26Act 17:31
Both can be used of people, not only God, reaching a firm decision: a king is told he has pronounced his own sentence, and the disciples resolve to send relief to Judea.1Ki 20:40Act 11:29
Keeps the picture of a line drawn around something, so it can fix a limit in space as well as in time: God sets both the seasons allotted to the nations and the borders of where they live.Act 17:26
Appoints a PERSON to an office, not only an event to a date: Jesus is the one God named as judge of the living and the dead, and the one marked out as Son of God in power by the resurrection.Act 10:42Rom 1:4
Names the settled plan of God that runs straight through human wrongdoing without excusing it: Jesus goes as it was determined, handed over by a plan fixed in advance and yet by the hands of guilty men.Luk 22:22Act 2:23
What scholars say about ḥarats
The standard lexicons treat חרץ as a single root whose concrete sense is cutting or sharpening and whose derived sense is deciding or determining. BDB glosses the verb "cut, sharpen, decide" and files the tongue idiom of Exodus 11:7 and Joshua 10:21 alongside the juridical use of 1 Kings 20:40 and the qal passive participle of Job 14:5 and Isaiah 10:22. HALOT keeps the same arrangement, separating the qal uses (to sharpen; to decide) from the niphal participle נֶחֱרָצָה, which behaves almost as a fixed term in Isaiah 10:23,Isaiah 28:22 and Daniel 9:26, 9:27, 11:36 for an irrevocable determination of judgment; DCH catalogues the same distribution. The development from incising to deciding is commonly compared with Akkadian ḫarāṣu "to cut off, deduct", and is paralleled by the etymology of English "decide". The most disputed occurrence is 2 Samuel 5:24, where תֶּחֱרָץ is usually rendered as a summons to act decisively, though some connect it with the adjective חָרוּץ "sharp, diligent" and render it as moving swiftly. Commentators on Daniel 9 note that the phrase כָּלָה וְנֶחֱרָצָה is drawn from Isaiah 10:23 and 28:22, so that Daniel reuses the prophet's language of a settled and unalterable end.
Sources
BDB, s.v. חָרַץlexicon
HALOT, s.v. חרץ Ilexicon
DCH, s.v. חרץlexicon
John Goldingay, Daniel (Word Biblical Commentary 30), on Daniel 9:26-27commentary
J. J. M. Roberts, First Isaiah (Hermeneia), on Isaiah 10:22-23commentary