to hurl or fling with force: to send something or someone flying, not merely to toss it or set it down.
This verb means to hurl or fling, to send something flying with force. It is not the gentle act of setting a thing down or the casual act of tossing; it pictures a spear let loose, cargo heaved over a ship's rail, a body thrown into the waves. Hebrew already had a common, milder word for throwing, so when a writer reaches for this rarer word instead, the choice signals violence and power.
Most often the one doing the hurling is God, which is why this became one of the Bible's characteristic words for judgment. God hurls a rebellious people off their land and into exile, flings a doomed king away like a broken pot, and throws a monstrous enemy out onto dry ground. The picture is of a stone shot from a sling: sudden, forceful, and final.
The book of Jonah gathers all of this into one storm. In its opening chapter the word sounds four times: God hurls a great wind at the sea, the terrified sailors hurl their cargo overboard, Jonah tells them to hurl him into the water, and at last they do. Many readers of the Hebrew hear in this an echo of the prophets' exile threats, so that the runaway prophet is himself flung from his homeland into a foreign realm, the sea, and the storm only quiets once the hurling is complete.
A few uses are quieter. To be hurled down can describe a person knocked flat, or the fall of anyone who stumbles, and in one proverb the same word simply means to cast a lot into the lap to settle a matter. Even there the motion is sudden and decisive, but the violence recedes; the weight of the word depends heavily on who is throwing and what is being thrown.
Nuances
Whether the Hebrew here reads "hurled" (this verb) or reflects a different verb "took up / lifted," and whether 1 Samuel 18:10 to 11 is original or a later duplicate of 19:9 to 10.
- majorityThe received Hebrew text reads "hurled," this verb; the identical form at 20:33, where Saul hurls the spear at his own son, confirms it.; David Toshio Tsumura, The First Book of Samuel, NICOT (2007); Robert Alter, The David Story (1999)
- minorityThe Greek and Aramaic versions reflect a different verb ("took up / brandished"), and verses 10 to 11 are a secondary duplicate of the scene in chapter 19.; P. Kyle McCarter Jr., 1 Samuel, Anchor Bible 8 (1980); Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel, WBC 10 (1983)