to be able: to have the power, capacity, or permission to do something
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word measures what is possible for someone. It can mark raw physical or practical capacity (the land cannot hold so many flocks), permission and what is allowed (you may not eat this in your towns), or sheer impossibility when the thing simply cannot be done (no one can see God's face and live). The same word covers all three because they answer one question: is this within reach for this person, or not?
Most often it pairs with another action and tells you whether that action can happen. The action may be left unstated when context makes it plain, as when aged eyes can no longer see.
The negative is where the word carries the most weight. Saying someone is not able is a flat statement of a wall they cannot get past, whether the wall is strength, circumstance, law, or the limits set by God.
Nuances
1ato have the strength, resources, or practical capacity to do something
to prevail: to overpower an opponent or win out in a struggle
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
When the word is aimed at a person or an enemy, often with a sense of being able to act against them, it shades from bare ability into victory. It is no longer just whether you can do a thing, but whether you come out on top of someone resisting you.
This is the word of the wrestling match at the Jabbok, where the unknown wrestler could not overpower Jacob, and where Jacob is told he has struggled with God and with men and has won out. It is the word the prophets use when God promises that enemies will fight against his servant but will not prevail.
The line between this and simple ability is real but thin: the contest sense always involves an opponent who is trying to win too, so that to be able here is to be the stronger of the two.
to endure: to be able to bear or put up with something
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
A small but distinct use turns the ability inward, toward what a person can stand rather than what they can accomplish. Here the thing measured is endurance: whether one can bear a weight, a burden, or something offensive.
The clearest case is God saying he cannot bear worthless worship joined to wrongdoing. The sense is not that it is physically impossible for him, but that he will not and cannot tolerate it.
This use stays close to the basic idea of ability, since to bear something is one kind of being able. Scholarship treats it as a recognizable shade because the object is a hardship to be tolerated rather than a task to be done.
Covers plain capacity with no opponent anywhere in view, of people and of God alike: whether a stretch of land can support two households, whether river water is fit to drink, whether anyone can count the stars, and Job's closing confession that God is able to do anything.Gen 13:6Exo 7:21Gen 15:5Job 42:2
Often reports what a person is permitted to do rather than what he has the strength to do, so "cannot" shades into "may not": a husband who has slandered his wife may not divorce her, Israel may not crown a foreigner, the tithe may not be eaten at home.Deu 22:19Deu 17:15Deu 12:17
States how a fight came out and names the winner, and it does so for every sort of opponent: the stranger who cannot get the better of Jacob, the enemies who never overcome the singer, the persecutors who will not win in the end, the allies who turn on Edom.Gen 32:25Psa 129:2Jer 20:11Oba 1:7
Most often stands in the negative to mark a hard limit, including limits God himself sets: no one may look on his face and live, the priests cannot stand in the house once the cloud fills it, no one can find out what he has done.Exo 33:201Ki 8:11Ecc 8:17
Both
Both belong to the language of a contest between two parties, and Genesis sets them back to back in a single line: Jacob contended, and Jacob prevailed.Gen 32:28
Both are picked up again in Hosea's retelling of that same night, one verse apart, so where the prophet looks back at Jacob's struggle he reaches for the pair of them.Hos 12:3Hos 12:4
Both put a human being on one side of the struggle and God on the other, which is what makes the Jacob story so startling: he contends with God, and he is not the one who loses.Gen 32:28Hos 12:4
Names the contending itself, setting yourself against another and not giving way, and leaves the result to a separate word: Genesis says Jacob contended, and then says in a second breath that he came out on top.Gen 32:28
Confined to one episode in the whole Bible. Both of its two appearances look at Jacob's night struggle with God at the river crossing, and it is never used of a battle between armies, a court case, or a household quarrel.Gen 32:28Hos 12:3
Carries a nation's name: Genesis explains the new name Israel by this one verb, which is why so much weight rests on a word that occurs twice.Gen 32:28
yakhol in the other biblical languages
δύναμαιGreek“be able”the ordinary Greek word for being able or having the power to do something, the closest match to the basic capacity sense
ἰσχύωGreek“be strong”the Greek word for being strong enough or prevailing, closest to the overpower-an-opponent sense
Is the everyday Hebrew word for "can", covering not only strength but what a person is permitted or free to do. Balaam says he cannot go past what the LORD tells him, and the Egyptians may not eat with Hebrews, where the barrier is duty or custom rather than lack of power.Num 22:18Gen 43:32
Both
Both name being able to carry out a task. The land could not support Abram and Lot together, and the builder in Jesus' parable was not able to finish what he started.Gen 13:6Luk 14:30
Both mean to prevail or win out over an opponent. Jacob is renamed because he struggled with God and with men and came out on top, and the possessed man in Acts overpowered the sons of Sceva.Gen 32:28Act 19:16
Leans on actual physical strength and bodily health, the raw vigor to do something. When Jesus says the strong have no need of a doctor, the word describes people who are well and able-bodied.Mat 9:12Mrk 2:17
Can describe a thing being effective or legally valid, not just a person being capable: a will only takes force after the maker has died, and faith at work through love is what actually counts.Heb 9:17Gal 5:6
As a verb it reaches beyond capacity to victory: to prevail over or overpower an opponent, winning out in a contest or struggle.Gen 32:28Psa 129:2Jer 20:11
It commonly states plainly that someone could not do a thing, marking a failure or limit of ability that the sentence turns on.Gen 13:6Exo 40:35Gen 45:1
Both
Both center on having the power or capacity to do something, so the Greek adjective naturally carries the same idea the Hebrew verb states.Gen 15:5Luk 14:31
As an adjective it also labels a thing as possible, that is, capable of happening, not just a person as capable. It describes the deed or outcome itself.Mat 19:26Mat 26:39Mrk 14:36
It can name people as the mighty or powerful ones, a standing description of strength rather than a claim to manage one particular task.Act 25:51Co 1:26Rom 15:1
The Hebrew verb covers being allowed as well as being able, so a flat "cannot" often means "must not": the law tells Israel it may not eat the tithe at home, and Egyptians will not share a table with Hebrews because the thing is unthinkable, not because they lack the strength.Deu 12:17Gen 43:32
It also means to get the better of an opponent, which is why English Bibles so often render it "prevail against" someone: the wrestler at the Jabbok could not overpower Jacob, and the enemies who fight the prophet will lose.Gen 32:25Jer 1:19
It stretches to putting up with something, where "I cannot" is a refusal to tolerate rather than a lack of power: God will not endure worship joined to wrongdoing, and the psalmist will not endure a slanderer near him.Isa 1:13Psa 101:5
Both
Both are the ordinary word for "can": whether someone has it in them to do the thing in view. Abraham is told to count dust that no one can count, and Babylon's experts admit that no one on earth can do what the king asks.Gen 13:16Dan 2:10
Both put God's power itself in question. The wilderness generation doubts that God can spread a table in the desert, and at the lion pit the king asks whether Daniel's God has been able to rescue him.Psa 78:19Dan 6:20
Both are used most naturally to mark a limit, stating in the negative what simply cannot be done: Egyptians who cannot drink the fouled river, and a confession that no other god is able to rescue like this one.Exo 7:24Dan 3:29
In Daniel the Aramaic verb sits at the center of the contest over hidden knowledge: the question put to the royal court is whether anyone has the skill to tell the king his dream and what it means.Dan 2:27Dan 5:16
It keeps to plain capacity throughout, whether the power to rescue men from a furnace or the ability to turn up a charge against a rival, and never shades into being permitted or into overpowering an enemy.Dan 3:17Dan 6:4
What scholars say about yakhol
Standard lexica treat yakhol as a stative verb of ability whose range runs from physical and practical capacity, through permission and possibility, into the contest sense of prevailing over an opponent, with a minor use of bearing or enduring. BDB and HALOT both organize the entry around the be-able core with prevail as a distinct development when the object is a person or foe; the Jabbok narrative (Genesis 32) is the classic locus for the prevail sense. TDOT discusses the theological weight of the word in statements of what is and is not possible for God.