a dance: the circling, celebratory dancing of a crowd, done to tambourines and singing, most often by women
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is the dance of a group, not of a couple and not of a soloist on a stage. It belongs to the moment a community erupts, when women stream out of the houses with tambourines and everyone sings at once. The word is built on a verb meaning "to whirl" (חוּל), which is why most readers picture a ring of dancers turning together in the open air.
The occasions fall into a clear pattern:
women meet a victorious army as it comes home (Exodus 15:20,1 Samuel 18:6)
a daughter runs out to greet her returning father (Judges 11:34)
young women dance at a yearly festival (Judges 21:21)
a crowd celebrates in front of a newly made idol (Exodus 32:19)
So the dancing itself is neither good nor bad. It takes its meaning from what is being celebrated: the same word carries Israel's joy after the sea and the wild party around the golden calf, and in Jephthah's story it turns a homecoming into a disaster. The songs sung at these dances could also outlast the day. The taunt about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands is quoted back twice by foreigners as the thing Israel sang "in the dances."
One occurrence stands apart. In Song of Songs the word appears in a short phrase about a dance connected with Mahanaim, and nobody has fully solved what kind of dance is meant or whether Mahanaim is the town or a description of two facing groups of dancers.
Nuances
1athe dancing that welcomes a victor home, performed by women who come out with tambourines and song
Exo 15:20Jdg 11:341Sa 18:61Sa 21:11(12)1Sa 29:5
1bthe dancing that belongs to a festival or a religious celebration
Exo 32:19Jdg 21:21
1ca particular dance watched by onlookers, named in a phrase whose sense is debated
CertaintyContested
Sng 6:13(7:1)*
Sng 6:13
What "the dance of Mahanaim" in Song of Songs 6:13 refers to.
contestedMahanaim is the Transjordanian place name, so the phrase names a dance known from or associated with that town.; Roland E. Murphy, The Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1990), on 6:13
contestedThe word behind Mahanaim is a common noun for two camps or companies, so the phrase describes a dance performed between two facing groups.; HALOT, s.v. מְחֹלָה; BDB, s.v. מְחֹלָה
minorityThe line reflects a sword dance of the kind attested at later Syrian wedding celebrations.; Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C; Doubleday, 1977), on 6:13
This is the word for the welcome-home scene in the stories: women stream out of the towns with hand drums to meet a man returning from a won battle.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:341Sa 18:6
It carries the song sung at that dance, so the phrase "in the dances" comes to mean the place where a famous chant was heard: Philistine officers quote the line about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands twice over.1Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
It is a dance with onlookers, and what the onlookers do next is the point of the story: men hide in the vineyards to seize wives, Moses catches sight of it and smashes the tablets, and a watching crowd is told to look at the Shulammite.Jdg 21:21Exo 32:19Sng 6:13
Both
Both name a group dance done to hand drums and singing, never a solo or a private movement: the tambourine turns up in the same breath as each of them.Psa 149:3Psa 150:4Exo 15:201Sa 18:6
Both put young women at the center of the celebration, dancing where the whole community can see.Jer 31:13Jer 31:4Jdg 21:21Jdg 11:34
This is the word the poets set directly opposite grief: God turns wailing into it, and when a city falls it turns back into mourning. Every one of its six verses sits in a poem, and half of them are built on that exact reversal.Psa 30:11Jer 31:13Lam 5:15
It is offered to God as praise, listed alongside the tambourine, the lyre, and the pipe as one more way to praise his name.Psa 149:3Psa 150:4
It becomes a picture of a ruined nation put back together: the promise to a broken people is that they will pick up their tambourines and go out dancing again.Jer 31:4Jer 31:13
חוּלthe verb of whirling and twisting, used both for a dancer turning and for a body convulsing in pain
It names the celebration as an occasion, a round dance you can arrive with or come home to, rather than what any one body is doing.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:34
It travels with instruments and singing: women coming out to meet a returning army with tambourines and dances.Exo 15:201Sa 18:6
It becomes the setting people quote: the refrain about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands is remembered as what was sung "in the dances".1Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
Every one of its scenes is a glad public spectacle, never pain or fear, even where the gladness is badly misplaced or where the dance is famous enough to be named.Exo 32:19Sng 6:13
Both
Both belong to the same picture of a body turning in a circle: the daughters of Shiloh come out to whirl, and what they whirl in is the round dance.Jdg 21:21
Names the dancing as a recognized event, something people go out to, join, or come upon: the women follow Miriam out with tambourines and dancing, Jephthah's daughter comes out to meet him the same way, and the young women of Shiloh come out to take their place in the dances.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:34Jdg 21:21
It is a group activity, and in most of these scenes a group of women together rather than a single dancer.Exo 15:20Jdg 21:211Sa 18:6
The dancing carries words. The women sing as they dance, and the line they sang about Saul's thousands and David's ten thousands is quoted back at David twice by Philistines who remember the dances.1Sa 18:61Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
It can belong to something other than the worship of Israel's God, and it can be a known set piece with a name of its own: the dancing around the calf that Moses catches sight of, and the dance the onlookers ask to watch in the love song.Exo 32:19Sng 6:13
Both
Both are celebration expressed with the whole body, out in the open where other people can see it.2Sa 6:161Sa 18:6
Both belong to the moment a rescue or a victory comes home: the ark arriving in the city, and the sea crossing barely behind them.2Sa 6:14Exo 15:20
Both can provoke a sharp reaction in whoever is watching: Michal looks down from the window and despises David for it, and Moses burns with anger the moment he sees the dancing at the mountain.2Sa 6:16Exo 32:19
Describes one person's own whirling body as it is happening, not an occasion: David spinning with all his strength while the ark is carried up, and the same spinning still going on as it enters the city.2Sa 6:142Sa 6:16
The movement is aimed straight at God. Both times, David turns "before the LORD" as the ark passes, so the dancing is an act of worship rather than a welcome laid on for a person.2Sa 6:142Sa 6:16
רָקַדto skip and leap, said of animals, hills, and merrymaking, with no tie to a celebration ring
Names the event rather than the movement. It is a whole celebration of music, singing and circling that a crowd holds, something people can come out carrying tambourines to join.Exo 15:20Jdg 21:21
Belongs above all to women, and it is how they meet a fighting man coming home victorious.Jdg 11:341Sa 18:6
The singing that goes with it can be quoted long afterward, so the word covers the words sung as much as the steps taken.1Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
Both
Both belong to the moment a people celebrates a rescue or a triumph of God in front of everyone, with the body and not only the voice.Exo 15:201Ch 15:29
Both name what glad people do at a festival season, the opposite of a time of mourning.Jdg 21:21Ecc 3:4
Describes a body springing off the ground in quick repeated bounds, so it fits children at play and animals in a ruin just as readily as anyone celebrating.Job 21:11Isa 13:21
Stretches to things that could never hold a celebration at all, with mountains and hills bounding like young animals when God draws near.Psa 114:4Psa 29:6
Can turn violent, picturing a war chariot slamming through the streets and an army pounding over the hilltops.Nam 3:2Jol 2:5
meḥolah in the other biblical languages
χορόςGreek“a dance”the Greek word for the dancing the older brother hears from the field in the story of the lost son, the closest New Testament counterpart
is the women's dance of welcome after a battle is won, danced out to meet the returning hero with tambourines in hand.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:341Sa 18:6
carries words with it. The song sung at these dances hardens into a saying that Israel's enemies can quote back about David years later.1Sa 21:111Sa 29:5
can be a fixed event on the calendar: the young women of Shiloh come out to dance at the yearly festival, and everyone knows when and where to expect them.Jdg 21:21
can be damning evidence. What Moses sees as he comes down the mountain is the calf and the dancing, and the dancing is part of what makes him throw down the tablets.Exo 32:19
also works as an image of something lovely to look at, used in a love poem for the way onlookers gaze at the woman.Sng 6:13
Both
both name a group dancing together as the natural way joy at good news gets expressed, and both put that dancing alongside music: tambourines and singing after the rescue at the sea, music and dancing at the feast for the son who was lost.Exo 15:20Luk 15:25
in both, the dance is noticed by someone standing outside it, and that person turns angry at what the celebrating means: Moses at the foot of the mountain, the older brother at the edge of the field.Exo 32:19Luk 15:25
the Greek word is the one that stood in for the Hebrew one when the Hebrew scriptures were read in Greek, so a Greek reader met "chorós" where the older text had "mecholah" for dancing like Miriam's, and then met the same word again for the dancing at the feast.Exo 15:20Luk 15:25
belongs to an ordinary household party rather than a public celebration: the only New Testament use is the dancing at the feast thrown indoors for a son who has come home, with no crowd, no procession, and no victory behind it.Luk 15:25
is something heard rather than watched. It reaches the older brother from outside as one half of a sound, "music and dancing", so the word stands for the noise of a party as much as for the movement itself.Luk 15:25
What scholars say about meḥolah
The standard lexica (BDB, HALOT, DCH) take מְחוֹלָה as a nominal formation from the root חול/חיל, "to whirl, writhe," and gloss it as a round dance; some analyses extend it metonymically to the dancing company itself, which is one way of reading the plural alongside לָשִׁיר in 1 Samuel 18:6. The distribution is striking for so small a lemma: seven of the eight occurrences are plural absolute and describe communal celebration, and in four of them the tambourine (תֹּף) is named in the same clause, with women as the explicit or implicit performers. The single construct singular, מְחֹלַת הַמַּחֲנָיִם in Song of Songs 6:13 (Hebrew 7:1), remains unsettled: commentators divide over whether הַמַּחֲנָיִם is the Transjordanian toponym Mahanaim or the dual common noun "two camps, two companies," while Pope's association of the line with the sword dance described in Wetzstein's nineteenth-century reports of Syrian wedding customs is a minority proposal. Nothing in the debate touches the lexical sense of מְחוֹלָה itself, which is agreed.
Sources
HALOT, s.v. מְחֹלָהlexicon
BDB, s.v. מְחֹלָהlexicon
DCH, s.v. מְחוֹלָהlexicon
Roland E. Murphy, The Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1990), on 6:13commentary
Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C; Doubleday, 1977), on 6:13commentary