StrongerBible

naphaḥ

נָפַח

HebrewH5301“breathe, blow, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 2:7Job 20:26Job 31:39Job 41:20(12)Isa 54:16Jer 1:13Jer 15:9Ezk 22:20Ezk 22:21Ezk 37:9Hag 1:9Mal 1:13
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradena-FAKHverb

What naphaḥ means

to blow: to force air out through the mouth, or through a bellows, on purpose and with effect

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

At its core this is a small, physical word for pushing air, the kind of breath that does work.

  • A smith blows on coals to make them flare.
  • A cook blows under a pot to bring it to a boil.
  • A dying person breathes out their last.
  • An angry person snorts through the nose in disgust.

Every use in the Bible is one of these everyday actions of forced breath, and a single dozen occurrences carry all of them.

From that one physical center the word fans out in two directions that the biblical writers use for their deepest themes. One direction is giving life: God leans down and breathes into the clay figure of the first human, and later breathes life back into a valley of dry bones. The other direction is the forge and the fire: blowing on coals to test, refine, or destroy metal, which the prophets turn into a picture of God's judgment. The remaining uses sit between these poles:

  • breathing out a soul in death
  • gasping under hardship
  • blowing a harvest away like chaff
  • snorting in scorn

The same word can therefore be tender or terrible. The genius of the prophets is to let both echoes sound at once: when the breath comes on the slain bones, a reader who knows the Eden story hears creation again; when God blows the fire of his anger on a faithless city, a reader hears the blacksmith. The senses below are not different words but different settings of one act, sorted by what is being blown and to what end.

Nuances

1ato breathe into someone or something, giving it life
Gen 2:7Ezk 37:9
1bto blow on a fire to fan it, as a smith on coals or under a pot, often as a picture of testing, refining, or destroying
Job 20:26Job 41:20(12)Isa 54:16Jer 1:13Ezk 22:20Ezk 22:21
1cto breathe out the life, that is, to expire or cause to expire
Job 31:39Jer 15:9
1dto blow something away, to scatter or puff it off like chaff
Hag 1:9
1eto snort through the nose in contempt or disgust
Mal 1:13

What scholars say about naphaḥ

All six major lexica (BDB, Gesenius, HALOT, DCH, TDOT, NIDOTTE) reconstruct a single root נפח, cognate with Akkadian napaḫu, Ugaritic npḫ, Aramaic/Syriac nəpaḥ, Arabic nafaḫa and Geʽez nafḫa, meaning "to blow with the mouth." The verb radiates into well-defined extensions: blowing breath into something (Gen 2:7; Ezek 37:9), fanning a fire (Isa 54:16; Jer 1:13; Ezek 22:20–21; Job 20:26), breathing out the life (Jer 15:9 Qal; Job 31:39 Hiphil), scattering by blowing (Hag 1:9), and contemptuous snorting (Mal 1:13). DCH (Clines, V, 731–32) catalogues the prepositional pairings most explicitly; HALOT and TDOT (Ringgren, IX) note that, unlike Akkadian, Hebrew never extends the verb to sunrise. The derived instrument-noun מפֻח "bellows" appears at Jer 6:29. Genesis commentators (Hamilton NICOT; Wenham WBC; Westermann; Sarna JPS; Waltke) stress that the verb is chosen for its physical intimacy, contrasting Genesis 1's creation by command, while agreeing the breath of life itself is shared with animals (Gen 7:22). Ezekiel commentators (Block NICOT; Zimmerli Hermeneia; Greenberg Anchor; Allen WBC) read Ezek 37:9 as a deliberate echo of Gen 2:7, creation-language drafted for national restoration. The metallurgical cluster is traced across Isa 1:22, 25, Jer 6:27–30 and Ezek 22:17–22 as a darkening refining metaphor (Block; Greenberg). Job 31:39's unique Hiphil and Mal 1:13's contemptuous Hiphil each carry a live interpretive debate (see disputes).

Where scholars disagree about naphaḥ

At Job 31:39 the unique causative form has been read either as Job denying that he killed the owners of the land ("I made its owners breathe their last") or as Job denying that he ground down the workers of the land into ruin ("I made its owners gasp for life"), the latter reading the seventh and climactic oath as economic oppression rather than murder.

  • minorityJob denies literal killing of the land's owners, taking the verb as the standard idiom for causing someone to expire (so KJV, ASV, NRSV; BDB).; John Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT, 1988); BDB, p. 655, s.v. נפח
  • majorityJob denies driving the land's tenants into ruin, reading the line as economic distress that escalates the prior offense of non-payment, not a regression to murder.; David Clines, Job 21–37 (WBC, 2006); Edouard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (ET 1967); Robert Gordis, The Book of Job (1978)

Malachi 1:13 stands on the traditional list of scribal corrections: a rabbinic tradition holds the original object was "at me" (the priests snorting directly at God) and that scribes softened it to "at it" (the altar table). Whether that earlier reading is genuine text-history or a later theological reconstruction is debated.

  • majorityThe received reading "at it" is the canonical text, its antecedent being God's table in the previous verse; the scribal-correction tradition is acknowledged but not adopted.; Andrew Hill, Malachi (Anchor Bible, 1998), pp. 191–92
  • minorityThe list of scribal corrections is in part a later rabbinic reconstruction rather than firm evidence for an earlier reading.; David Petersen, Zechariah 9–14 and Malachi (OTL, 1995)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, p. 655, s.v. נפחlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. נפחlexicon
  • DCH, vol. V, pp. 731–32, s.v. נפחlexicon
  • H. Ringgren, נפח, in TDOT IX (= TWAT VI, 1988)theological-dictionary
  • NIDOTTE, vol. 3, no. 5870theological-dictionary
  • Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1–17 (NICOT, 1990), pp. 158–59commentary
  • Gordon Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (WBC, 1987), pp. 60–61commentary
  • Daniel Block, The Book of Ezekiel 25–48 (NICOT, 1998), pp. 378–81commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2 (Hermeneia, ET 1983), pp. 256–66commentary
  • Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37 (Anchor Bible, 1997), pp. 460–63, 742–49commentary
  • David Clines, Job 21–37 (WBC, 2006)commentary
  • John Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT, 1988)commentary
  • Andrew Hill, Malachi (Anchor Bible, 1998), pp. 191–92commentary

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

All attested forms of נָפַח

qal consecutive-perfect 1cs

וְנָפַחְתִּי

Ezk 22:21, Hag 1:9

qal passive-participle m s absolute

נָפוּחַ

Job 41:20, Jer 1:13

hiphil consecutive-perfect 2mp

וְהִפַּחְתֶּם

Mal 1:13

hiphil perfect 1cs

הִפָּחְתִּי

Job 31:39

pual perfect 3ms

נֻפָּח

Job 20:26

qal consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיִּפַּח

Gen 2:7

qal imperative 2fs

פְחִי

Ezk 37:9

qal infinitive-construct construct

פַחַת

Ezk 22:20

qal participle m s absolute

נֹפֵחַ

Isa 54:16

qal perfect 3fs

נָפְחָה

Jer 15:9