to strike sharply with the hand: to clap the palms together, slap the thigh, or land a blow
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is a gesture word. It reports the sharp, audible smack of a hand, and the Bible puts that smack to several uses:
clapping the palms together at someone who has fallen
striking the hands together in a flash of temper
slapping the thigh when grief or shame lands
landing a blow on a person
The verb carries none of the emotion itself. Each time it appears, the feeling has to be read from the scene around it: Balak's hands come together because he is enraged, passers by clap over ruined Jerusalem because they are gloating, and Ephraim slaps his thigh because he is ashamed. Hebrew has a broad, ordinary verb for hitting or defeating someone (נָכָה), and a verb used for the glad clapping of rivers and trees (מָחָא). This one is narrower than the first and darker than the second.
Two of its appearances reach past a hand gesture. In Job 34:26 God simply strikes the wicked down, with no hand or thigh in view. In Jeremiah 48:26 a drunken Moab does something in its own vomit, and translators have never agreed whether the picture is clapping, splashing, or wallowing.
Nuances
1ato clap the hands at someone in scorn, gloating over their downfall
Job 27:23Job 34:37*Lam 2:15
1bto strike the hands together in anger
Num 24:10
1cto slap the thigh as a sign of grief, shame, or dismay
Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12(17)
1dto land a blow on someone, of God striking the wicked down
Job 34:26*
1eto flounder or splash about, said of a drunk in his own vomit
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
Jer 48:26*
2
to be enough: to go far enough to cover what is needed
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong
This is a separate word that happens to be written the same way as the verb for striking with the hand. It says only that there is enough of something to go around.
It shows up plainly once. Ben-hadad, threatening Samaria, swears that the city's rubble will not supply even a handful of dirt for each soldier in the army he has brought, a boast about the sheer size of his force. The point is quantity: the supply gives out before the demand does. The related Hebrew noun for a supply that is enough (שֶׂפֶק) stands behind Job's line about a man overtaken by trouble in the middle of his plenty.
Isaiah 2:6 may be this word's only other appearance, and that line is one of the harder ones in the book. Read here, it says Judah has more than enough foreign children in its midst, which fits the complaint just before it about being full of imported fortune telling. Read instead as the striking verb, it says Judah strikes hands with foreigners, meaning it seals bargains with them, which is how the usual verb for striking hands on a pledge (תָּקַע) works elsewhere.
Nuances
2ato be enough to go around, to cover what is needed
1Ki 20:10
2bto have more than enough of something, to be full of it
Only this verb strikes a thigh rather than the two hands together, and that blow is a sign of grief and shame. Ephraim slaps his thigh once he is ashamed of his past, and Ezekiel is told to slap his thigh while he cries and wails over news of the sword. Nothing like this mourning gesture belongs to the other verb.Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12
Only this verb reports hands smacked together in a burst of rage at the person standing right there. Balak's anger flares at Balaam and his palms come together on the spot, before he rounds on him for blessing Israel three times. The other verb's hostile clapping is gloating from a distance, never temper in the moment.Num 24:10
Only this verb can leave the hand gesture behind and mean landing a real blow. God strikes the wicked down out in the open where onlookers can see, and no clapping is in view at all. The other verb never means to hit anyone.Job 34:26
Both
Both are used for clapping the hands at a people whose ruin the clapper is glad to see. Ammon claps and stamps and gloats over the land of Israel, and everyone passing the wreck of Jerusalem claps at her. This hostile jeering is the one place the two verbs genuinely overlap.Ezk 25:6Lam 2:15Job 27:23
Neither verb supplies the feeling behind the clap. Each reports only the smack of a hand, and the surrounding scene has to say what it means: the same striking of hands is rivers rejoicing in one place and a furious king rounding on a prophet in another.Psa 98:8Num 24:10
In both, the clap is a public signal paired with other loud body language rather than a private act. Clapping comes with stamping the feet and with the hills singing in one word's verses, and with hissing and shaking the head in the other's.Ezk 25:6Psa 98:8Lam 2:15Job 27:23
Only this verb is used for glad applause. Rivers clap and the hills sing with them, and the trees of the field clap as Israel walks out of exile in joy and peace. The clapping is welcome and praise for God, which the other verb never expresses.Psa 98:8Isa 55:12
Its clapper is often not a person at all. Rivers, hills, and trees are the ones with hands to strike here, so the word can picture the created world itself breaking into applause. The other verb is always used of a human being or of God.Psa 98:8Isa 55:12
תָּקַעthe verb for striking hands to seal a pledge, and for clapping in celebration, rather than for jeering or mourning
Only this verb reports a clap driven by temper: Balak's palms come together in a flash of rage when Balaam blesses Israel a third time instead of cursing it.Num 24:10
The hand it strikes is often not another hand at all but the speaker's own thigh, the gesture of grief and shame rather than of agreement or applause: Ephraim slaps his thigh once he sees what he has done, and Ezekiel is told to do the same over the news that is coming.Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12
The blow can land on a person instead of on a hand or a thigh, with God as the one who delivers it against the wicked.Job 34:26
One hard line turns on whether this verb is present at all: readers decide between a second, identically spelled word meaning "be enough" (Judah is full of foreign children) and the hand-striking word (Judah strikes hands with foreigners), and the second reading only works because striking hands to seal a bargain is the other verb's idiom, not this one's.Isa 2:6
Both
Both are used for the identical jeering gesture, palms struck together at someone who has fallen, and both build it the same way, clapping the hand "over" the victim: passers by clap over ruined Jerusalem and a storm claps over the man swept away, while everyone who hears the news claps over broken Nineveh.Lam 2:15Job 27:23Nam 3:19
Both name one sharp, audible strike delivered with the hand, not a repeated pounding, and in both the meaning of the strike has to be read off the scene: the same smack of palms is fury in one place and a sealed guarantee in another.Num 24:10Pro 6:1
In both, the gesture is public and meant to be seen, so bystanders read it as a statement: a jeering crowd over a fallen city, a witnessed promise to cover a debt.Lam 2:15Pro 22:26
This is the verb of the binding pledge: a person claps his hand into another's to guarantee someone else's debt, which Proverbs treats as a reckless way to lose everything, and which Job asks God to do for him because no human being will.Pro 6:1Pro 17:18Pro 22:26Job 17:3
Its clapping can be glad, the hands of the nations struck together to acclaim God as king.Psa 47:1
Most of its appearances involve no hands at all: it is the ordinary word for sounding a horn, whether to muster the camp, to signal an attack, to warn a city, or to call an assembly to worship.Num 10:3Jdg 7:19Ezk 33:3Jol 2:15
It also drives an object into something so that it holds fast, which the other verb never does: a tent peg through a sleeping man's head, a spear into a body, and the stakes that hold up a pitched tent.Jdg 4:212Sa 18:14Gen 31:25
נָכָהthe broad, ordinary word for hitting, wounding, or defeating anyone, with no particular gesture in view
The word for hands clapped at someone whose downfall is on display, the jeer of a passer by. Ruined Jerusalem gets it from everyone who walks past, and Job pictures it aimed at the swept away wicked.Lam 2:15Job 27:23
It reports the hand brought down on the thigh, the body's way of showing shame or dismay. Ephraim slaps his thigh once he sees what he has been, and Ezekiel is told to do the same over the coming sword.Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12
In one hard line a drunken Moab does something in its own vomit, and the picture has never been settled: clapping, splashing, and wallowing all get printed. The broad striking verb carries no comparable puzzle.Jer 48:26
The same two letters also spell an unrelated verb meaning "to be enough", which is how Ben-hadad boasts that Samaria's rubble will not supply a handful of dirt per soldier in his army.1Ki 20:10
Both
Both report palms struck together as a way of venting feeling rather than doing damage. Balak smacks his hands in rage at Balaam, and God says "I have struck my palm" over Jerusalem's stolen profits, with Ezekiel told to clap his own hands as a sign of the sword.Num 24:10Ezk 22:13Ezk 21:14
Both can name a real blow that God lands on a person. Job's friend says God strikes the wicked down out in the open, and Uzzah is struck at the ark and dies on the spot.Job 34:262Sa 6:7
The ordinary word for a blow that wounds or kills a person, so it is the verb the law uses for homicide and the stories use for a killing: Moses hits the Egyptian and buries the body, the statute reads "whoever strikes a man so that he dies", and David's stone brings Goliath down.Exo 2:12Exo 21:121Sa 17:50
The standard word for beating an enemy in war, where the object is an army, a city, or a whole nation and the blow is dealt "with the edge of the sword". Nothing on this scale is ever said with the gesture verb.Gen 14:15Num 21:24Jdg 1:8
Its target can be a thing rather than a person: a rock hit with a staff so water comes out, or a field of crops flattened by hail.Exo 17:6Num 20:11Exo 9:25
It also covers trouble God sends when no hand and no blow are in the picture at all, such as a plague on a people or the death of every firstborn in Egypt.Num 14:12Exo 12:29
שֶׂפֶקthe noun built from the same two spellings, meaning a sufficient supply in one place and something closer to a blow or a taunt in the other
saphaq in the other biblical languages
ἀρκέωGreek“be sufficient”the Greek verb for being enough or sufficing, the counterpart of the "be enough" sense rather than the hand gesture
Almost everywhere the Hebrew word has nothing to do with sufficiency: it is the sharp smack of a hand. Palms are struck together in rage at a prophet who will not curse, passers by clap over the ruins of Jerusalem, a thigh is slapped when shame or grief lands, and God himself lands a blow on the wicked. The Greek verb never names a gesture or a blow.Num 24:10Job 27:23Lam 2:15Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12Job 34:26
Even the Hebrew word's "be enough" use carries an uncertainty the Greek does not, because it is written exactly like the hand striking verb. One line is read either as Judah having more than enough foreign children in its midst or as Judah striking hands with foreigners to seal bargains, and versions divide over which word is there.Isa 2:6
Both
The overlap is narrow but real, and it is only with the Hebrew word's separate "be enough" sense, never with its hand gestures. In that sense both verbs measure a supply against a need and report that it falls short, and both do it in the negative with a crowd to provide for: Ben-hadad swears the rubble of Samaria will not yield a handful of dirt for each man in his army, while the oil will not stretch to ten lamps and a huge sum of bread money will not stretch to a hillside of hungry people.1Ki 20:10Mat 25:9Jhn 6:7
The Greek verb turns inward and reports a person being satisfied, which is something the Hebrew word never does: soldiers are told to be content with their pay, believers to be content once they have food and clothing, readers to be content with what they already have, and one troublemaker is described as not satisfied with the damage he had already done.Luk 3:141Ti 6:8Heb 13:53Jn 1:10
It can also say that one single thing is all a person needs, with no quantity being divided up at all: seeing the Father would be enough for the disciples, and God's kindness is enough for a man pleading to have his affliction taken away. The Hebrew word is only ever about whether a supply stretches far enough.Jhn 14:82Co 12:9
τύπτωGreek“to strike”the Greek verb for striking, used of beating the breast in grief, the closest counterpart to slapping the thigh in shame
Its commonest use is clapping the palms together as a public verdict on someone else, so the person is struck by the message rather than by the hand: onlookers clap over the fallen wicked, and those who pass by clap at the ruins of Jerusalem.Job 27:23Lam 2:15Job 34:37
It can report a flash of temper spent in the hands, as when Balak strikes his hands together at Balaam for blessing Israel instead of cursing it.Num 24:10
The same Hebrew spelling also carries a completely unrelated word meaning "to be enough", which the Greek verb has no share in: Ben-hadad boasts that Samaria's rubble will not supply a handful of dirt for each soldier in his army.1Ki 20:10
What the Hebrew verb pictures is genuinely uncertain in its hardest lines, whereas the Greek word's sense is never in doubt: versions give clapping, splashing, and wallowing for what a drunken Moab does in his own vomit, and they disagree over whether Judah strikes hands with foreigners or simply has more than enough of them.Jer 48:26Isa 2:6
Both
Each is an ordinary word in its own language for landing a blow with the hand, and English versions render both with "strike" or "smite".Mat 27:30Num 24:10
Both name a blow a person lands on his own body to show grief or shame, striking the chest in Greek and slapping the thigh in Hebrew, and in each language that is the standard way to picture the sorrow.Luk 18:13Luk 23:48Jer 31:19Ezk 21:12
In both, God can be the one who strikes, delivering a blow as judgment on the wicked.Act 23:3Job 34:26
Most of its verses are one person beating another, which the Hebrew word never reports: soldiers hitting Jesus on the head, a master beating the servants under him, a mob beating Paul until the soldiers arrive.Mat 27:30Mat 24:49Act 21:32
It usually pictures blows that keep coming rather than one sharp smack, so English versions often reach for "kept beating" where the Hebrew word gives a single crack of the hands.Luk 22:64Act 18:17
It covers the insulting hit on the face, from the slap Jesus tells his followers not to return to the blow a high priest orders in a hearing, aimed at a person's standing as much as at his body.Luk 6:29Act 23:2
It turns figurative in a way the Hebrew word never does: Paul says a believer who pushes a weaker one into eating what troubles him strikes that man's conscience, and no hand is involved.1Co 8:12
What scholars say about saphaq
The standard lexica treat this spelling as covering two unrelated verbs. BDB and HALOT both list a gesture verb ספק / שׂפק "to clap, slap, strike" (Num 24:10;Job 27:23; 34:26, 37; Jer 31:19; 48:26; Lam 2:15;Ezek 21:17, English 21:12) alongside a separate root שׂפק "to be sufficient" (1 Kgs 20:10), the latter supported by Aramaic and later Hebrew, where the Hiphil הספיק "to supply enough" is well attested; DCH likewise numbers the two roots separately. Both spellings, with samek and with sin, are used for the gesture verb in the Masoretic Text (יִשְׂפֹּק at Job 27:23 beside וַיִּסְפֹּק at Num 24:10), so orthography does not disambiguate the roots. Three cruxes drive the discussion. Isaiah 2:6 יַשְׂפִּיקוּ is the only Hiphil in the corpus; BDB assigns it to שׂפק "suffice" but flags the rendering as doubtful, while most modern versions and much recent commentary derive it from the gesture verb and read a hand-striking idiom of agreement making, comparable to תקע כף at Prov 6:1; 17:18; 22:26, the parallel with מָלְאוּ מִקֶּדֶם in the preceding clause being the main argument on the other side. Jeremiah 48:26 וְסָפַק מוֹאָב בְּקִיאוֹ has been read as clapping, splashing, and wallowing. Job 34:26 סְפָקָם is a compressed clause whose syntax, not the sense of the verb, is the difficulty. The nominal form שֶׂפֶק / סָפֶק (H5607) shows the same convergence, with "sufficiency" at Job 20:22 and a sense connected with striking or derision at Job 36:18.
Sources
BDB, s.v. סָפַק and שָׂפַקlexicon
HALOT, s.v. ספק I and שׂפק IIlexicon
DCH, s.v. ספק I and ספק IIlexicon
H. G. M. Williamson, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 1-5 (ICC; London: T&T Clark, 2006)commentary
William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah, vol. 2 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996)commentary
David J. A. Clines, Job 21-37 (WBC 18A; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006)commentary
F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations (Interpretation; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002)commentary