StrongerBible

alaph

עָלַף

HebrewH5968“faint, wrap, ...”

Appears 5 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Gen 38:14Sng 5:14Isa 51:20Amo 8:13Jon 4:8
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeah-LAHFverb

What alaph means

1

to cover something over: to overlay a surface, or to draw a covering close around a body

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

The picture behind this word is a covering worked over something until what was open is enclosed. It is not the everyday word for covering a thing up (כָּסָה), and it is not the ordinary word for pulling on a cloak (עָטָה). It is narrower and more deliberate: the covering is applied to the thing, so that whatever it covers stops being visible.

That is why one verb serves two settings that look unrelated at first. A craftsman lays blue stones over a panel of ivory until the ivory is encrusted with them. A woman on the road to Timnah draws a veil close about herself until no one can tell who she is. In both, something is cased in a covering, and what could be seen before cannot be seen now.

This concrete sense is the older one, and it is the one the neighbouring ancient languages confirm: their matching words mean to sheathe, to case, or to wrap something in a covering. The Hebrew word closest to it (עָטַף) travels the same road, meaning both to mantle something over and to languish.

Nuances

1ato overlay a surface with something precious, setting it with stones until the surface is encrusted
Sng 5:14
1bto wrap oneself up, drawing a covering close around so as not to be recognized
Gen 38:14
Gen 38:14

Whether the verb in Genesis 38:14 says that Tamar wrapped herself up or that she made herself over into someone else.

  • majorityA reflexive of the covering sense: she wrapped or muffled herself, the pairing with the verb for covering forming a hendiadys that stresses total concealment.; G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC 2 (Dallas: Word, 1994), 366-68; V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 442-44; N. M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 1989), ad loc.
  • minorityAn act of self-presentation, "thus disguised," adorning or altering her appearance rather than merely wrapping, in line with the Septuagint, Vulgate and Targum Onqelos.; E. A. Speiser, Genesis, AB 1 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 297-301
2

to grow faint: to be overcome until strength fails and the body gives way

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

When the thing covered over is a person, the word turns inward. To be enveloped like this is to be overwhelmed: strength drains away, sight dims, and the body drops. English calls it fainting or swooning, and that is what happens, but the Hebrew describes it from the outside in, as something closing over a person until they cannot stay upright.

All three places it appears are scenes of exposure with no relief:

  • the children of Jerusalem lying prostrate at every street corner after the siege
  • the strongest young men and women of Israel dropping from thirst on the day of reckoning
  • Jonah under a blazing sun and a scorching east wind, begging to die

In Isaiah the wording says the collapse was done to the sons of Jerusalem, not merely that it happened to them, which is why the verse sits inside a picture of the cup of God's anger. The word's own family keeps the double image alive: a noun from this same root (עֻלְפֶּה) is used once, in Ezekiel, of trees left in a stupor of mourning while the deep is drawn over a fallen cedar like a shroud. Covering and faintness sit in a single word there.

Isa 51:20Amo 8:13Jon 4:8

What scholars say about alaph

The root עלף is attested six times in the Masoretic Text, five of them verbal (Gen 38:14 and Amos 8:13, Jonah 4:8 in the Hitpael; Song 5:14 and Isa 51:20 in the Pual) plus the segholate noun עֻלְפֶּה at Ezek 31:15. Lexicography divides. BDB (763) and the Tregelles Gesenius print one root glossed "cover," with the swoon sense derived by metaphor ("enshrouded, enwrapped, i.e. their senses obscured"), adducing Arabic ghallafa "smear, cover, sheath" and Akkadian elpitu "pining"; HALOT, DCH VI, the 18th-edition Gesenius and Klein print two homonymous lemmas, עלף I "cover, envelop" and עלף II "be feeble, faint," while NIDOTTE (GK 6634) compromises with one entry holding two semantic clusters. Neither TDOT nor TLOT treats the root. Comparative evidence secures only the covering root: Ugaritic ǵlp (DULAT, s.v.) and Arabic ghalafa/ghilaf require Proto-Semitic *ġ, which falls together with Hebrew ʿayin, whereas the cognates adduced for the swoon sense are phonologically imperfect (Akkadian elpitu, elepu) or excluded outright (halapu, whose h reflects *ḫ/*ḥ). Arabic ʿalafa "to fodder" is a false cognate. The Pual participle at Song 5:14 stands in parallel with מְמֻלָּאִים as a jeweller's term, and commentators from Pope through Murphy, Fox, Longman, Garrett, Exum and Keel are effectively unanimous on "encrusted, overlaid with sapphires" (that is, lapis). At Gen 38:14 modern commentary (Wenham, Hamilton, Sarna, Waltke, Westermann, Skinner) reads a reflexive of the covering sense against the versions (LXX ἐκαλλωπίσατο, Vulgate mutato habitu, Onqelos Ithpaal of תקן), with Speiser the modern dissenter. The swoon passages are uncontested as to sense: Blenkinsopp, Goldingay and Payne, Paul, Baltzer, Koole, Childs and Westermann read collapse from siege and famine at Isa 51:20 (Goldingay and Payne parsing the Pual as intensive passive, "made to swoon"); Paul, Andersen and Freedman, Wolff, Jeremias, Stuart and Eidevall read literal fainting from thirst at Amos 8:13, where the pairing of maidens and young men functions as a merism for the healthiest of the population; Sasson reads sunstroke at Jonah 4:8, noting the versional split between LXX ὠλιγοψύχησεν (interior) and Vulgate aestuabat (external cause). Ezek 31:15 is the hinge: BDB emends the noun to a Pual perfect עֻלָּפָה after the LXX ἐξελύθησαν, while Zimmerli, Greenberg, Block and Allen retain the noun, Zimmerli explicitly reading it as encoding envelopment and faintness together and pairing the root with עטף. That exact parallel (עטף covers Ps 65:14 and languishes at Ps 61:3, 77:4, 102:1, 142:4, 143:4, Lam 2:19), together with the single Aramaic and Syriac root used across both types of passage in the Targumim and Peshitta, is the strongest argument that the two Hebrew poles are polysemy rather than homonymy; the modern split follows Barr's methodological caution against premature semantic unification.

Where scholars disagree about alaph

Whether Hebrew עלף is one polysemous root meaning "cover, envelop" (with "faint" as a metaphorical extension) or two unrelated homonyms, עלף I "cover" and עלף II "faint".

  • contestedTwo separate lemmas: עלף I "to cover, envelop" (Song 5:14; Gen 38:14), aligned with Arabic ghallafa, and עלף II "to be feeble, faint" (Isa 51:20; Amos 8:13; Jonah 4:8; Ezek 31:15), aligned with Akkadian elpitu. This is the settled practice of current critical lexicography.; L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, HALOT (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), s.v. עלף I, עלף II; D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. VI (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), s.v. עלף I, עלף II; R. Meyer, H. Donner, U. Ruterswoerden, eds., Gesenius Hebraeisches und aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch, 18th ed. (Berlin: Springer, 2013), s.v. עלף I, עלף II
  • contestedOne root glossed "cover," with the fainting sense derived by metaphor: to be enwrapped, hence to have the senses obscured, hence to swoon. Ezek 31:15's noun, glossed "an envelope, mourning," fuses both senses in a single word, and the identical polysemy of עטף shows the trajectory is a productive Hebrew idiom rather than a chance collision.; F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), 763; W. Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, trans. S. P. Tregelles (London, 1857), s.v. עָלַף; W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), ad 31:15
  • minorityA middle position: one lexical entry containing two distinct semantic clusters, neither fully unified nor split into homonyms.; W. A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), GK 6634
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

  • F. Brown, S. R. Driver, C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), 763, s.v. עָלַף, עֻלְפֶּהlexicon
  • L. Koehler, W. Baumgartner, J. J. Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. J. Richardson (Leiden: Brill, 1994-2001), s.v. עלף I, עלף IIlexicon
  • D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. VI (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), s.v. עלף I, עלף IIlexicon
  • R. Meyer, H. Donner, U. Ruterswoerden, eds., Wilhelm Gesenius Hebraeisches und aramaeisches Handwoerterbuch ueber das Alte Testament, 18th ed. (Berlin: Springer, 2013), s.v. עלף I, עלף IIlexicon
  • W. Gesenius, Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. S. P. Tregelles (London, 1857), s.v. עָלַףlexicon
  • E. Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (Jerusalem: Carta, 1987), s.v. עלף I, עלף IIetymological dictionary
  • W. A. VanGemeren, ed., New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), GK 6634theological-dictionary
  • M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (London / New York, 1903), 1085, s.v. עלףlexicon
  • M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan, 2002), s.v. עלףlexicon
  • G. del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartin, A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd rev. ed., trans. W. G. E. Watson (Leiden: Brill, 2015), s.v. glplexicon
  • E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, Book I, Part 6 (London, 1863-93), s.v. ghlflexicon
  • M. Pope, Song of Songs, AB 7C (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), 543-44commentary
  • R. E. Murphy, The Song of Songs, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 165-67commentary
  • M. V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 148-49monograph
  • G. J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50, WBC 2 (Dallas: Word, 1994), 366-68commentary
  • V. P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 442-44commentary
  • E. A. Speiser, Genesis, AB 1 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964), 297-301commentary
  • J. Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55, AB 19A (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 336commentary
  • J. Goldingay and D. Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40-55, ICC (London: T. and T. Clark, 2006), ad 51:20commentary
  • S. M. Paul, Amos, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 266-67commentary
  • F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos, AB 24A (New York: Doubleday, 1989), ad 8:13commentary
  • J. M. Sasson, Jonah, AB 24B (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 305-06commentary
  • W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), ad 31:15commentary
  • M. Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37, AB 22A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), ad 31:15commentary
  • J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968)monograph

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

All attested forms of עָלַף

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3fs

וַתִּתְעַלָּף

Gen 38:14

hithpael consecutive-imperfect 3ms

וַיִּתְעַלָּף

Jon 4:8

hithpael imperfect 3fp

תִּתְעַלַּפְנָה

Amo 8:13

pual passive-participle f s absolute

מְעֻלֶּפֶת

Sng 5:14

pual perfect 3cp

עֻלְּפוּ

Isa 51:20