StrongerBible

pu'aḥ

פּוּחַ

HebrewH6315“blow, breathe, ...”

Appears 14 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 10:5Psa 12:5(6)Pro 6:19Pro 12:17Pro 14:5Pro 14:25Pro 19:5Pro 19:9Pro 29:8Sng 2:17Sng 4:6Sng 4:16Ezk 21:31(36)Hab 2:3
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradePOO-akhverb

What pu'aḥ means

1

to blow or breathe: to send air moving, whether a breeze wafting coolness and scent, the stoking of a fire, or a scornful snort

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is a modest Hebrew verb for air in motion. Its clearest uses picture a breeze. In the Song of Songs the lovers wait "until the day breathes and the shadows flee," and elsewhere the beloved calls the wind to blow across a garden so that its fragrance spreads. The same verb can turn fierce: God "blows" the fire of his wrath against a doomed nation, and troublemakers "inflame" a whole city, the way a breath fans a spark into a blaze.

It can also carry contempt. In one psalm the arrogant man "snorts" at everyone who stands in his way, blowing them off with a puff of scorn. So the range runs from a gentle evening breeze to a blast of fire to a dismissive snort, all held together by the single picture of air pushed out, whether softly or with force.

A closely related and far more common verb, נָפַח, covers much of the same ground: God breathing life into the first man, or a fire fanned by bellows. This word is the rarer cousin, leaning toward the wafting of a breeze and the flaring of a flame.

Nuances

1aof the day, to breathe: the daytime breeze that marks the cool of the day
Sng 2:17Sng 4:6
1bto blow upon something so its fragrance spreads; to waft
Sng 4:16
1cto blow upon a fire: to kindle, to inflame
Pro 29:8Ezk 21:31(36)
1dto snort or puff at someone in scorn
Psa 10:5
2

a witness: one who gives testimony in a dispute, whether a truthful witness or a lying one

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyContested

Ten times in the Hebrew Bible a form of this word appears that looks like the verb "he breathes out" but sits awkwardly in its sentence. In the Proverbs sayings it stands in lockstep parallel with the ordinary word for a courtroom witness (עֵד): "a faithful witness does not lie, but a false one pours out falsehoods." Reading it as a second word for "witness" makes the two halves of the line match exactly.

Since the discovery of ancient texts at Ugarit, where a matching word means "witness" in legal documents, most modern scholars and the major dictionaries treat these forms as a distinct noun, "testifier," rather than as the verb for breathing. On this reading a lying witness is not merely performing an act of exhaling falsehood; he simply is a false witness, named for what he does in a lawsuit.

The reading is strongest in Proverbs, where the plain word for "witness" stands right beside it. It is more contested in one psalm and in Habakkuk, where the same form has also been read as "the safety he longs for," "the one who snorts at him," or "a witness to" the appointed end.

Nuances

2aa witness who gives testimony, true or false
Psa 12:5(6)Pro 6:19Pro 12:17Pro 14:5Pro 14:25Pro 19:5Pro 19:9
Psa 12:5

How to read the word in Psalm 12:5 (Hebrew 12:6): as a noun "a witness for him," or as one of several competing verbs.

  • contestedA witness for the oppressed. The same word is used for a legal witness in Ugaritic, and the preposition "for him" never accompanies the verb "blow at," which favors the noun.; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms I (Anchor Bible 16); Patrick D. Miller, "YĀPÎAḤ in Psalm XII 6," Vetus Testamentum 29 (1979): 495–501
  • contestedThe safety for which the afflicted one longs (the traditional verb "pant, long for").; BDB, s.v. פוח
  • contestedThe one who snorts at or rages against him.; HALOT, s.v. פוח; Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59 (Continental Commentary)
2ban attesting witness to something yet to come
Hab 2:3
Hab 2:3

Whether the word in Habakkuk 2:3 is a noun "a witness to the end" paralleling "the vision," or a verb "hastens, pants."

  • contestedA witness to the appointed end. The parallel with "the vision" favors reading it as testimony, agreeing with the noun recovered from Ugaritic.; J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Old Testament Library, 1991)
  • contestedThe vision hastens or pants toward its fulfillment (the traditional verb).; O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (NICOT, 1990)
  • minorityIt utters or breathes toward the end (a middle position between verb and noun).; J. Gerald Janzen, "Habakkuk 2:2–4 in the Light of Recent Philological Advances," Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980): 53–78

What scholars say about pu'aḥ

The traditional lemma פּוּחַ merges what comparative Semitics now treats as more than one historical root. A genuine hollow verb פּוּחַ "exhale, waft, diffuse" (Proto-Semitic *p-w-ḥ, cognate with Arabic fāḥa "diffuse fragrance") accounts for Song 2:17; 4:6; 4:16; Ezekiel 21:36 (English 21:31); Psalm 10:5; and, in the sense "kindle, inflame," Proverbs 29:8, whose plural inflection and direct object קִרְיָה "city" rule out any nominal analysis. Alongside it, ten forms pointed as Hiphil imperfects (יָפִיחַ / יָפֵחַ) are now widely read as a noun yāpîaḥ "witness, testifier" of the yaqtīl pattern. D. Winton Thomas (VTSup 3, 1955) first proposed a nominal "utterer" on grounds of parallelism; Mitchell Dahood pressed the Ugaritic evidence in his Psalms (Anchor Bible, 1966–1970); Dennis Pardee consolidated the case in a 1978 study of ypḥ as "witness" in Hebrew and Ugaritic (Vetus Testamentum 28: 204–213), marshaling nineteen Ugaritic legal tokens in which ypḥ renders Akkadian šību "witness"; Patrick D. Miller (Vetus Testamentum 29, 1979: 495–501) added the syntactic argument that this root followed by the preposition lə never means "blow at," so Psalm 12:6 (English 12:5) is best read nominally; and W. G. E. Watson (SEL 34–36, 2017–2019: 83–92) grounded the noun in Proto-Semitic *b-w-ḥ "disclose" (Arabic bāḥa, Ge'ez bōḥa). The decisive evidence is that Ugaritic still distinguishes the two throat-consonants that Hebrew and Aramaic later merged, spelling the "witness" word with one and the "blow" word with the other, so the two Hebrew look-alikes descend from etymologically separate roots. HALOT, DCH, Gesenius 18, and KAHAL accordingly list the "witness" noun as a separate entry; BDB and Gesenius-Buhl, completed before the Ugaritic finds of 1929, knew only the verbal root. Conservative commentators such as Waltke (Proverbs) and Robertson (Habakkuk) retain the verb, and Fox (Anchor Yale Bible Proverbs) credits the analysis while still translating verbally, on the ground that "breathes out lies" and "a testifier of lies" yield essentially the same courtroom sense. The Septuagint read these forms verbally but often reached for a "kindle, inflame" sense (ekkaiei in Proverbs, emphysaō in Ezekiel, diapneō in Song), an ancient witness to a productive verb weighted toward combustion rather than speech. Distinct from both is נָפַח (Proto-Semitic *n-p-ḫ, Akkadian napāḫu, Arabic nafaḫa), the ordinary verb for blowing and breathing, to which Genesis 2:7 and Job 41:20 (נָפוּחַ "a fanned pot") belong.

Where scholars disagree about pu'aḥ

Whether the ten look-alike forms usually parsed as the verb "breathe out, puff" are instead a distinct noun meaning "witness, testifier," making this dictionary entry two homonyms rather than one verb.

  • majorityA distinct noun "witness" underlies the Proverbs sayings, Psalm 12, and Habakkuk 2. It matches a legal term in the Ugaritic tablets, yields tighter parallelism with the ordinary word for witness, and is now listed as a separate lexeme by the major modern dictionaries.; HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), s.v. יָפֵחַ; David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. יפח; Dennis Pardee, "ypḥ 'Witness' in Hebrew and Ugaritic," Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978): 204–213; Mitchell Dahood, Psalms (Anchor Bible, 1966–1970)
  • minorityThere is only one verb, "to blow, breathe out." The disputed forms mean "breathes out (lies)," and the parallelism with "witness" is a natural figure of speech rather than proof of a second word.; BDB (Brown, Driver, Briggs), s.v. פוח, p. 806; Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs (NICOT, 2004–2005); O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (NICOT, 1990)
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 (Brown, Driver, Briggs), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. פוח, p. 806lexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. פוח and יָפֵחַlexicon
  • David J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (DCH), s.v. יפחlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius' Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch, 18th ed. (Donner, Meyer, Rüterswörden)lexicon
  • D. Winton Thomas, in Hebrew and Semitic Studies Presented to G. R. Driver (VTSup 3, 1955), p. 289article
  • Mitchell Dahood, Psalms (Anchor Bible 16, 17, 17A, 1966–1970)commentary
  • Dennis Pardee, "ypḥ 'Witness' in Hebrew and Ugaritic," Vetus Testamentum 28 (1978): 204–213article
  • Patrick D. Miller, "YĀPÎAḤ in Psalm XII 6," Vetus Testamentum 29 (1979): 495–501article
  • W. G. E. Watson, "Puzzling Passages Involving Ugaritic ypḥ," Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici 34–36 (2017–2019): 83–92article
  • J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Old Testament Library, 1991), 105–106commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs (NICOT, 2004–2005)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31 (Anchor Yale Bible, 2009)commentary
  • O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (NICOT, 1990)commentary
  • J. Gerald Janzen, "Habakkuk 2:2–4 in the Light of Recent Philological Advances," Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980): 53–78article

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

All attested forms of פּוּחַ

qal imperfect 3ms

יָפִיחַ, יָּפוּחַ

Psa 10:5, Psa 12:5, Pro 6:19, Pro 12:17, Sng 2:17, Sng 4:6

qal conjunctive-imperfect 3ms

וְיָפִיחַ, וְיָפִחַ

Pro 14:5, Pro 19:5, Pro 19:9, Pro 14:25

hiphil imperative 2fs

הָפִיחִי

Sng 4:16

qal imperfect 1cs

אָפִיחַ

Ezk 21:31

qal imperfect 3mp

יָפִיחוּ

Pro 29:8

qal jussive 3ms

יָפֵחַ

Hab 2:3