When the word describes something a person does, rather than a laugh that simply happens, it stretches across a surprising range of behavior. The same verb can mean joking around, playing and reveling, teasing or taunting someone, fondling a husband or wife, or humiliating a captive. What it means in any one place depends on who the action is aimed at and how the people watching react.
At the gentle end, Lot's warning of coming disaster strikes his sons-in-law as a joke, so he looks to them like a man who is only kidding. Isaac is caught in an unmistakably tender, private moment with his wife Rebekah, and a watching king realizes at once that they are married. At the harsh end, Potiphar's wife uses the word to accuse Joseph of forcing himself on her, and the blinded Samson is dragged out to be laughed at as entertainment.
Two scenes sit in the middle and have been argued over for a very long time. In one, Sarah sees Ishmael doing this at Isaac's weaning feast and demands that he and his mother be sent away. In the other, the people at the golden calf sit down to eat and drink and then rise up to do this. In both, the single word could mean innocent play, mockery, or something sexual, and the English word a translator chooses quietly settles the meaning of the whole scene.
Nuances
2ato jest: to be joking, or to strike others as someone who is only kidding
Gen 19:14*
2bto play or revel: boisterous activity that can be read as harmless fun, as mockery, or as something sexual
Gen 21:9*Exo 32:6*
Gen 21:9
What Ishmael is doing when Sarah sees him at Isaac's weaning feast, and why she then demands that he and Hagar be expelled. The Hebrew states no object; the Greek and Latin traditions add "with Isaac," which sharpens but does not settle the question.
- contestedInnocent play. The word here means nothing more than a child playing, and Sarah's demand is driven by anxiety over inheritance, not by anything Ishmael actually did.; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Anchor Bible); Claus Westermann, Genesis 12-36; Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis (JPS Torah Commentary)
- contestedMocking or taunting. The intensive form of the verb plus Sarah's swift, harsh reaction together imply derisive behavior aimed at Isaac; Paul reads the scene this way in Galatians 4:29.; Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 16-50 (Word Biblical Commentary); Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18-50 (NICOT); Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 11:27-50:26 (New American Commentary)
- minorityUsurpation, or "playing the Isaac." Because the verb echoes Isaac's own name, Sarah sees Ishmael presuming to take her son's place and inheritance.; Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary; Devora Steinmetz, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis
- minoritySexual abuse. Since the intensive form elsewhere carries a sexual charge, some read the verb here as molestation, which would explain the severity of the expulsion.; Genesis Rabbah 53:11 (R. Akiva)
Exo 32:6
Whether the people's activity at the golden calf is festive, cultic revelry or a sexual orgy. The verb is left undetermined; the reading turns on whether one weights the festival context or the broader pattern of the intensive form.
- contestedRevelry without sex: dancing, singing, and merrymaking as part of the cultic festival.; Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus; John I. Durham, Exodus (Word Biblical Commentary); Cornelis Houtman, Exodus 20-40 (Historical Commentary on the Old Testament)
- contestedA sexual orgy, drawing on the erotic range of the cognate Akkadian verb and on Paul's linkage of the scene with sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 10:7-8.; Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus (Old Testament Library); William H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 (Anchor Yale Bible)
2cto caress: to touch and play with a husband or wife in an openly intimate way
CertaintySettled
Gen 26:8*
2dto mock or molest: to make a person the target of laughing abuse, often with a sexual edge
CertaintySettled
Gen 39:14*Gen 39:17*
2eto be made a spectacle: to be brought out and laughed at as forced entertainment
Jdg 16:25*