to sling: to send a stone flying from a sling, and so to fling a person away with that same force.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
A sling was a strap with a pouch in the middle. The thrower whirled it, let one end go, and the stone flew fast, far and straight. This verb is the word for doing that, and it turns up where the Bible wants accuracy and violence in the same breath: the seven hundred picked men of Benjamin could hit a hair and never miss, and one stone from David's sling dropped Goliath.
Twice the picture is turned on people. Abigail promises David that God will fling the lives of his enemies away out of the hollow of a sling (קֶלַע), and Jeremiah hears God announce that he is about to fling the people of the land out of it. The word is chosen deliberately in both places, because a slung stone carries three things at once:
the throw is aimed, never accidental
what is thrown ends up far past any hope of return
the one who slings decides exactly where it lands
That is why the same word fits a promise of rescue in one place and a sentence of exile in the other. The action does not change; only the target does.
Nuances
1ato send a stone flying from a sling at a target
Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
1bto fling people away as a sling flings its stone, said of God removing them from where they stand
TranslatabilityApproximate
1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
2
to carve: to cut figures into wood so that they stand out from the flat surface.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This verb belongs to one building. It appears three times, all in the account of Solomon's temple, and always for the same job: cutting figures into wooden walls and doors so they rise out of the surface. The set of figures never changes either. Cherubim, palm trees and open flowers run first around the walls of the main room, then across the doors of the innermost room, then across the doors of the hall in front of it.
Hebrew likes to pair a verb with the noun built from it, and 1 Kings 6:29 does exactly that, setting this word beside the noun for carved work (מִקְלַעַת). The doubling is not decoration for its own sake. It says the carving ran over the whole surface, inside and out.
One more detail matters. The carved surfaces were then covered with gold. So this work was never meant to be seen as bare wood: it gave the gold its shape, and what a visitor saw was a gold wall with figures standing out of it.
the Hebrew verb is also used of God flinging people out of their land, a use that carries the full weight of judgment, where English "sling" can sound far too light for what is happening.Jer 10:181Sa 25:29
Both
both words name sending a stone flying by whirling it out of a strap and letting go.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
Only sling
in everyday English "sling" often means to toss something carelessly, as in slinging a bag over a shoulder, which drains away the aim and the deadly force the Hebrew carries.
the Hebrew verb is used only of the temple's decorative figure work, the same cherubim, palm trees and open flowers cut again and again into wall and door.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:35
Both
both describe cutting a figure into a solid surface so that it stands out from it.1Ki 6:32
Only carve
English "carve" stretches from whittling a stick to slicing a roast, so it gives no hint of the formal, repeated decorative scheme the Hebrew is describing.
“hurl out”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“sling out”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How qala differs from similar Hebrew words
קֶלַעthe sling itself, the strap and pouch a stone is whirled from. The same spelling also names the woven hangings around the tabernacle courtyard.
Names the act of slinging as a piece of marksmanship: the whirl, the release, and the hit on a chosen target. Benjamin's left-handed fighters could sling a stone at a hair and not miss, and David's one shot from the brook lands in Goliath's forehead.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
Takes people as what is thrown, so the picture becomes God flinging a whole population out of the land it stands on, with the same speed and the same helplessness the stone has.Jer 10:18
Carries a second, entirely different sense in the temple building account, where it means cutting figures into wood so that palms, flowers, and winged creatures stand out from the panels and doors. Nothing is thrown at all.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
One verse holds both words in a single image, and it is the clearest place to see how they fit together: Abigail tells David that the lives of his enemies will be slung away out of the hollow of a sling.1Sa 25:29
Both words also turn up in the accounts of building Israel's sanctuary, where neither has anything to do with warfare: one for figures cut into the temple's woodwork, the other for the linen screening the courtyard. Meeting either word in Exodus or 1 Kings, do not assume a weapon is in view.1Ki 6:32Exo 27:11
Names a physical object a person can pick up, carry, and stock: David takes his sling in his hand along with five smooth stones, and Uzziah's armory lays in stones for slinging beside the shields and spears.1Sa 17:401Sa 17:502Ch 26:14
Supplies a stock image through the stone that belongs to it. Against the great sea creature slingstones count for no more than straw, and a promise of victory says the fighters will trample the stones shot at them.Job 41:28Zec 9:15
Carries a second sense with no weapon in it at all: the long lengths of woven linen, measured out in cubits and hung on posts, that fence in the tabernacle courtyard, and the folding panels of a temple door.Exo 27:9Exo 38:9Num 3:261Ki 6:34
קַלָּעthe person who does it: a slinger in an army, named once among Moab's attackers.
Only the verb reaches past the battlefield. It is the word for God flinging a people out of the land they are standing on, and for the promise that he will fling an enemy's life away as a stone leaves the pouch. The word for the man who slings never carries that picture of judgment.1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
The same spelling as this verb is also used for cutting figures into the wooden walls and doors of Solomon's temple, work that has nothing to do with weapons. The word for a slinger stays with the army and never turns up in that building account.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
Both assume the same equipment and the same motion: a stone whirled in a strap and released at a target, whether the text names the act or the man who performs it.Jdg 20:162Ki 3:25
Both belong to the language of real warfare, where a slung stone is a weapon that can decide a fight or bring down a city wall, not a shepherd boy's toy.1Sa 17:492Ki 3:25
This word names a kind of soldier rather than a moment of throwing, so a commander can bring these men up and place them. In its one appearance they surround the city first, and the striking follows after they are in position.2Ki 3:25
In that same verse the ordinary word for throwing covers what every soldier did with the stones in his hand as they ruined the good fields, while this word marks off the men whose weapon was the sling. It draws a line between troops in general and one trained specialty within them.2Ki 3:25
שָׁלַךְthe ordinary word for throwing or casting something away, with no weapon and no aim implied.
names one specific piece of equipment in action: a stone whirled in a leather strap and released, which is a soldier's skill rather than a bare movement of the arm.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
carries accuracy with it. The throw is aimed at a mark and expected to hit it, which is why the word turns up where the text is praising marksmanship or reporting a killing shot.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
when it is turned on people, the sling stays in the picture: a life is sent out of the pouch of a sling, far past any hope of coming back, and Jeremiah uses the same image for God clearing the land of its inhabitants.1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
the same spelling covers a completely different trade. Three times it is the word for cutting figures into the wooden walls and doors of Solomon's temple, a use that has nothing to do with throwing anything.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
both send something out of the hand through the air with real force, so that it lands well away from where it started.1Sa 17:49Exo 32:19
both are used of God removing a people from their land, and English versions often render either one as "cast out" or "hurl out", which hides the difference between them.Jer 10:182Ki 17:20Jer 7:15
is the everyday, all purpose word for throwing. Any hand can do it with any object, and no weapon, skill, or target is implied: a staff dropped to the ground, a piece of wood tossed into bitter water, stone tablets smashed at the foot of a mountain, a millstone dropped from a wall.Exo 4:3Exo 15:25Exo 32:19Jdg 9:53
is the standard word for putting a person or a corpse somewhere by throwing it in, so the destination matters more than the flight: a pit, a cistern, a river, a heap of stones, a grave.Gen 37:24Exo 1:222Sa 18:17Jer 38:6
carries a settled sense of getting rid of something. People throw away idols and silver they no longer want, and God is said to throw sins behind his back or into the sea, none of which involves force or distance so much as disposal.Isa 2:20Ezk 7:19Isa 38:17Mic 7:19
טוּלto hurl, used of cargo thrown overboard and of God throwing a people out of their land. It stresses the violence rather than the aim.
This word names throwing with a weapon, the sling, and it carries the marksman's accuracy with it: seven hundred men who could hit a single hair without missing, and the one stone that sank into the giant's forehead.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
The sling's parts stay visible even when the picture turns to people. A life is kept safe in God's pouch while enemies are whirled out of the hollow of the sling, an image built entirely on the weapon.1Sa 25:29
The same spelling also covers a craftsman cutting figures into the temple's wooden walls and doors, work that has nothing to do with throwing anything.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
Both are used of God throwing a whole people out of the land they live in, so the exile reads as one violent act of removal rather than a long march into captivity.Jer 16:13Jer 22:26Jer 10:18
Both can take a human being as the thing thrown, and in both the person has no say in the matter: they leave one place and land in another because someone stronger sent them there.Jon 1:15Isa 22:171Sa 25:29
This is throwing by sheer bodily force, with no weapon and no device: a spear flung across a room in a fit of rage, cargo heaved over a ship's side, a man lifted up and pitched into the water.1Sa 18:11Jon 1:5Jon 1:15
What gets thrown can be the weather itself. God flings a great wind down onto the sea, so the storm arrives as something hurled rather than something that gathers.Jon 1:4
It also covers being knocked flat rather than sent flying at anything: the man who stumbles yet is not left sprawling, and the fighter who collapses at the mere sight of the sea beast.Psa 37:24Job 41:9
At its quietest it is the lot dropped into the fold of a robe, where nothing is aimed at a target and no violence is on display at all.Pro 16:33
מִקְלַעַתthe carved work itself, the finished figures this verb produces on the temple's walls and doors.
Carries a completely separate everyday meaning that has nothing to do with decoration: to hurl a stone from a sling. Seven hundred left-handed Benjaminites could sling at a hair and not miss, and David slung the stone that struck Goliath in the forehead.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
That slinging sense stretches into a picture of people being flung away. Abigail says God will sling out the lives of David's enemies from the hollow of a sling, and God says he is about to sling the people of the land out of it.1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
Names the act of cutting the design, so it always has someone doing it, and the figures can be its direct object with no separate noun for the finished work. On the outer doors the account simply says he cut cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, then overlaid them with gold.1Ki 6:35
Both
In the account of Solomon's temple the two words work as a matched pair in one sentence, the verb for the cutting and the noun for what the cutting produced. The walls all around and the olive wood doors are each described this way.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:32
Both belong to the same craft of cutting a raised pattern into a surface, and in every place they are used the pattern is pictures rather than writing: cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers.1Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Names the finished ornament itself, something a visitor can look at, listed in a description of the building with no craftsman in view. The cedar lining is simply reported as carved with gourds and open flowers, and the point of the sentence is what the room looks like, not who did the work.1Ki 6:18
Reaches past woodwork to metal fittings: the engraved patterns on the mouth of the bronze stands are called by this word, set next to a note that their square frames were not round. The other word's carving is only ever done on cedar walls and wooden doors.1Ki 7:31
חָקָהto cut an image into a surface, used of figures scratched onto a wall rather than raised out of the wood.
Its most common use has nothing to do with cutting at all. It is the word for whirling a sling and letting the stone go, an aimed and violent throw: seven hundred picked men of Benjamin who could hit a hair and never miss, and the one stone David sent into Goliath's forehead.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
From that throw it stretches to people being flung away by God, so it can carry a whole sentence of removal. Abigail promises that God will sling the lives of David's enemies out of the pouch of a sling, and Jeremiah hears God announce that he is about to sling out the people of the land.1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
Where it does mean what English versions render "carve", it names the workman at work, and the text lists what he cuts: cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, first around the walls of the temple and then across its doors.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:32
Both
The two words meet in a single line of the temple account, one supplying the cutting and the other the cut surface it left behind. He carved the cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, then laid gold evenly over the incised work, so the gold took its shape from what had already been cut.1Ki 6:35
This word is used for figures set into a flat wall, so what a person sees is a picture spread over a surface rather than shapes standing out from it. Ezekiel walks into a room and finds crawling creatures and idols covering the wall all the way around, and in another vision he sees a line of Chaldean figures running along a wall.Ezk 8:10Ezk 23:14
It also covers a bare line scratched around something as a mark or a boundary, with no decoration and no craftsman anywhere in view. Job complains that God traces a line about the soles of his feet, fixing how far he is allowed to walk.Job 13:27
פָּסַלto hew an image out of stone or wood, the word behind carved idols. It produces a standing object, not decoration on a surface.
Its everyday meaning has nothing to do with craftsmanship: it is whirling a stone from a sling and sending it at a mark, used of Benjamin's marksmen who could hit a hair and of David's single stone that dropped Goliath.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
That throw becomes a picture of God removing people, flinging enemies away as a stone leaves the pouch and hurling a whole population out of its land.1Sa 25:29Jer 10:18
When it does mean cutting, the result stays attached to the surface: cherubim, palm trees and open flowers raised out of the flat wood of the temple's walls and doors, decoration rather than a separate object.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
Both name skilled cutting done for the house of God, and they sit a chapter apart in the same building account: one for the stone the builders prepared, the other for the wooden panels that lined it.1Ki 5:181Ki 6:29
Both make a figure by cutting material away with a tool, which is why English Bibles reach for "carve" or "grave" for either one. What separates them is what the figure is for, worship of the true God or of a manufactured one.Hab 2:181Ki 6:35
It cuts raw stone down into a finished object that then stands on its own. Moses cuts two stone tablets for the second set of commandments, and Solomon's builders dress the blocks that go into the temple walls.Exo 34:1Exo 34:4Deu 10:1Deu 10:31Ki 5:18
It is the working word behind idol making. The Hebrew noun usually rendered "carved image" is built from this verb, so when a prophet asks what a craftsman gains by shaping his god, this is the verb he uses.Hab 2:18
qala in the other biblical languages
ῥίπτωGreek“to throw/lay down”the Greek verb for flinging or throwing something down, the nearest New Testament match for the violent throwing picture, though no sling is involved.
It names the work of a particular weapon, the sling: a stone whirled in a strap and released, not something released straight from the hand.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
It carries the idea of marksmanship, of hitting what you were aiming at from a distance. Benjamin's left-handed troops could sling at a hair and not miss, and David's one stone struck Goliath exactly where he aimed it.Jdg 20:161Sa 17:49
The same spelling carries a second, unrelated meaning in the temple building account, where craftsmen cut figures of angels, palm trees, and open flowers into the wooden walls and doors.1Ki 6:291Ki 6:321Ki 6:35
Both
Both send an object away with enough force that it travels beyond reach, and English Bibles reach for the same words for each of them, usually "cast" or "threw".1Sa 17:49Mat 27:5
Both can take a person as the thing thrown, picturing someone flung out of the place where they stood: God hurling a people off their own land, or a wrongdoer pitched into the sea.Jer 10:181Sa 25:29Luk 17:2
It covers simply putting something down or letting it drop, with no aim and no target at all. People lay the sick at Jesus' feet, and a crowd is pictured lying where it has been left, worn out and uncared for.Mat 15:30Mat 9:36
It is the ordinary word for getting rid of something: money flung down and abandoned, a ship's gear heaved overboard to lighten her, coats thrown about in a burst of rage. What matters is that the thing leaves your hands, not where it lands.Mat 27:5Act 27:19Act 22:23
It can describe a controlled lowering rather than a hurl, as when sailors let anchors down from the stern into the water.Act 27:29
What scholars say about qala
The standard critical lexicons divide this spelling into two unrelated verbs: HALOT and BDB list קלע I "to sling, hurl" beside קלע II "to carve", and DCH keeps the same division. The first belongs to the wider Semitic vocabulary of slinging and stands with the noun קֶלַע "sling" and the agent noun קַלָּע "slinger". The second is confined to the temple account in 1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35, where it appears with its own cognate noun מִקְלַעַת "carved work" and in the same lexical field as פִּתּוּחַ "engraving" and the passive participle מְחֻקֶּה "incised", the technical vocabulary of the building's decorative program. The lexicons likewise keep קֶלַע I "sling" and קֶלַע II "the woven hangings of the tabernacle court" as separate entries, and no derivational link between the carving verb and either noun is established. The figurative usage in 1 Samuel 25:29 and Jeremiah 10:18 is handled within קלע I rather than as a further split, since both retain the sling image explicitly: 25:29 names כַּף הַקָּלַע, "the hollow of the sling".
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. קלעlexicon
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. קלעlexicon
DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. קלעlexicon
Mordechai Cogan, I Kings, Anchor Bible (2001)commentary
James A. Montgomery and Henry S. Gehman, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Kings, ICC (1951)commentary