to go slack: for a grip, a hand, or strength to loosen and give way, or to make it do so, ranging from losing heart to letting go to leaving alone
At its root this verb pictures a hand losing its hold. A clenched hand stands for strength, resolve, and effort, so when a hand goes slack the picture can be physical, emotional, or moral all at once: weapons fall, courage drains, work stops, a grip is released. Almost every use can be paraphrased as "the grip slackens" or "let the grip slacken," and the Hebrew Bible never quite lets the bodily image die out underneath the figurative meaning.
The range fans out from that single image. When strength itself drains away, the hands go slack and a person loses heart. When something physical sinks, droops, or lets up, the same word describes a day fading toward evening, anger cooling, or a girdle coming loose. When the slackness is willful, it becomes idleness, the chronic failure to keep one's hand to the task. And when the slackening is deliberate and aimed outward, the word means to let go, to release a hold, to leave someone alone, or to call off an attack.
The most weighted use turns the image into a promise. To not let go is to keep one's grip no matter what, and that is exactly the pledge God makes to his people: I will not loosen my hold on you and I will not walk away. The same word that warns of failing courage and idle hands carries one of Scripture's strongest assurances that God will never let his people drop.
This is one word with a wide reach, not several unrelated words. It should not be confused with the similar looking verb meaning "to heal," which scholars treat as a separate word despite the overlap in spelling.
Nuances
Disputed
How to render and to whom to address the imperative of Psalm 46:10 (Hebrew 46:11), harpu: whether it is a contemplative call to the worshipping community to be still, or a martial command to the raging nations to cease their warfare and stand down.
- majorityA command to the warring nations to desist from battle and acknowledge God's kingship, fitting the verb's active force (let the hand go slack, that is, drop your weapons) and the surrounding context of God ending wars; the Targum, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Radak preserve this martial-vocative reading.; P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, WBC 19 (Word, 1983), p. 344; H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Continental Commentary (Fortress, 1988), ad 46:11; F.-L. Hossfeld and E. Zenger, Psalms 2, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2005), on Pss 46-48; R. Alter, The Book of Psalms (Norton, 2007), p. 165
- minorityA theophanic call to the festal congregation to be still and rest before God, the contemplative reading carried into Western devotion by the Greek and Latin versions.; A. Weiser, The Psalms, OTL (Westminster, 1962), on Ps 46