Hebrew word · H2356

חֹר

chor-

hole

A hole or opening: holes in the ground or rocks where people hide (1 Sam 14:11), a viper's hole (Isa 11:8), a hole bored in a chest lid (2 Kgs 12:9), a door opening (Song 5:4).

Appears 7 times in 7 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

hole, cave

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Zechariah 14:12

Range of meaning

A hole or opening: holes in the ground or rocks where people hide (1 Sam 14:11), a viper's hole (Isa 11:8), a hole bored in a chest lid (2 Kgs 12:9), a door opening (Song 5:4).

Against the English

KJV and YLT keep the literal "holes"; BSB, WEB and most modern versions say "sockets," which is correct anatomically but loses the raw, unclinical word.

Used elsewhere in the period

Common ordinary word for openings and cavities; used nowhere else for eye sockets.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 14:11 הַחֹרִ֖ים the holes

    So the two of them showed themselves to the outpost of the Philistines, who exclaimed, “Look, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes in which they were hiding!”

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 12:9 חֹ֖ר a hole

    Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one enters the house of the LORD. There the priests who guarded the threshold put all the money brought into the house of the LORD.

Job · 1

  1. Job 30:6 חֹרֵ֖י holes of

    so that they lived on the slopes of the wadis, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.

Song of Songs · 1

  1. Song of Songs 5:4 הַחֹ֔ר the hole

    My beloved put his hand to the latch; my heart pounded for him.

Ezekiel · 1

  1. Ezekiel 8:7 חֹר־ a hole

    Then He brought me to the entrance to the court, and I looked and saw a hole in the wall.

Nahum · 1

  1. Nahum 2:12 חֹרָ֔יו hole its

    The lion mauled enough for its cubs and strangled prey for the lioness. It filled its dens with the kill, and its lairs with mauled prey.

    Here: 'His holes', meaning hollows or caves in rock. A plain, almost crude word for the lion's hiding-places, and here a picture of Nineveh's palaces and storehouses.

Zechariah · 1

  1. Zechariah 14:12 בְחֹֽרֵיהֶ֔ן in sockets their

    And this will be the plague with which the LORD strikes all the peoples who have warred against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths.

    Here: "Hole" (used of holes in rock or a door, 2 Kgs 12:9); here the eye sockets. The suffix is feminine plural, "their" referring to the eyes: the eyes rot inside their own holes.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.