Hebrew word · H2443

חַכָּה

chakah

hook

A fishhook used with a line. It is rare in the Bible and always literal fishing gear, though often used as a picture of capture.

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

hook, angle, hook fastened in jaw, fish hook

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 Habakkuk 1:15

Range of meaning

A fishhook used with a line. It is rare in the Bible and always literal fishing gear, though often used as a picture of capture.

Against the English

BSB, WEB and ESV: 'hook'. NIV: 'hooks'. KJV: 'angle', the older English word for a fishhook (which is why someone who fishes is an 'angler').

How it drifted

KJV's 'angle' was clear in 1611. Today it reads like geometry or 'point of view'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Isaiah 19:8 lists 'all who cast a hook (ḥakkāh) into the Nile' next to those who spread nets. Job 40:25 (41:1 in English) asks whether anyone can 'draw out Leviathan with a hook'. Close in idea are Amos 4:2 ('they will take you away with hooks… with fishhooks') and 2 Chronicles 33:11, where Manasseh is taken 'with hooks'. Assyrian art, such as Esarhaddon's stele from Zincirli (Sam'al), shows captive kings held by cords tied to rings through their lips. Hooks for prisoners were real, not only poetic.

Where it appears

Job · 1

  1. Job 41:1 בְּחַכָּ֑ה with a fish hook

    “Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 19:8 חַכָּ֑ה a fish hook

    Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast a hook into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the waters will pine away.

Habakkuk · 1

  1. Habakkuk 1:15 בְּחַכָּ֣ה with a fish hook

    The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

    Here: "With a hook": the single angler's barbed hook. It is the first of three fishing tools, starting with the smallest, catching one victim at a time.

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