Hebrew word · H2523
חַלָּשׁ
hachalash
weak
Weak, feeble, a weakling. It appears only here (a hapax legomenon, a word found just once). Its meaning comes from the related verb ḥālaš, "to be weak, to lie prostrate" (Job 14:10), and in the active sense "to overpower, lay low" (Exod 17:13; Isa 14:12).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
weak
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
- Range of meaning
Weak, feeble, a weakling. It appears only here (a hapax legomenon, a word found just once). Its meaning comes from the related verb ḥālaš, "to be weak, to lie prostrate" (Job 14:10), and in the active sense "to overpower, lay low" (Exod 17:13; Isa 14:12).
- Against the English
"The weak" (KJV, BSB, ESV, NASB) can sound like a spiritual or social class. NIV's "the weakling" and NLT's "your weaklings" keep the physical, military sense better: men unfit to fight.
- How it drifted
Taken out of context, "the weak" is heard as the spiritually needy or humble. In Joel it means the physically unfit men of the enemy nations.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The verb ḥālaš is used for military defeat in Exod 17:13 (Joshua "overwhelmed" Amalek) and for the fallen king of Babylon who "laid the nations low" (Isa 14:12). Later Hebrew uses ḥallāš for a weak or sickly person.
Where it appears
Joel · 1
-
Joel 3:10 הַֽחַלָּ֔שׁ the weak [man]
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’
Here: "The weakling." This word appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. It means someone without physical strength or fighting ability, the man who would normally be left out of the army. With the article, it stands for every such man.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.