Hebrew word · H2614
חָנַק
vaiyechanak
to strangle
To strangle, choke, throttle. This is the only reflexive or passive (Niphal) use in the Hebrew Bible: 'he strangled himself' or 'was strangled'. The intensive form describes a lion strangling prey for its lionesses (Nah 2:12 [Heb 2:13]).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to strangle, strangle oneself
1a) (Niphal) to strangle oneself
1b) (Piel) to strangle
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 2 Samuel 17:23
- Range of meaning
To strangle, choke, throttle. This is the only reflexive or passive (Niphal) use in the Hebrew Bible: 'he strangled himself' or 'was strangled'. The intensive form describes a lion strangling prey for its lionesses (Nah 2:12 [Heb 2:13]). The noun machanaq, 'strangling', appears in Job 7:15, where Job says he would choose strangling and death over his life.
- Against the English
Most English versions (KJV, NIV, ESV, BSB, WEB, NLT) say 'hanged himself'. NASB and YLT keep 'strangled himself'. 'Hanged' names a method. The Hebrew names only the effect: his breath was cut off.
- How it drifted
Ancient translators took the verb as hanging: the Greek Septuagint (apēnxato) and the Latin Vulgate (suspendio, 'by hanging'). Most English versions followed them. The reading is reasonable, but it narrows a broader verb.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Nah 2:12; Job 7:15. In later rabbinic Hebrew, cheneq ('strangling') is the name of one of the four forms of capital punishment (Mishnah Sanhedrin 7:1). The Septuagint's verb apanchomai is the one Matthew uses for Judas (Matt 27:5, 'he went away and hanged himself'), its only New Testament occurrence.
- Range of meaning
To strangle or choke. It is very rare in the Hebrew Bible: here (intensive form, 'strangling') and 2 Samuel 17:23, where Ahithophel 'strangled himself', that is, hanged himself. The meaning is secure from later Hebrew and Aramaic, where the root is the ordinary word for strangling or throttling.
- Against the English
KJV, WEB, BSB and ESV keep 'strangled'. Some modern versions flatten it to 'killed', which loses the throat-grip picture.
- Used elsewhere in the period
2 Samuel 17:23. Later Aramaic and rabbinic Hebrew (ḥeneq, 'strangulation') confirm the sense. The ancient Greek translation renders it with apopnigō, 'to choke'.
Similar words
Where it appears
2 Samuel · 1
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2 Samuel 17:23 וַיֵּחָנַ֑ק and he hanged himself
When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his affairs in order and hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.
Here: The verb means 'strangle, choke'. The form is reflexive: he strangled himself. The text does not say how. Hanging is the likely method and is how the ancient translations took it, but the Hebrew only says he cut off his own breath.
Nahum · 1
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Nahum 2:12 וּמְחַנֵּ֖ק and [was] strangling
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: 'And strangling', an intensive participle. It describes accurately how a lion kills large prey: by a crushing bite to the throat that suffocates the animal. It is a brutal, specific word, not a general 'kill'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.