Hebrew word · H2636

חַסְפַּס

mechuspas

to peel

This word occurs only here in the Bible, so its meaning has to be worked out from related languages and early translations. It is a passive participle of a four-letter root formed by doubling (ḥ-s-p-s). BDB tentatively gives 'flake-like' and HALOT 'scaly, flaky'. The meaning is not certain.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) (Pual) to peel, flake off (only in the participle)

1a) scale-like, flake-like, scaled-off

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 Exodus 16:14

Range of meaning

This word occurs only here in the Bible, so its meaning has to be worked out from related languages and early translations. It is a passive participle of a four-letter root formed by doubling (ḥ-s-p-s). Most scholars take it as 'peeled off', 'scaly' or 'flaky', comparing it with Aramaic and later Hebrew חַסְפָּא (ḥaspa, 'potsherd, shard, scale') and with Arabic words for peeling or for a rough, scaly surface. BDB tentatively gives 'flake-like' and HALOT 'scaly, flaky'. The meaning is not certain.

Against the English

KJV and WEB: 'small round thing'. YLT: 'bare thing'. BSB, NIV, ESV and NASB: 'flakes' or 'flake-like'. NLT: 'flaky substance'. Hebrew philology does not support 'round'. The roundness readers picture probably comes from the comparison with coriander seed in v.31 and Num 11:7, not from this word.

How it drifted

Reformation-era English Bibles (Geneva, then KJV) used 'small round thing'. Where 'round' came from is unclear. It may come from medieval Jewish attempts to explain this one-off word, or it may borrow the coriander-seed image from 16:31. Because the KJV was so influential, many readers still imagine manna as little round pellets.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint does not translate the word directly. It renders the clause 'fine like coriander seed, white like frost', drawing details from 16:31. The Latin Vulgate has 'small and as if pounded with a pestle'. The Aramaic Targum uses a word that means 'peeled' or 'flaking'. Rabbinic writers argued over the term, which shows the meaning was already uncertain in antiquity.

Where it appears

Exodus · 1

  1. Exodus 16:14 מְחֻסְפָּ֔ס flake-like

    When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground.

    Here: This word occurs only here in the Bible. Comparison with related languages points to 'peeled off', 'scaly' or 'flaking', so it describes something that comes away in thin flakes. The KJV's 'round' is not supported by the evidence.

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