Hebrew word · H3710

כֵּף

uvakefim

rock

Rocks, crags, rocky clefts. It occurs only here and in Job 30:6. The word comes from Aramaic: kêpā, 'rock, stone'.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

rock, hollow of a rock

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 Jeremiah 4:29

Range of meaning

Rocks, crags, rocky clefts. It occurs only here and in Job 30:6. The word comes from Aramaic: kêpā, 'rock, stone'.

Against the English

'Rocks' is accurate. Versions differ only in wording: 'climb among the rocks', or KJV 'climb up upon the rocks'.

Used elsewhere in the period

Job 30:6 describes outcasts who live 'in the clefts of the wadis, in holes of the earth and of the rocks (kēpîm)', the lowest possible social state. In the New Testament the Aramaic cognate is the source of Peter's name, Kēphas (John 1:42).

Where it appears

Job · 1

  1. Job 30:6 וְכֵפִֽים׃ and rocks

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

Jeremiah · 1

  1. Jeremiah 4:29 וּבַכֵּפִ֖ים and on the rocks

    Every city flees at the sound of the horseman and archer. They enter the thickets and climb among the rocks. Every city is abandoned; no inhabitant is left.

    Here: A rare word for rocks or crags, found elsewhere only in Job 30:6, where outcasts live in holes in the ground and in the rocks. It is related to the Aramaic kêpā, 'rock', the source of Peter's name Cephas. It suggests rough, rocky ground with clefts to hide in.

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