Hebrew word · H3714

כָּפִיס

vekhafis

rafter

Found only here in the Bible. Later Hebrew and Aramaic use it for a beam or a cross-piece of wood. Proposed meanings include rafter, tie-beam, crossbeam, and the timber courses that held masonry together.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

rafter, girder (meaning uncertain)

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 2:11

Range of meaning

Found only here in the Bible. Later Hebrew and Aramaic use it for a beam or a cross-piece of wood. Proposed meanings include rafter, tie-beam, crossbeam, and the timber courses that held masonry together.

Against the English

'Beam' (KJV, WEB, ESV), 'rafter(s)' (BSB, NASB), 'beams of the woodwork' (NIV), 'beams in the ceilings' (NLT), 'holdfast' (YLT, guessing at a binding timber). All are reasonable guesses at a word that occurs only once.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint renders it kantharos, usually 'beetle' (perhaps a woodworm in the timber). It may instead be an otherwise rare builder's term. Jerome's Latin paraphrases it as 'the wood that is between the joints of the buildings'. Monumental buildings in Israel and the wider Near East often laid a course of cedar beams between courses of stone (1 Kgs 6:36; 7:12; Ezra 6:4).

Where it appears

Habakkuk · 1

  1. Habakkuk 2:11 וְכָפִ֖יס and a rafter

    For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork.

    Here: A word found only here in the Bible. It names a structural timber: a rafter, crossbeam, or one of the wooden beams laid in courses inside stone walls. The exact piece is uncertain. Its job in the verse is clear: the wood answers the stone.

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