לֵחַ

From the study of Deuteronomy 34:7

Range of meaning

The noun appears only here. Its meaning comes from the adjective laḥ (H3892), 'moist, fresh, green, not dried out'. That adjective describes freshly cut poplar rods (Genesis 30:37), new bowstrings that have not dried (Judges 16:7–8), fresh grapes as opposed to raisins (Numbers 6:3), and green wood (Ezekiel 17:24; 21:3 [Eng. 20:47]). So lēaḥ means sap, moistness, freshness: the quality that makes a living thing supple instead of brittle. BDB gives 'freshness, vigour'. HALOT gives 'freshness, vital power'.

Against the English

KJV has 'natural force', WEB 'strength', BSB 'vitality', and ESV and NASB 'vigor'. All of them get the general sense of life-energy. None of them keeps the picture of green, sap-filled wood, and 'strength' tilts toward muscle, which the word does not mean. YLT's 'moisture' keeps the image but sounds odd in English.

How it drifted

Abstract renderings like 'force' or 'strength' are natural translation choices, but they lose a body picture that ancient readers took for granted. In that picture aging was a drying out (compare Psalm 32:4, 'my sap was turned into summer drought', a different Hebrew word making the same point), and youth and life were moist and green.

Used elsewhere in the period

Rabbinic readers kept the literal sense. Rashi glosses it 'the moisture in him' and adds, following earlier midrash, that decay had no power over him even after death. The ancient translations took it differently: the Septuagint has 'his jaws (chelynia) were not corrupted', and the Vulgate has 'his teeth were not loosened'. Both appear to read the consonants as leḥî, 'jaw/cheek'. Targum Onkelos, as commonly cited, paraphrases it as the splendor of his face not changing, which points back to Moses' shining face in Exodus 34:29–35.