Hebrew word · H3952

לָקַק

hamalakim

to lick

To lick or lap with the tongue, used of dogs (1 Kgs 21:19; 22:38) and of men drinking like dogs (Judg 7:5–7).

Appears 7 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 31, 2026

What it means

1) to lap, lick, lap up

1a) (Qal) to lap, lap up

1b) (Piel) to lap up

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: To lick or lap with the tongue, used of dogs (1 Kgs 21:19; 22:38) and of men drinking like dogs (Judg 7:5–7).
Against the English: 'Licked up' is accurate.
Used elsewhere in the period: Within Kings it appears only in Elijah's oracle (21:19, used twice) and its fulfillment here. The repetition is deliberate.

Range of meaning: To lap or lick with the tongue. It is a sound-word (said aloud, the repeated q-q sounds like what it describes). Most uses involve animals or animal-like action. One stronger form is used of fire 'licking up' water.
Against the English: 'Lap' (KJV, BSB, ESV, NIV) is accurate. The English word is mild. The Hebrew sounds more vivid, and the doubled phrasing 'laps… as the dog laps' gives the instruction a sing-song memorability.
Used elsewhere in the period: Outside this passage the word is used of dogs licking Naboth's and Ahab's blood (1 Kgs 21:19; 22:38), which is a degrading image, and of the LORD's fire 'licking up' the water in Elijah's trench (1 Kgs 18:38). Cognates in other Semitic languages (Aramaic, Arabic) mean the same. (BDB, HALOT s.v. לקק.)

Range of meaning: To lap or lick with the tongue, the way an animal drinks. It is used of dogs licking up blood (1 Kgs 21:19; 22:38). The intensive form here (the piel) appears only in this episode.
Against the English: English "lapped" is accurate. Most translations leave unexplained how a man "laps like a dog" (7:5) while also bringing water "with their hands to their mouths" (7:6). Some readers fill that gap with a story about alert soldiers.
Used elsewhere in the period: Within the Bible it is a dog's action, so it carries a hint of the undignified. Josephus (Antiquities 5.216–217, 1st century AD) took the lappers to be those who drank in a fearful, hurried way, and said God chose them precisely because they were the least impressive.

Judges · 4

Judges 7:5 יָלֹק֩ יָלֹ֣ק he will lap up, it laps up

So Gideon brought the men down to the water, and the LORD said to him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel to drink.”

Here: 'Laps'. The word sounds like what it describes, the quick flicking of a tongue at water. The form is open-ended: 'whoever will lap', describing what each man will do when he gets to the water.
Judges 7:6 הַֽמֲלַקְקִ֤ים those [who] lapped

And the number of those who lapped the water with their hands to their mouths was three hundred men; all the others knelt to drink.
Judges 7:7 הַֽמֲלַקְקִים֙ who lapped

Then the LORD said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men who lapped the water I will save you and deliver the Midianites into your hand. But all the others are to go home.”

Here: "Those who lapped." The verb is the one used for a dog drinking (7:5; 1 Kgs 21:19). It is the only thing that marks out this group, and the text gives no reason why lapping counts.

1 Kings · 3

1 Kings 21:19 לָקְק֤וּ יָלֹ֧קּוּ they licked up, they will lick up

Tell him that this is what the LORD says: ‘Have you not murdered a man and seized his land?’ Then tell him that this is also what the LORD says: ‘In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, there also the dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”

Here: A completed action: the dogs have already licked Naboth's blood. It is a vivid, ugly detail. His body was left where it fell, unburied and unmourned.
1 Kings 22:38 וַיָּלֹ֤קּוּ and they licked up

And the chariot was washed at the pool of Samaria where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up Ahab’s blood, according to the word that the LORD had spoken.

Here: 'And they licked up.' This is the same verb Elijah used in his oracle: 'where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood' (21:19). The repeated word is what ties the scene to the prophecy.

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