Hebrew word · H4651
מַפָּל
mapelei
refuse
Mappal is 'that which falls'. Elsewhere it appears only in Job 41:15 (Eng. 41:23), for the hanging folds of Leviathan's flesh. With bar ('cleaned grain'), it means what drops away during sieving and handling: husk fragments, broken kernels, dust and floor sweepings.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.
What it means
1) refuse, hanging parts
1a) fallings, refuse
1b) hanging parts (of a crocodile)
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
- Range of meaning
Mappal is 'that which falls'. Elsewhere it appears only in Job 41:15 (Eng. 41:23), for the hanging folds of Leviathan's flesh. With bar ('cleaned grain'), it means what drops away during sieving and handling: husk fragments, broken kernels, dust and floor sweepings.
- Against the English
'Chaff' (BSB, ESV) is close but not exact. Chaff properly means the light husk the wind blows away when grain is winnowed, which nobody could sell. 'Sweepings' (NIV, WEB) and 'refuse' (KJV, NASB, YLT) are nearer. BSB/NIV/WEB 'with the wheat' make it a mixing fraud, which the Hebrew implies at most. The Hebrew literally says 'the refuse of grain we will sell'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 41:15. Latin Vulgate quisquilias frumenti, 'the rubbish of the grain'. The Greek reads differently (see textual notes).
Similar words
Where it appears
Job · 1
-
Job 41:23 מַפְּלֵ֣י [the] hanging parts of
The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable.
Amos · 1
-
Amos 8:6 וּמַפַּ֥ל and refuse of
Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
Here: From naphal, 'to fall'. It is what drops away when grain is sieved or swept: broken bits, husk and dirt off the floor. It is bound to the next word: 'the fallings of grain'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.