Hebrew word · H4671

מוֹץ

kamotz

chaff

Chaff: the light husks separated from grain when it is winnowed (tossed into the wind with a fork).

Appears 8 times in 8 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 31, 2026

What it means

1) chaff

1a) always as driven by wind

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: Chaff: the light husks separated from grain when it is winnowed (tossed into the wind with a fork).
Against the English: English 'chaff' is accurate, though many modern readers no longer picture winnowing.
Used elsewhere in the period: Psalm 1:4 'like chaff that the wind drives away'; Psalm 35:5; Hosea 13:3; Isaiah 29:5; 41:15–16. A stock image for the wicked or for enemies who vanish.

Range of meaning: Chaff: the light husks, hulls and broken straw separated from grain in threshing and winnowing. In the Bible it appears only in figures of speech, always for something insubstantial, worthless and easily swept away.
Against the English: "Chaff" is accurate. Many modern readers, though, have never seen winnowing, so the picture is weaker for them: a cloud of dry husk blown off a hilltop floor while the heavy grain drops back down. NLT's "worthless chaff" spells out the implication but adds a word the Hebrew does not have.
Used elsewhere in the period: Hos 13:3 ("like chaff that swirls from the threshing floor"); Isa 17:13 (nations fleeing "like chaff on the mountains before the wind"); Isa 29:5; 41:15; Zeph 2:2; Job 21:18 ("like chaff that the storm carries away" — a near-identical image, raised as a question about whether it really happens); Ps 35:5 ("like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the LORD driving them"). The Septuagint renders it here with chnous, "fine dust, down", and the Vulgate follows with pulvis, "dust".

Range of meaning: Chaff: the light husks and broken straw separated from grain when threshed stalks are tossed into the wind with a winnowing fork. The wind carries the chaff off while the heavy grain falls back.
Against the English: 'Chaff' is accurate. NIV adds 'windblown' or 'windswept' to explain the picture. The modern reader, who has never seen a threshing floor, may miss how sudden and total the image is: the chaff is simply gone.
Used elsewhere in the period: Psalm 1:4 ('like chaff that the wind drives away'); Psalm 35:5; Hosea 13:3; Isaiah 17:13; 29:5; 41:15. In every case chaff stands for something worthless that disappears instantly, usually the wicked or enemy armies under judgment.

Job · 1

Job 21:18 וּ֝כְמֹ֗ץ and like chaff

Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm?

Here: "And like chaff": the husks that winnowing separates from the grain. In Hebrew poetry it is the standard picture of the wicked blown away (Psalm 1:4; Hosea 13:3).

Psalms · 2

Psalm 1:4 כַּ֝מֹּ֗ץ [they are] like the chaff

Not so the wicked! For they are like chaff driven off by the wind.

Here: "Like the chaff": the husks and broken stalk bits left when grain is threshed. The article ("the") is general, as in "the chaff you have all seen on the threshing floor." Chaff is dry, light, dead and useless. It is the exact opposite of a living, watered, fruit-bearing tree.
Psalm 35:5 כְּמֹ֥ץ like chaff

May they be like chaff in the wind, as the angel of the LORD drives them away.

Here: "Like chaff": the light husks separated from grain on the threshing floor and carried off by the wind. A standard Hebrew picture of something weightless, worthless and gone in a moment.

Isaiah · 3

Isaiah 17:13 כְּמֹ֤ץ like chaff of

The nations rage like the rush of many waters. He rebukes them, and they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweeds before a gale.

Here: 'Like chaff' — the husks that blow away when threshed grain is tossed into the wind. A standard image for what is weightless and worthless (Psalm 1:4).
Isaiah 29:5 וּכְמֹ֤ץ and like chaff

But your many foes will be like fine dust, the multitude of the ruthless like blowing chaff. Then suddenly, in an instant,

Here: Chaff is the husk that the wind carries off when threshed grain is tossed into the air. It is a standard biblical picture of something worthless and quickly gone (Psalm 1:4; Hosea 13:3; Isaiah 17:13).
Isaiah 41:15 כַּמֹּ֥ץ like <the> chaff

Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.

Here: "Like the chaff": the light husks left on the threshing floor, which the wind blows away when grain is tossed. In Hebrew poetry chaff is the standard image of something weightless and easily removed (Ps 1:4; Isa 17:13; 29:5).

Hosea · 1

Hosea 13:3 כְּמֹץ֙ like chaff

Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that vanishes, like chaff blown from a threshing floor, like smoke through an open window.

Here: 'Like chaff.' These are the light husks separated from the grain at threshing. They are worthless and weigh nothing, so the wind carries them off and they are never gathered.

Zephaniah · 1

Zephaniah 2:2 כְּמֹ֖ץ like chaff

before the decree takes effect and the day passes like chaff, before the burning anger of the LORD comes upon you, before the Day of the LORD’s anger comes upon you.

Here: 'Like chaff'. Chaff is the light husk the wind blows off the threshing floor. It stands for something that is gone in a moment, and in the prophets for people swept away in judgment.

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