Hebrew word · H509

אָלַץ

vate'alatzehu

to urge

'To urge, press, push hard.' Related words in Aramaic and Syriac mean 'to press, force, compel'. In later Jewish Aramaic the root can carry a sense of coercion.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated November 14, 2026

What it means

(Piel) to urge

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 Judges 16:16

Range of meaning: 'To urge, press, push hard.' Related words in Aramaic and Syriac mean 'to press, force, compel'. In later Jewish Aramaic the root can carry a sense of coercion.
Against the English: KJV, WEB and ESV say 'urged', which is fair. BSB's 'pleaded' softens it into begging. The Hebrew points to pushing, not entreating.
How it drifted: The verb occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible, so translators lean on the context and on related languages. 'Plead' is an interpretive softening, not a change in what English words mean.
Used elsewhere in the period: This is the only occurrence in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) explain it from Aramaic and Syriac. The Greek translation (LXX) appears to render this clause with a verb of crowding or confining (stenochōreō), in keeping with the siege picture.

Where it appears

Judges · 1

Judges 16:16 וַתְּאַֽלֲצֵ֑הוּ and she urged him

Finally, after she had pressed him daily with her words and pleaded until he was sick to death,

Here: 'And she pressed him hard.' This verb appears only here in the Hebrew Bible. Related Aramaic words mean 'to press, force.' It adds to the picture of something closer to compulsion than polite pleading.

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