Hebrew word · H5097
נַהֲלֹל
hanahalolim
watering
Found only here as a common noun. It probably comes from nāhal, 'to lead to water, guide gently to pasture', and means a watering place or watered pasture. 'Nahalol' is also the name of a town in Zebulun (Joshua 19:15; Judges 1:30).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
pasture, watering-place
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
Found only here as a common noun. It probably comes from nāhal, 'to lead to water, guide gently to pasture', and means a watering place or watered pasture. 'Nahalol' is also the name of a town in Zebulun (Joshua 19:15; Judges 1:30).
- Against the English
KJV 'bushes', YLT 'commendable things', WEB/ESV 'pastures', BSB/NIV 'watering holes', NASB 'watering places'.
- How it drifted
The translations really do disagree. KJV followed an older Jewish interpretation that read it as a kind of shrub, to match 'thorns'. YLT derived it from hālal, 'praise'. Modern lexicons generally prefer the 'lead to water' root.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The verb nāhal appears in Psalm 23:2 ('he leads me beside still waters') and Isaiah 40:11 (the shepherd 'gently leads' the nursing ewes).
Where it appears
Isaiah · 1
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Isaiah 7:19 הַנַּהֲלֹלִֽים׃ the watering-places
And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines and clefts of the rocks, in all the thornbushes and watering holes.
Here: Another word found only here. It probably comes from the verb nāhal, 'to lead (flocks) to water' (Psalm 23:2; Isaiah 40:11), so it means the watered pastures where herds are led. These are the most valuable and settled spots, the opposite of the wild ravines, and armies camp at water too. Some older tradition read it as another kind of bush.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.