Hebrew word · H5222

נֵכֶה

nekhim

smitten

Plural of nēkeh, an adjective from the root n-k-h, 'to strike.' It means 'struck, stricken.' Elsewhere it appears only in set phrases: 'stricken of feet' = lame (2 Sam 4:4; 9:3), and 'stricken of spirit' = crushed or contrite (Isa 66:2).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

stricken, smitten

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 Psalm 35:15

Range of meaning

Plural of nēkeh, an adjective from the root n-k-h, 'to strike.' It means 'struck, stricken.' Elsewhere it appears only in set phrases: 'stricken of feet' = lame (2 Sam 4:4; 9:3), and 'stricken of spirit' = crushed or contrite (Isa 66:2). Used on its own as a noun, 'stricken ones' would mean cripples, wretches, the lowest of society.

Against the English

KJV 'abjects' and ESV 'wretches' keep the passive sense: social outcasts. YLT and NASB 'smiters,' WEB 'attackers' and BSB/NIV 'assailants' read it actively, as if it were the usual participle 'those who strike' (makkîm). NLT has simply 'people.'

How it drifted

The active reading is old (the Septuagint has 'scourges'). It fits the violence of the context, but it does not match the form of the word.

Used elsewhere in the period

Septuagint (Ps 34:15 in its numbering): mastiges, 'whips, scourges,' taking the word as instruments or agents of striking. Jerome's Hebrew-based Latin also takes the attackers as 'strikers.' Job 30:1–8 offers a cultural parallel: Job is mocked by 'sons of fools, sons of no name,' outcasts 'whipped out of the land,' who now spit at him in his fall.

Where it appears

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 35:15 נֵ֭כִים smitten [people]

    But when I stumbled, they assembled in glee; they gathered together against me. Assailants I did not know slandered me without ceasing.

    Here: The hardest word in the verse. In form it means 'stricken ones,' people who have been struck: cripples, wretches, the despised. Many translations take it in an active sense instead, 'smiters' or 'attackers.' Either way it describes the low or violent crowd that set on him.

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