Hebrew word · H5311

נֶ֫פֶץ

nefetz

storm

Nefets appears only here and comes from napats, 'to shatter, smash, scatter'. It suggests a cloudburst that breaks open, or a storm that smashes. Zerem means downpour or flood (Isaiah 4:6; 25:4; 28:2; 32:2; Habakkuk 3:10). Even barad means hailstones.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

driving storm

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 Isaiah 30:30

Range of meaning

Nefets appears only here and comes from napats, 'to shatter, smash, scatter'. It suggests a cloudburst that breaks open, or a storm that smashes. Zerem means downpour or flood (Isaiah 4:6; 25:4; 28:2; 32:2; Habakkuk 3:10). Even barad means hailstones.

Against the English

KJV 'scattering' and YLT 'scattering' follow the root meaning but give a modern reader no picture. WEB 'blast' and BSB 'cloudburst' are attempts at the weather sense. Because the word occurs only once, every rendering is partly a guess based on its root.

How it drifted

Because this is the only occurrence, translators work from the root meaning. 'Scattering' is literal but unclear in English.

Used elsewhere in the period

In Isaiah 28:2 Isaiah described Assyria as Yahweh's 'storm of hail' and 'flood (zerem) of mighty waters' against Ephraim. Here the same storm turns on Assyria. Hail as a divine weapon: Exodus 9:18–26; Joshua 10:11; Psalm 18:12–13; Job 38:22–23 ('kept for the day of battle').

Where it appears

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 30:30 נֶ֥פֶץ a driving storm

    And the LORD will cause His majestic voice to be heard and His mighty arm to be revealed, striking in angry wrath with a flame of consuming fire, and with cloudburst, storm, and hailstones.

    Here: From a root meaning 'smash, scatter', as when pottery is shattered. Here it is a storm that bursts open and smashes. The word appears only here in the Hebrew Bible.

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