Hebrew word · H5319

נַפְתּוּלִים

naftulei

wrestling

This word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) derive it from the root p-t-l, 'twist', and give 'wrestlings, struggles'. The root's core picture is twisting or entwining: patil is a twisted cord or thread (Gen 38:18, 25; Num 15:38).

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

wrestlings

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 Genesis 30:8

Range of meaning

This word occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) derive it from the root p-t-l, 'twist', and give 'wrestlings, struggles'. The root's core picture is twisting or entwining: patil is a twisted cord or thread (Gen 38:18, 25; Num 15:38). From that comes the sense of grappling bodies locked together, and in a moral sense 'tortuous, crooked'.

Against the English

'Wrestlings' (KJV, WEB, YLT) keeps the picture of a physical bout. 'Struggles' (BSB) and 'struggle' (NIV) are more abstract and lose the twisting, grappling image. Jewish translations such as NJPS move further from it ('a fateful contest').

Used elsewhere in the period

There is no other biblical example. The verb from the same root appears in Ps 18:26 / 2 Sam 22:27 ('with the crooked you show yourself shrewd'), Job 5:13 ('the schemes of the wily'), Prov 8:8 ('nothing twisted'), and Deut 32:5 ('a crooked and twisted generation'). Ancient translators struggled with it: the Greek Septuagint gives 'God has helped me', and the Aramaic Targum Onkelos turns it into persistent prayer.

Where it appears

Genesis · 1

  1. Genesis 30:8 נַפְתּוּלֵ֨י wrestling<s> of

    Then Rachel said, “In my great struggles, I have wrestled with my sister and won.” So she named him Naphtali.

    Here: A plural noun from the root 'twist'. It appears only here in the Bible. It is formed from the same root as the verb that follows, a Hebrew way of adding intensity ('I wrestled wrestlings'). The picture is of bodies or strands twisted together: a grappling, tangled contest.

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