פֶּ֫גַע

From the study of 1 Kings 5:4

Range of meaning

A noun from paga', 'to meet, encounter, fall upon, strike'. The verb covers neutral meeting (Gen 28:11), violent attack ('fall upon him', Judg 8:21; 1 Sam 22:17), and urgent appeal (Ruth 1:16). The noun means 'what meets you': an occurrence, an incident, a blow. It appears only twice: here and Ecclesiastes 9:11, 'time and chance (pega') happen to them all'.

Against the English

KJV 'evil occurrent' and WEB/YLT 'evil occurrence' keep the 'happening' sense but sound neutral or archaic. ESV and NASB say 'misfortune', NIV 'disaster', BSB 'crisis'. These capture the harm but lose the picture of something that 'runs into' you. Given the verb's frequent violent sense, 'attack' or 'blow' are also possible.

Used elsewhere in the period

The LXX here is generally given as apantēma ponēron, 'a bad encounter', which preserves the 'meeting' idea. In later Hebrew, pega' became the usual word for a harmful incident, plague, or (in rabbinic usage) a demonic attack. That later sense should not be read back here.

From the study of Ecclesiastes 9:11

Range of meaning

An occurrence, incident, something that "meets" a person. From the verb pāga', "to meet, encounter, reach, strike, fall upon" — used of meeting someone, of a boundary reaching a place, and of attacking (striking someone down, e.g. 1 Sam 22:17–18). The noun therefore pictures an event that runs into you, arriving from outside your control.

Against the English

Almost every English version says "chance." In 1611 that word still carried its root sense — from Old French cheance, Latin cadere, "to fall": what falls out, what befalls. Today "chance" usually means randomness, probability or luck (good or bad), an abstract impersonal force. NLT goes further and turns it positive: success comes from "the right place at the right time." NASB's "overtake" catches the picture of something coming upon people.

How it drifted

The English word "chance" shifted from "what befalls" toward "randomness, odds, luck," a shift strengthened by modern ideas of probability and a universe governed by accident. The Hebrew word did not drift; the English carrier did.

Used elsewhere in the period

Only one other use in the Hebrew Bible: 1 Kings 5:4 (Heb 5:18), where Solomon says "there is no adversary and no evil occurrence (pega' ra')" — there it needs the adjective "evil" to be a misfortune, showing the noun itself is neutral "occurrence," though readily a mishap. The Greek translation (LXX) renders it apantēma, "an encounter, a meeting"; the Latin Vulgate uses casus, "a falling, an accident, a mishap." Later Hebrew uses pega' for an affliction or harmful strike.