Hebrew word · H6398

פָּלַח

foleach

to cleave

To split open, cleave or slice through. Biblical uses: a warrior or God cleaving someone's kidneys (Job 16:13); an arrow piercing the liver (Prov 7:23); gourds sliced into a stew (2 Kgs 4:39); animals giving birth, literally "splitting open" to bring forth young (Job 39:3).

Appears 5 times in 5 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) to cleave, slice

1a) (Qal) to cleave, plow

1b) (Piel)

1b1) to cleave open or through

1b2) to cause to cleave open

1b3) to slice, pierce

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 141:7

Range of meaning

To split open, cleave or slice through. Biblical uses: a warrior or God cleaving someone's kidneys (Job 16:13); an arrow piercing the liver (Prov 7:23); gourds sliced into a stew (2 Kgs 4:39); animals giving birth, literally "splitting open" to bring forth young (Job 39:3). The noun פֶּלַח means a slice or piece, like a slice of pomegranate (Song 4:3) or a millstone fragment (Judg 9:53).

Against the English

BSB, WEB, NASB, NIV and ESV render it "plows." KJV says "cutteth" and supplies "[wood]" in italics, meaning the word is not in the Hebrew.

How it drifted

This is not modern drift. It is an old judgment call. "Plow" relies on Aramaic and Arabic, where the root means to till: Arabic fallāḥ, "peasant farmer," is the familiar word. In biblical Hebrew itself the verb never clearly means plowing.

Used elsewhere in the period

Biblical Hebrew: Job 16:13; 39:3; Prov 7:23; 2 Kgs 4:39. In Aramaic, including biblical Aramaic, פְּלַח means "to serve/work" (Dan 3:12, 7:14), and in later Aramaic it also means to till the ground. HALOT and BDB both give "cleave" as the basic Hebrew sense.

Where it appears

2 Kings · 1

  1. 2 Kings 4:39 וַיְפַלַּ֛ח and he sliced [them]

    One of them went out to the field to gather herbs, and he found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment could hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they were.

Job · 2

  1. Job 16:13 יְפַלַּ֣ח he splits open

    His archers surround me. He pierces my kidneys without mercy and spills my gall on the ground.

  2. Job 39:3 תְּפַלַּ֑חְנָה they cleave open

    They crouch down and bring forth their young; they deliver their newborn.

Psalms · 1

  1. Psalm 141:7 פֹלֵ֣חַ [one who] plows

    As when one plows and breaks up the soil, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

    Here: An active participle: "one who cleaves." In biblical Hebrew the verb means splitting or slicing something open: an arrow through a liver, gourds sliced into a pot. The related Aramaic and Arabic words mean "to till the soil," which is where the "plows" translation comes from.

Proverbs · 1

  1. Proverbs 7:23 יְפַלַּ֪ח it will pierce

    until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare—not knowing it will cost him his life.

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