Hebrew word · H6426
פָּלַץ
yitfalatzun
to shudder
To shudder, quiver. The verb appears only here. Related nouns: pallāṣût, 'shuddering, horror' (Job 21:6; Ps 55:5 [Heb 6]; Isa 21:4; Ezek 7:18), and mipleṣet, a 'horrid thing', used for an idol (1 Kgs 15:13).
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Hithpael) to shudder, tremble
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
- Range of meaning
To shudder, quiver. The verb appears only here. Related nouns: pallāṣût, 'shuddering, horror' (Job 21:6; Ps 55:5 [Heb 6]; Isa 21:4; Ezek 7:18), and mipleṣet, a 'horrid thing', used for an idol (1 Kgs 15:13).
- Against the English
'Tremble' (KJV, ESV, NASB, NIV, BSB) is accurate. YLT's 'move themselves' keeps the reflexive verb form but loses the emotional force of shuddering.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In every other passage the related nouns describe human horror or dread: Job says that when he remembers, 'shuddering (pallāṣût) seizes my flesh' (21:6), and Ps 55:5 has 'horror has overwhelmed me.'
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 9:6 יִתְפַלָּצֽוּן׃ they tremble !
He shakes the earth from its place, so that its foundations tremble.
Here: "They shudder": a reflexive-intensive verb form describing the pillars quivering in themselves, as a body shudders in horror. The imperfect tense presents it as something that happens, or keeps happening, when God acts. The extra -ûn ending is an old, weighty poetic form. This is the only place in the Bible where this verb appears.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.