Hebrew word · H651
אָפֵל
ve'afel
gloom
'Dark, gloomy'. This form occurs only here. Its relatives ʾōpel (H652, deep darkness, e.g. Job 3:6; Ps 91:6) and ʾăpēlāh (H653, thick darkness or calamity) cover pitch-blackness, the darkness of night and the grave, and disaster.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
gloomy, dark
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
'Dark, gloomy'. This form occurs only here. Its relatives ʾōpel (H652, deep darkness, e.g. Job 3:6; Ps 91:6) and ʾăpēlāh (H653, thick darkness or calamity) cover pitch-blackness, the darkness of night and the grave, and disaster.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'very dark' captures how strong it is. BSB/ESV 'gloom' can sound like a mood. NIV 'pitch-dark' is closest to the physical picture.
- How it drifted
In modern English, 'gloom' has moved toward meaning a sad emotional state, which weakens a word that means thick, total darkness.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The relative ʾăpēlāh describes the plague on Egypt: 'there was thick darkness (ḥōšek ʾăpēlāh) in all the land of Egypt' (Exod 10:22). The same pair appears in Joel 2:2 and Zeph 1:15. Isa 59:9 pairs 'brightness' (nəgōhôt) with 'gloom' (ʾăpēlôt), the same contrast as here.
Where it appears
Amos · 1
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Amos 5:20 וְאָפֵ֖ל and gloomy
Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?
Here: A rare word, used only here in this exact form. It is a stronger, heavier word for darkness. Related forms describe the plague of darkness over Egypt (Exod 10:22), so the word steps up from 'dark' to 'pitch-black'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.