Hebrew word · H6749
צָלַל
tzalalu
to sink
To sink, to go down into water. Hebrew has other unrelated words spelled the same way, meaning 'tingle' (of ears) and 'grow dark, be shaded'. The 'sink' sense occurs only in this verse.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Qal) to sink, be submerged
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 Exodus 15:10
- Range of meaning
To sink, to go down into water. Hebrew has other unrelated words spelled the same way, meaning 'tingle' (of ears) and 'grow dark, be shaded'. The 'sink' sense occurs only in this verse.
- Against the English
'Sank' is accurate. English loses only the word's rarity and its sound-link with the 'depths' (metsolot) of verse 5, which is probably related.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) list 'sink' as a separate root found only in Exod 15:10. Later Hebrew uses the root for diving or sinking. The noun מְצוֹלָה ('depths of the sea', Exod 15:5; Jonah 2:3; Mic 7:19) probably shares the same sound-field.
Similar words
Where it appears
Exodus · 1
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Exodus 15:10 צָֽלֲלוּ֙ they sank
But You blew with Your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
Here: 'They sank, went down.' In this sense the verb occurs only here in the Bible. It picks up verse 5, 'they went down into the depths like a stone'. Its subject is the Egyptians, Pharaoh's chariot force.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.