Word study

Clap

4 Hebrew words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: clap, claps, clapped. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “clap” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • סָפַק sâphaqclap, be enough, vomittranslated this way 3 times of its 10 uses · Strong’s H5606Verb  ·  Translated: claps 2, strike 2

    Job 27:23 It claps its hands at him and hisses him out of his place.’’

    Lamentations 2:15 All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

    Full study and all 10 verses →
  • מָחָא mâchâstriketranslated this way 3 times of its 3 uses · Strong’s H4222Verb  ·  Translated: clap 2, clapped 1

    Psalm 98:8 Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy

    Isaiah 55:12 You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

    Full study and all 3 verses →
  • תָּקַע tâqathrust, clap, give a blow, blasttranslated this way 1 time of its 65 uses · Strong’s H8628Verb  ·  Translated: blew 15, blow 11, sound 7, sounded 4

    Psalm 47:1 For the choirmaster. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout unto God with a voice of triumph.

    Full study and all 60 verses →
  • נָכָה nâkâhsmitetranslated this way 1 time of its 496 uses · Strong’s H5221Verb  ·  Translated: struck 145, strike 59, put 31, defeated 28Full study and all 460 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.