the Week of Proper 2 / Ordinary 7
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Bible Dictionaries
Half
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Noun.
Chêtsı̂y (חֲצִי, Strong's #2677), “half; halfway; middle.” This word appears about 123 times and in all periods of biblical Hebrew. First, the word is used to indicate “half” of anything. This meaning first occurs in Exod. 24:6: “And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.” Second, chêtsı̂y can mean “middle,” as it does in its first biblical appearance: “And it came to pass, that at midnight [literally, “the middle of the night”] the Lord smote all the first-born in the land of Egypt …” (Exod. 12:29). In Exod. 27:5, the word means “halfway”: “And thou shalt put it under the compass of the altar beneath, that the net may be even to the midst [i.e., up to the middle] of the altar.”
B. Verb.
Châtsâh (חָצָה, Strong's #2673), “to divide, reach unto.” This verb appears about 15 times in biblical Hebrew and has cognates in Phoenician, Moabite, and Arabic. The word most commonly means “to divide,” as in Exod. 21:35: “… Then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it.…”
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Half'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/h/half.html. 1940.
