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Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words

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A. Nouns.

kôl (כּוֹל, Strong's #3605), “all; the whole.” The noun kôl , derived from kalal has cognates in Ugaritic, Akkadian, Phoenician, and Moabite. Kôl appears in biblical Hebrew about 5,404 times and in all periods. Biblical Aramaic attests it about 82 times.

The word can be used alone, meaning “the entirety,” “whole,” or “all,” as in: “And thou shalt put all [kôl] in the hands of Aaron, and in the hands of his sons …” (Exod. 29:24).

Kôl can signify everything in a given unit whose members have been selected from others of their kind: “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Gen. 6:2).Kâlı̂yl (כָּלִיל , 3632), “whole offering.” This word represents the “whole offering” from which the worshiper does not partake: “It is a statute for ever unto the Lord; it shall be wholly burnt” (Lev. 6:22).

B. Adjectives.

kôl (כֹּל, Strong's #3606), “all; whole; entirety; every; each.” When kôl precedes a noun, it expresses a unit and signifies the whole: “These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Gen. 9:19). Kôl may also signify the entirety of a noun that does not necessarily represent a unit: “All the people, both small and great” entered into the covenant (2 Kings 23:2). The use of the word in such instances tends to unify what is not otherwise a unit.

Kôl can precede a word that is only part of a larger unit or not part of a given unit at all. In this case, the prominent idea is that of “plurality,” a heterogeneous unit: “And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field” (Gen. 39:5).

Related to the preceding nuance is the use of kôl to express comprehensiveness. Not only does it indicate that the noun modified is a plurality, but also that the unit formed by the addition of kôl includes everything in the category indicated by the noun: “All the cities were ten with their suburbs for the families of the children of Kohath that remained” (Josh. 21:26). In Gen. 1:21 (its first occurrence), the word precedes a collective noun and may be translated “every”: “And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, …”

When used to refer to the individual members of a group, kôl means “every”: “His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him” (Gen. 16:12). Another example: “Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards” (Isa. 1:23). Related to this use is the meaning “none but.”

In Deut. 19:15, kôl means “every kind of” or “any”; the word focuses on each and every member of a given unit: “One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth.…” A related nuance appears in Gen. 24:10, but here the emphasis is upon “all sorts”: “And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and departed; for all [i.e., a variety of] the goods of his master were in his hand.”

Kâlı̂yl (כָּלִיל , 3632), “the entire; whole.” In Num. 4:6, kâlı̂yl refers to the “cloth wholly of blue.” In other words, it indicates “the entire” cloth.

C. Verb.  

kâlal (כָּלַל , Strong's #3634), “to perfect.” This common Semitic root appears in biblical Hebrew only 3 times. Ezek. 27:11 is a good example: “… They have made thy beauty perfect [kâlal].”

Bibliography Information
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'All'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​vot/​a/all.html. 1940.
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