the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Cord
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Chebel (חֶבֶל, Strong's #2256), “cord; rope; tackle; measuring line; measurement; allotment; portion; region.” Cognates of this word appear in Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Akkadian. The word appears about 50 times in the Old Testament. )
Chebel primarily means “cord” or “rope.” “Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall” (Josh. 2:15, RSV). The word is used of “tent ropes” in Isa. 33:20: “… A tabernacle that shall not be taken down … neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.” A ship’s “tackle” is the meaning of chebel in Isa. 33:23.
Used figuratively, chebel emphasizes “being bound.” In 1 Kings 20:31, we read that the Syrians who fled into Aphek proposed to put sackcloth on their heads as a sign of repentance for attacking Israel, and to put “ropes” about their necks as a sign of submission to Israel’s authority. Snares used “cords” or “ropes,” forming a web or a noose into which the prey stepped and was caught. In this manner, the wicked would be caught by God (Job 18:10). In many passages, death is pictured as a hunter whose trap has been sprung and whose quarry is captured by the “cords” of the trap: “The cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me” (2 Sam. 22:6, RSV).
In other cases, the thing that “binds” is good: “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love …” (Hos. 11:4). Eccl. 12:6 pictures human life as being held together by a silver “cord.”
A “cord” could be used as a “measuring line”: “And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive” (2 Sam. 8:2). This meaning of chebel also occurs in Ps. 78:55: “… And [He] divided them an inheritance by line.” Compare Mic. 2:5: “Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord.” The act referred to by Micah appears in Ps. 16:6 as an image of one’s life in general: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” )
Chebel also means “the thing measured or allotted”: “For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance” (Deut. 32:9). Here the use is clearly figurative, but in 1 Chron. 16:18 the “portion” of Israel’s inheritance is a concrete “measured thing”; this nuance first appears in Josh. 17:5. In passages such as Deut. 3:4, the word is used of a “region” or “a measured area”: “… Threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.”
The word may refer to a group of people, describing them as that which is tied together— “a band”: “… Thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place …” (1 Sam. 10:5).
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Cord'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/c/cord.html. 1940.
