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Bible Dictionaries
Fight
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Verb.
Lâcham (לָחַם, Strong's #3898), “to fight, do battle, engage in combat.” This word is found in all periods of Hebrew, as well as in ancient Ugaritic. It occurs in the text of the Hebrew Bible more than 170 times. Lâcham appears first in Exod. 1:10, where the Egyptian pharaoh expresses his fears that the Israelite slaves will multiply and join an enemy “to fight” against the Egyptians.
While the word is commonly used in the context of “armies engaged in pitched battle” against each other (Num. 21:23; Josh. 10:5; Judg. 11:5), it is also used to describe “single, hand-to-hand combat” (1 Sam. 17:32-33). Frequently, God “fights” the battle for Israel (Deut. 20:4). Instead of swords, words spoken by a lying tongue are often used “to fight” against God’s servants (Ps. 109:2).
In folk etymology, lâcham is often connected with lechem, the Hebrew term for “bread,” on the contention that wars are fought for bread. There is, however, no good basis for such etymology.
B. Noun.
Milchâmâh (מִלְחָמָה, Strong's #4421), “battle; war.” This noun occurs more than 300 times in the Old Testament, indicating how large a part military experience and terminology played in the life of the ancient Israelites. Gen. 14:8 is an early occurrence of milchâmâh: “And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, … and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim.”
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Fight'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/f/fight.html. 1940.
