the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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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.…”
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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.
