Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

chêphets - חפץ (Strong's #2656)
Delight

חפץ chêphets "delight" (Strong's #2656, x39) comes from a root verb חפץ châphêts "to bend, curve, incline, desire, be favourable, delight in" (Strong's #2654) that is used, for example, of Behemoth's "bended" or "wagging" tail in Job 40:17.

At its simplest the verb can mean just "to want", as when Solomon "gave the queen of Sheba all she desired" (1 Kings 10:13) or "find pleasure in" or "to will to do" something. It can actually refer to a woman found to be pleasurable as in Esther 2:14 where members of the harem were summoned back to the king if he was "delighted" by them.

The term appears in connection with obedience and delighting in God's Law. The verb occurs in Psalm 40:8,

"I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart."

Whilst the noun occurs occurs in Psalm 1:2,

"But his delight is in the law of the LORD"

Verb and noun occur together in the messianic suffering servant passage:

"Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand." (Isaiah 53:10)

We find the first biblical use of the noun in Samuel:

"Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord" (1 Samuel 15:22)

Indeed, disobedience could result in God's desire to bring about someone's death:

"...if a man sins ... they did not heed the voice ... the Lord desired to kill them" (1 Samuel 2:25)

Yet that "desire" to kill sinners has to be tempered by later expressions of God's reticience to bring this about as evidenced by the use of the same verb in Ezekiel 18:23,32; 32:11:

"Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?..." (Ezekiel 18:23)

Again, echoing the sentiment expressed in 1 Samuel 15:22 above, this time using the verb rather than the noun, God "delights" in and "desires" mercy not death and sacrifice:

"He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy." (Micah 7:18)

"For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6) Cf. Jeremiah 9:24

Our desire and delight should be for wisdom, according to Proverbs 3:15, derived from God's Law (cf. Psalm 1:2), "She is more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her" (cf. Proverbs 8:11). Indeed, precious stones are sometimes termed "pleasant/desirous" stones as in Isaiah 54:12 "I will make your pinnacles of rubies, Your gates of crystal, And all your walls of precious stones", i.e., something "to be desired".

In the famous text beginning in Ecclesiastes 3:1 "To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven" the word "purpose" is חפץ chêphets "delight" rendered mundanely as "matter" or "activity" by some lest perhaps we think the writer is promulgating a sybaritic hedonism of working through "every pleasure on earth"! Longman in the NICOT commentary on Ecclesiates points to there being two meanings to this same root: [1] pleasure; [2] activity. The Greek Septuagint Old Testament here uses פרןגמןת pragmati from which we derive "pragmatic" meaning "practical" or "down to earth". The same Greek is used of חפץ chêphets again in Ecclesiastes 3:17 where the Hebrew is paralleled with the term for "work, deed" מעשה ma‘^aseh (Strong's #4639) with no indication of pleasure at all. According to the curse of Genesis 3:17-19 work was turned into toil and was no longer the pleasurable creative cultivation of Genesis 2:15.

Ecclesiastes is probably the best evidence for a twofold meaning to this word as in its 7 occurences some clearly mean "pleasure" and others a mere "matter" as demonstrated by the Greek Septuagint translating the following by קםלהמן thelêma "will" 5:4; 12:1,10 and 3:1,17; 5:8; 8:6 by פרןגמןת pragmati "matter". Given this the Greek really sways the decision on the meaning in 3:1 that "purpose" or "activity" are intended rather than the more luxurious "pleasure", although the crossover in meaning is most evident in this verse and a double-entendre may have been intended given the writer's tendency to tell of his trying every pleasure and still finding all vanity (e.g., Ecclesiastes 2:1 where he uses טוב tôwbh Strong's #2896).

Fuerst sees a close relationship between the meaning of "pleasure" and "delight" and the later developed meaning of "activity" or "business" (as in the Syriac), as really being "that after which one strives" or inclines towards doing which can have a pleasurable or more mundane application.

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