Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

Pelegh - פֶּלֶג (Strong's #6388)
Streams

The word פֶּלֶג pelegh (Strong's #6388, x10) seems to possibly indicate specific channels that have been cut or forged by way of division. It is not just another word for river or stream. In the cognate related semitic languages including Akkadian, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic and Ugaritic, the verb means to "split or divide" and the noun appears variously as a stream, crack, ditch, canal or gorge. The Hebrew root verb is פָּלַג pâlagh (Strong's #6385, x4) similarly meaning to "split or divide".

The verb appears in Job 38:25 "Who hath cleft a channel for the waterflood..." (JPS) describing the cutting of an unnatural path for overflowing floodwaters. Psalm 55:9 "...divide their tongues..." uses the verb of bringing confusion to tongues, much as at Babel. Indeed, Genesis 10:32 speaks of the period between the Flood and Babel as being the time when the "the nations were divided" but using פָּרַד pâradh (Strong's #6504) to "separate" instead.

A few verses earlier we read of Eber's two sons:

"To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg,
for in his days the earth was divided..."
(Genesis 10:25; 1 Chronicles 1:19)

Here the root verb פָּלַג pâlagh is used alongside the noun as a proper name, פֶּלֶג Pelegh (Strong's #6389, x7), presumably derived from the "dividing" of the nations, although creationists have also seen a possible hint at the dividing of the continents here. The sense of division does not preclude any of these and would certainly cover the physical carving out of new land, or the division of tongues in chapter 11 of Genesis, or the cell-like division of people multiplying through childbirth after the Flood to repopulate the Earth.

When the noun is used almost exclusively in poetry it describes rivers or streams but in the sense of channels. Its very first use apart from the proper name of Peleg is in the picturesque phrase of Job and which speaks of oil flowing from a cut rock:

"When my steps were bathed with cream,
And the rock poured out rivers of oil for me!" (Job 29:6)

Of its other uses Psalm 46:4 describes "a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God" hinting at a forking or multipying river as its channels and tributaries divide like fingers until they fill the "tabernacle of the Most High".

Apart from Psalm 65:9's "the river of God is full of water" every other usage is plural emphasising the copious nature of these dividing streams. Even in the well known Psalm 1:3 which describes the godly man as "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither", the plural nature of the water is often forgotten. The picture is of a tree planted or even transplanted to a location where it will stand and be nourished and not be uprooted and which is served by the luxury of several streams of water, perhaps even reminiscent of Eden's four rivers.

Twice the word is used metaphorically to describe the streams or floods of tears that pour from the eyes when crying:

"Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men do not keep Your law." (Psalm 119:136)

"My eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people." (Lamentations 3:48)

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