סָעִיף
sa.iph (H5585)
cleft
AI Word Study
# סָעִיף (Sa'iph): Cleft The Hebrew word *sa'iph* denotes a cleft or fissure—a narrow opening or split in a surface, typically rock. Its six occurrences in the biblical text establish it as a specialized term for this geological feature rather than a general term for openings or gaps. The word appears with sufficient frequency to suggest it held practical significance in ancient Israelite experience, likely referring to natural rock formations that would have been encountered in the Levantine landscape. The specificity of this term reflects biblical Hebrew's capacity for precise vocabulary regarding physical phenomena. Rather than using a generic word for any opening, the text employs *sa'iph* when the particular image of a cleft or crevice is intended. This precision suggests the word carried visual and spatial clarity for its original audience—it evoked a recognizable feature of the natural environment. The limited number of occurrences (6) indicates this was a specialized rather than common word, used when the particular geological feature needed to be named. Its presence in the biblical lexicon demonstrates that ancient writers attended to the specific qualities of their physical surroundings and possessed vocabulary to describe them with accuracy.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
He struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter; and he went down and lived in the cave in Etam’s rock.
Then three thousand men of Judah went down to the cave in Etam’s rock, and said to Samson, “Don’t you know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” He said to them, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”
to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.
Yet gleanings will be left there, like the shaking of an olive tree, two or three olives in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of a fruitful tree,” says Yahweh, the God of Israel.
For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches.
you who inflame yourselves among the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?