נָפַל
na.phal (H5307G)
to fall: fall
AI Word Study
# The Hebrew Word נָפַל (Naphal): "To Fall" The Hebrew verb נָפַל (naphal) is one of the Bible's most frequently used words, appearing 277 times across the biblical text. Its core meaning is straightforward: "to fall." This simple physical action—the movement of something from a higher to a lower position—forms the semantic foundation of the word throughout Scripture. The high frequency of naphal's occurrence suggests its importance extends beyond literal descriptions of falling objects or people. With 277 instances, the word must carry substantial narrative and thematic weight in biblical literature, though the provided data does not specify how the term functions metaphorically or theologically. The sheer number of uses indicates that the concept of falling was central to how biblical authors described events, conditions, and human experiences—whether physical collapse, military defeat, moral failure, or other states of decline or transition. Without additional context from specific biblical passages, the lexical data confirms only that naphal denotes the basic action of falling. Its true significance in biblical thought would emerge from examining how it is deployed across different genres and contexts—from historical narrative to poetry to prophecy—but such analysis requires evidence beyond the entry itself.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
Yahweh God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. As the man slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
Yahweh said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why has the expression of your face fallen?
Now the valley of Siddim was full of tar pits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and some fell there. Those who remained fled to the hills.
When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him.
Then Abraham fell on his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, “Will a child be born to him who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, give birth?”
Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she got off the camel.
They lived from Havilah to Shur that is before Egypt, as you go toward Assyria. He lived opposite all his relatives.
Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, fell on his neck, kissed him, and they wept.
The men were afraid, because they were brought to Joseph’s house; and they said, “Because of the money that was returned in our sacks the first time, we’re brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, attack us, and seize us as slaves, along with our donkeys.”
He fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.
Joseph prepared his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen. He presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.
Dan will be a serpent on the trail, an adder in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward.
Joseph fell on his father’s face, wept on him, and kissed him.
His brothers also went and fell down before his face; and they said, “Behold, we are your servants.”
Terror and dread falls on them. By the greatness of your arm they are as still as a stone, until your people pass over, Yahweh, until the people you have purchased pass over.
“If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn’t die, but is confined to bed;
“If a man opens a pit, or if a man digs a pit and doesn’t cover it, and a bull or a donkey falls into it,
Fire came out from before Yahweh, and consumed the burnt offering and the fat upon the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces.
Anything they fall on when they are dead shall be unclean; whether it is any vessel of wood, or clothing, or skin, or sack, whatever vessel it is, with which any work is done, it must be put into water, and it shall be unclean until the evening. Then it will be clean.
Every earthen vessel into which any of them falls and all that is in it shall be unclean. You shall break it.
Everything whereupon part of their carcass falls shall be unclean; whether oven, or range for pots, it shall be broken in pieces. They are unclean, and shall be unclean to you.
If part of their carcass falls on any sowing seed which is to be sown, it is clean.
But if water is put on the seed, and part of their carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you.
then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, “May Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;
and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.” The woman shall say, “Amen, Amen.”
When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away; and the woman will be a curse among her people.
Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel.
When Moses heard it, he fell on his face.
They fell on their faces, and said, “God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and will you be angry with all the congregation?”
“Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment!” They fell on their faces.
Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the Tent of Meeting, and fell on their faces. Yahweh’s glory appeared to them.
he says, who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, and having his eyes open:
he says, who hears the words of God, knows the knowledge of the Most High, and who sees the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, and having his eyes open:
or with any stone, by which a man may die, not seeing him, and cast it on him so that he died, and he was not his enemy and not seeking his harm,
I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yahweh had said he would destroy you.
When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing around your roof, so that you don’t bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there.
It shall be, if the wicked man is worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before his face, according to his wickedness, by number.
She said to the men, “I know that Yahweh has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.
He said, “No; but I have come now as commander of Yahweh’s army.” Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and worshiped, and asked him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”
It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the city wall shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight in front of him.”
So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city.
Yahweh said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face like that?
So Joshua came suddenly, with all the warriors, against them by the waters of Merom, and attacked them.
But when the judge was dead, they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down to them. They didn’t cease what they were doing, or give up their stubborn ways.
The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude.
When Gideon had come, behold, there was a man telling a dream to his fellow. He said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream; and behold, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, came to the tent, and struck it so that it fell, and turned it upside down, so that the tent lay flat.”
For when the flame went up toward the sky from off the altar, Yahweh’s angel ascended in the flame of the altar. Manoah and his wife watched; and they fell on their faces to the ground.
He was very thirsty, and called on Yahweh and said, “You have given this great deliverance by the hand of your servant; and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”
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