Bible word study

Aph (Strong’s H639): Meaning in the Bible

Aph (אַף) is the Hebrew word numbered H639 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as properly, the nose or nostril; hence, the face, and occasionally a person; also (from the rapid breathing in passion) ire. In the King James Bible it is translated anger(-gry), before, countenance, face, forebearing.

אַף
ʼaph · Hebrew
Strong’s H639 · af

The full Strong’s definition

properly, the nose or nostril; hence, the face, and occasionally a person; also (from the rapid breathing in passion) ire

Derivation. from H599;

How the King James Bible translates it

anger(-gry), before, countenance, face, forebearing, forehead, (long-) suffering, nose, nostril, snout, × worthy, wrath. (The × marks places where the word shapes the phrasing rather than being rendered by a single English word.)

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Aph in the original Hebrew lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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