chamal · have pity, spare

What it means

chamal (חָמַל) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “have pity, spare”.

Feel pity, want to save someone; spare.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. To feel for someone and hold back punishment.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• show pity ×7
• compassion ×6
• pity ×6
• spare ×6
• have compassion ×5
• pitied ×4
• spared ×3
• sparing ×2
• he was loath ×1
• spares ×1

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Exodus×1
• Deuteronomy×1
• 1 Samuel×4
• 2 Samuel×3
• 2 Chronicles×2
• Job×4
• Proverbs×1
• Isaiah×2
• Jeremiah×5
• Lamentations×4
• Ezekiel×8
• Joel×1
• Habakkuk×1
• Zechariah×2
• Malachi×2

• Exodus 2:6

  She opened it and saw him, the child, and look, a boy crying! She had pity on him and said, “This is one of the children of the Hebrews.”

• Deuteronomy 13:8

  you shall not consent to him or listen to him, and your eye shall not pity him, and you shall not spare him or shield him.

• 1 Samuel 15:3

  Now go and strike Amalek, and devote to destruction all that he has; do not spare him, but put to death from man to woman, from child to nursing infant, from ox to lamb, from camel to donkey.’”

• 1 Samuel 15:9

  But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the flock and the herd, the second-born and the lambs, and all that was good, and they were not willing to devote them to destruction; but all the property that was despised and worthless, that they devoted to destruction.

• 1 Samuel 15:15

  Saul said, “From the Amalekites they have brought them, for the people spared the best of the flock and the herd in order to sacrifice to YHWH your Elohim; and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”

• 1 Samuel 23:21

  Saul said, “Blessed are you by YHWH, for you have had compassion on me.

• 2 Samuel 12:4

  A traveler came to the rich man, and he was loath to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare a meal for the wayfarer who had come to him; so he took the ewe lamb of the poor man and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

• 2 Samuel 12:6

  And he shall repay the ewe lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

• 2 Samuel 21:7

  But the king spared Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, because of the oath of YHWH that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

• 2 Chronicles 36:15

  YHWH, the Elohim of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers, sending them again and again, for he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling.

• 2 Chronicles 36:17

  He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or the very old; he gave them all into his hand.

• Job 6:10

  It would still be my comfort, and I would leap in pain that does not have pity, for I have not concealed the sayings of the Holy One.

• Job 16:13

  His archers surround me; he splits open my kidneys and does not have compassion; he pours out my gall on the ground.

• Job 20:13

  though he has compassion on it and does not let it go, and holds it back in the middle of his palate,

• Job 27:22

  And it hurls at him and does not have compassion; from its hand he flees in haste.

• Proverbs 6:34

  For jealousy is the fury of a man, and he will not spare in the day of vengeance.

• Isaiah 9:19

  By the fury of YHWH Tsevaot the land is darkened, and the people are like fuel for the fire; no one spares his brother.

• Isaiah 30:14

  And he will break it as one breaks a potters’ jar, crushed without sparing, and there will not be found among its fragments a shard to take fire from the hearth, or to scoop water from the pool.”

• Jeremiah 13:14

  And I will dash them one against another, the fathers and the sons together, declares YHWH; I will not show pity, nor spare, nor have compassion that would keep me from destroying them.’”

• Jeremiah 15:5

  For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? And who will grieve for you? And who will turn aside to ask about your peace?

• Jeremiah 21:7

  And afterward, declares YHWH, I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life; and he will strike them with the edge of the sword; he will not pity them, and he will not spare, and he will not have compassion.’

• Jeremiah 50:14

  Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all who bend the bow; shoot at her, do not spare arrows, for against YHWH she has sinned.

• Jeremiah 51:3

  Against her let the archer bend his bow, and against her let him rise up in his armor; and do not spare her young men; devote to destruction all her army.

• Lamentations 2:2

  Adonai has swallowed up and has not pitied all the pastures of Jacob; he has torn down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought them down to the ground; he has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

• Lamentations 2:17

  YHWH has done what he planned; he has fulfilled his saying that he commanded from the days of old; he has torn down and has not pitied; and he has made the enemy rejoice over you; he has raised the horn of your adversaries.

• Lamentations 2:21

  They lie on the ground in the streets, boy and old man; my virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword; you have killed them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered, you have not pitied.

• Lamentations 3:43

  You have covered yourself with anger and pursued us; you have killed, you have not pitied.

• Ezekiel 5:11

  Therefore, as I live, declares Adonai YHWH, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, I too will withdraw, and my eye will not spare, and I too will not show pity.

• Ezekiel 7:4

  And my eye will not spare you, and I will not show pity; for your ways I will lay upon you, and your abominations will be in your midst; and you will know that I am YHWH.”

• Ezekiel 7:9

  And my eye will not spare, and I will not show pity; according to your ways I will lay upon you, and your abominations will be in your midst; and you will know that I, YHWH, am the one who strikes.

• Ezekiel 8:18

  And I too will act in fury; my eye will not spare, and I will not show pity; and they will cry in my ears with a loud voice, and I will not hear them.”

• Ezekiel 9:5

  And to the others he said in my ears, “Pass through the city after him and strike; let your eye not spare, and do not show pity.

• Ezekiel 9:10

  And I too, my eye will not spare, and I will not show pity; their way I will lay on their head.”

• Ezekiel 16:5

  No eye pitied you to do for you one of these things out of compassion for you; but you were thrown out on the face of the field in the loathing of your soul, on the day you were born.

• Ezekiel 36:21

  And I had pity on my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they went.

• Joel 2:18

  Then YHWH was jealous for his land and had pity on his people.

• Habakkuk 1:17

  Will he therefore empty his net, and continually slay nations without sparing?

• Zechariah 11:5

  whose buyers kill them and are not held guilty; and their sellers say, ‘Blessed be YHWH, and I have become rich’; and their shepherds do not have compassion on them.

• Zechariah 11:6

  For I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land, declares YHWH; and look, I am handing over human beings, each into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king; and they will crush the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand.”

• Malachi 3:17

  And they will be mine, says YHWH Tsevaot, for the day that I am making, a special treasure; and I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.

And 1 more times.