חָפֵץ

chafets · desire, delight in

Hebrew word · Strong’s number H2654 · appears 75 times in the Bible

What is the Strong number?

Strong’s number identifies this word: use it to find the same word in other study tools.

What it means

chafets (חָפֵץ) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “desire, delight in”.

Want, desire; be pleased with someone, delight in.

How to say it

cha·fets

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

To take pleasure in someone or something and look on it with favor.
To wish for something, be willing.
Another word spelled the same: to stiffen.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

To want, desire; with the preposition “in”, to take pleasure in someone or something, to delight in it. Of the same root is חֵפֶץ (desire, delight).

Wanting to do something (or not wanting) Deuteronomy 25:7 Ruth 3:13
Delighting in a person 1 Samuel 19:1 Psalms 18:19
What God wants or does not want Ezekiel 18:32 Isaiah 1:11 Psalms 115:3
Not awakening love “until it pleases” Song of Songs 2:7

How we translate it

It varies with what follows: when the object is an act, “want” (“does not want to take his sister-in-law”, Deuteronomy 25:7) or “pleases”; when it is a person or a thing, “delight” (“delight” 15 times, “delights” 14, “he delighted” 4), “take pleasure” (“pleasure” 8, Ezekiel 18:32) or “desire” 5. חָפֵץ בְּ is “delight in” (“he delighted in me”, Psalm 18:19).

How it is translated

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

delight ×15
delights ×14
pleasure ×8
desire ×5
I desire ×4
he delighted ×4
delighted ×3
it pleases ×3
want ×3
was pleased ×3
others ×13

Related words

Words that come from it

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

Where it appears

Genesis 34:19
The young man did not delay to do the thing, for he delighted in the daughter of Jacob; and he was the most honored of all the house of his father.
Numbers 14:8
If YHWH delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey.
Deuteronomy 21:14
And if you are not pleased with her, you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for silver; you shall not treat her as a slave, because you have humiliated her.
Deuteronomy 25:7
But if the man does not want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister-in-law shall go up to the gate, to the elders, and say, “My brother-in-law refuses to raise up a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me.”
Deuteronomy 25:8
Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. And if he stands and says, “I do not want to take her,”
Judges 13:23
But his wife said to him, “If YHWH had wanted to put us to death, he would not have accepted from our hand a burnt offering and a grain offering, and he would not have shown us all these things, and he would not now have let us hear things like this.”
Ruth 3:13
Spend this night here, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem. But if he does not want to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as YHWH lives. Lie down until the morning.”
1 Samuel 2:25
If a man sins against a man, Elohim will arbitrate for him; but if a man sins against YHWH, who will pray for him?” But they did not listen to the voice of their father, for YHWH wanted to put them to death.
1 Samuel 18:22
Saul commanded his servants, “Speak to David in secret, saying, ‘Look, the king delights in you, and all his servants love you; and now, become son-in-law to the king.’”
1 Samuel 19:1
Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants of putting to death David. But Jonathan, son of Saul, delighted greatly in David.
2 Samuel 15:26
But if he says this: ‘I have no delight in you,’ here I am; let him do to me as seems good in his eyes.”
2 Samuel 20:11
And a man of Joab’s young men stood by him and said, “Whoever delights in Joab, and whoever is for David, let him go after Joab!”
2 Samuel 22:20
He brought me out into a broad place; he set me free, because he delighted in me.
2 Samuel 24:3
Joab said to the king, “May YHWH your Elohim add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it; but my lord the king, why does he delight in this thing?”
1 Kings 9:1
And it happened, when Solomon had finished building the house of YHWH and the house of the king and all the desire of Solomon that he was pleased to do,
1 Kings 10:9
May YHWH your Elohim be blessed, who took pleasure in you to set you on the throne of Israel; through the love of YHWH for Israel forever, he has set you as king, to do justice and righteousness.”
2 Chronicles 9:8
Blessed be YHWH your Elohim, who delighted in you to set you on his throne as king for YHWH your Elohim! Because of the love of your Elohim for Israel, to keep it firm forever, he has set you over them as king, to do justice and righteousness.”
Esther 2:14
In the evening she would go in, and in the morning she would return to the second house of the women, under the hand of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, keeper of the concubines; she would not go in again to the king unless the king delighted in her and she was called by name.
Esther 6:6
So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What is to be done for the man whom the king delights to honor?” And Haman said in his heart, “Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?”
Esther 6:7
And Haman said to the king, “The man whom the king delights to honor,
Esther 6:9
and let the robe and the horse be given into the hand of a man from among the king’s officials, the nobles, and let them clothe the man whom the king delights to honor, and let them make him ride on the horse through the square of the city, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus it will be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’”
Esther 6:11
And Haman took the robe and the horse, and clothed Mordecai, and made him ride through the square of the city, and proclaimed before him, “Thus it will be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”
Job 9:3
If he wished to contend with him, he could not answer him one in a thousand.
Job 13:3
But I would speak to Shaddai, and to argue with El I desire.
Job 21:14
And they say to El, ‘Turn away from us; the knowledge of your ways we do not desire.
Job 33:32
If there are words, answer me; speak, for I desire to declare you righteous.
Job 40:17
It bends its tail like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are knit together.
Psalms 18:19
He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
Psalms 22:8
“Commit yourself to YHWH; let him bring him to safety, let him deliver him, for he delighted in him.”
Psalms 37:23
By YHWH the steps of a man are made firm, and in his way he delights.
Psalms 40:6
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; ears you have opened for me; burnt offering and sin offering you did not ask.
Psalms 40:8
To do your will, my Elohim, I have desired, and your instruction is within my inward parts.”
Psalms 41:11
By this I know that you delight in me: that my enemy does not shout over me.
Psalms 51:6
Look, you delight in truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you make me know wisdom.
Psalms 51:16
For you do not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; in burnt offering you do not take pleasure.
Psalms 51:19
Then you will delight in sacrifices of righteousness, burnt offering and whole offering; then bulls will go up on your altar.
Psalms 68:30
Rebuke the beast of the reeds, the community of bulls with the calves of the peoples, the one who humbles himself with pieces of silver; he has scattered the peoples who delight in battles.
Psalms 73:25
Whom have I in the heavens? And with you I desire nothing on earth.
Psalms 109:17
And he loved cursing, and it came on him; and he did not delight in blessing, and it was far from him.
Psalms 112:1
Praise Yah. Happy is the man who fears YHWH, who in his commandments delights greatly.

And 35 more times.