kala · hold back, restrain

What it means

kala (כָּלָא) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “hold back, restrain”.

Withhold; keep someone from doing something, prevent.

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 stop something from going on, or to shut someone up.

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

How it is translated

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

• have held back ×2
• shut up ×2
• were restrained ×2
• withhold ×2
• I am shut in ×1
• finish ×1
• had shut him up ×1
• has held back ×1
• have kept me ×1
• hold them back ×1
• others ×4

Related words

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

Where it appears

• Genesis×2
• Exodus×1
• Numbers×1
• 1 Samuel×2
• Psalms×4
• Ecclesiastes×1
• Isaiah×1
• Jeremiah×2
• Ezekiel×1
• Daniel×1
• Haggai×2

• Genesis 8:2

  And the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens were closed, and the rain from the heavens was held back.

• Genesis 23:6

  “Hear us, my lord: you are a chief of Elohim among us. In the choicest of our graves bury your dead. No one of us will withhold his grave from you for burying your dead.”

• Exodus 36:6

  So Moses commanded, and they made a proclamation pass through the camp, saying, “Let no man or woman do any more work for the contribution of the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing.

• Numbers 11:28

  And Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant from his youth, answered and said, “My lord Moses, stop them.”

• 1 Samuel 6:10

  And the men did so; they took two nursing cows and hitched them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.

• 1 Samuel 25:33

  Blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from entering into guilt of blood and from saving myself with my own hand.

• Psalms 40:9

  I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great assembly; look, my lips I will not restrain; YHWH, you know it.

• Psalms 40:11

  You, YHWH, will not withhold your mercies from me; your loyal love and your truth will continually guard me.

• Psalms 88:8

  You have put far my acquaintances from me; you have made me an abomination to them; I am shut in, and I will not go out.

• Psalms 119:101

  From every evil path I have held back my feet, so that I may keep your word.

• Ecclesiastes 8:8

  There is no human being with power over the breath to retain the breath, nor is there power over the day of death, nor is there discharge in war, nor will wickedness deliver its owners.

• Isaiah 43:6

  I will say to the north, ‘Give them up,’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth,

• Jeremiah 32:2

  Now at that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the king of Judah,

• Jeremiah 32:3

  where Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, saying, ‘Thus says YHWH: Look, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will capture it;

• Ezekiel 31:15

  Thus says Adonai YHWH: ‘On the day it went down to Sheol I caused mourning; I covered the deep over it, and I held back its streams, and the many waters were restrained; and I put Lebanon in mourning for it, and all the trees of the field fainted for it.

• Daniel 9:24

  Seventy weeks are decreed concerning your people and concerning your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to put an end to sin, and to make expiation for iniquity, and to bring in eternal righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.

• Haggai 1:10

  Therefore, because of you the heavens have held back the dew, and the earth has held back its produce.

And 1 more times.