חָפַר châphar — properly, to pry into
Translated in the KJV as dig, paw, search out, seek.
a primitive root; properly, to pry into; by implication, to delve, to explore.
châphar in each stem
Qal (Pa'al)
Wayyiqtol 8Perfect (qatal) 7Imperfect (yiqtol) 2Sequential perfect (weqatal) 2Infinitive construct 2Participle (active) 1
And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.
For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.
What the stems mean
A Hebrew verb is its root letters set into a pattern. The pattern — the binyan — is the grammar's way of saying three things at once: whether the action is simple, intensive or causative, and whether its subject is active, passive or reflexive. That is why one Hebrew word can need six English ones. All seven binyanim, explained ›