A stream , especially a winter torrent ; (by implication) a (narrow) valley (in which a brook runs); also a shaft (of a mine)
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H5158, naḥal, is a Hebrew noun for a watercourse and, in many settings, the channel or valley through which water runs. Depending on place, season, and literary setting, it can refer to a brook, a torrent that swells with rain, a streambed that may later be dry, or the ravine shaped by that flow.
Reader summary
Full entry for נַחַל (H5158) · Open the biblical lexicon
H5158, naḥal, is a Hebrew noun for a watercourse and, in many settings, the channel or valley through which water runs. Depending on place, season, and literary setting, it can refer to a brook, a torrent that swells with rain, a streambed that may later be dry, or the ravine shaped by that flow.
The BSB source-word alignment has 141 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Valley (24), the Brook (14), of the valley (10), in the Valley (7), the Valley (7).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 26:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Deuteronomy (20), Joshua (16), Isaiah (11), 1 Kings (10).
H5158, naḥal, is a Hebrew noun for a watercourse and, in many settings, the channel or valley through which water runs. Depending on place, season, and literary setting, it can refer to a brook, a torrent that swells with rain, a streambed that may later be dry, or the ravine shaped by that flow. A rare mining context extends the channel idea to a shaft, but that use should not control ordinary landscape passages.
The word's range is concrete before it becomes poetic: terrain can carry water, fail travelers, mark a boundary, nourish creatures, or threaten people in flood. Deuteronomy 8:7 names brooks among the Lord's gifts in the good land, placing water within covenant provision rather than human entitlement. Job 6:15 compares unreliable friends to seasonal wadis that overflow and then disappoint travelers when heat arrives.
Psalm 124:4 recalls a torrent as an image of danger from which the Lord preserved His people. The same landscape term can therefore serve accounts of abundance, absence, betrayal, boundary, and peril without making water itself a fixed sign of blessing or judgment. Proverbs 18:4 compares wise speech to a bubbling brook, while Amos 5:24 calls for justice and righteousness to roll like enduring water.
Neither image permits a teacher to substitute eloquence, activism, or institutional visibility for the moral demands of its context. Isaiah 35:6 and Ezekiel 47:9 portray life-giving streams within larger prophetic visions of restoration and God's renewing presence. Those promises deserve their canonical hope, but they should not be reduced to personal prosperity or treated as predictions about every drought, river project, or environmental crisis.
H5158 gives teachers a precise way to speak about provision and vulnerability together. A stream may sustain a community, a seasonal channel may expose dependence, and a flood may exceed human strength. Faithful application listens to the passage's actual landscape, honors people who lack safe water, and recognizes stewardship of waterways as neighbor care without claiming that one Hebrew noun supplies a complete environmental ethic.
H5158 names watercourses and the channels or valleys associated with them, ranging from nourishing brooks and enduring streams to seasonal wadis, boundary ravines, and dangerous torrents. Poetic and prophetic uses draw meaning from those concrete settings.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;
Brooks belong to the good land's abundance, so the watercourse appears within the Lord's covenant provision and Israel's coming responsibility.
But my brothers are as faithless as wadis, as seasonal streams that overflow,
Job compares unreliable companions to seasonal channels whose impressive flow does not provide dependable water when need becomes acute.
Then the floods would have engulfed us, then the torrent would have overwhelmed us,
The torrent pictures an overpowering threat, while the psalm assigns rescue to the Lord rather than to human control of danger.
The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.
A bubbling brook helps portray wisdom's life-giving expression, but the proverb evaluates speech rather than promising wisdom through water imagery alone.
But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amos contrasts sustained justice and righteousness with worship the Lord rejects, making ethical faithfulness central to the flowing-water comparison.
Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
Streams in the desert participate in Isaiah's restoration vision, joining transformed land with healing, joy, and the return of the redeemed.
Wherever the river flows, there will be swarms of living creatures and a great number of fish, because it flows there and makes the waters fresh; so wherever the river flows, everything will flourish.
The temple vision presents flowing water that freshens and sustains life, with its meaning shaped by Ezekiel's prophetic scene and the water's temple origin.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Seasonal watercourse that symbolizes transient abundance; often represents divine judgment or blessing's unpredictable flow.
Seasonal watercourse that symbolizes transient abundance; often represents divine judgment or blessing's unpredictable flow.
a stream, especially a winter torrent; (by implication) a (narrow) valley (in which a brook runs); also a shaft (of a mine) BDB: torrent Usage: brook, flood, river, stream, valley.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 141 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Amos 5:24 provides a strong teaching center for H5158 because the prophet calls for justice and righteousness to have the persistence and public force of flowing water. The comparison stands inside the Lord's rejection of songs, assemblies, and offerings that coexist with corrupt life. Water imagery does not beautify worship while leaving injustice untouched; it exposes the contradiction.
Other witnesses prevent a narrow reading. Deuteronomy receives brooks as covenant provision. Job's seasonal wadis disclose the pain of unreliable friendship. Psalm 124 remembers a torrent as mortal danger. Proverbs sees a brook as an image for wise speech. Isaiah and Ezekiel place transformed waterways inside visions of divine restoration. H5158 therefore connects landscape and moral imagination without collapsing them.
Teachers can honor clean water, truthful friendship, sustained justice, creaturely dependence, and promised renewal while still distinguishing a lexical image from a complete doctrine or policy. The word invites close attention to what flows, when it flows, whom it serves, and what the surrounding text says God is doing.
Amos.5.24
H5158 is a masculine common noun whose singular and plural forms can denote a watercourse, torrent channel, streambed, brook, or the valley containing it. Construct forms often connect the channel with a named place or boundary, while surrounding geography and season determine the natural English rendering.
New Testament writers use distinct Greek nouns for springs, rivers, torrents, and valleys, yet they also draw on Scripture's water imagery for life, cleansing, danger, and restoration. These canonical relationships should be traced passage by passage rather than presented as direct lexical equivalence with H5158.