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חֹק חָג עַל־פְּנֵי־מָיִם (Iyov 26:10), a bound He set round the face of the waters: חָג, he says, means went round.

הַיּשֵׁב עַל־ חוּג הָאָרֶץ (Yeshayahu 40:22), He who sits upon the circuit of the earth: that is, the sphere that goes round the earth. So too וְחוּג שָׁמַיִם יִתְהַלָּֽךְ (Iyov 22:14), He walks the circuit of the heavens, and בְּחוּקוֹ חוּג (Mishlei 8:27), when He inscribed a circuit.

מְחוּגָה is the tool with which a circle is drawn and set true: וּבַמְּחוּגָה יְתָֽאֳרֵהוּ (Yeshayahu 44:13), he marks it out with the compass. In the vernacular it is קונפ"ש, a compass.

חַגִּים יִנְקֹֽפוּ (Yeshayahu 29:1), the festivals will be cut off, that is, their head will be cut off. The Targum renders וַֽעֲרַפְתּוֹ (Shemos 13:13), and you shall break its neck, with וּתְנַקְפֵיהּ, of this root, and הָֽעֲרוּפָה (Devarim 21:6), the one whose neck was broken, with דִנְקִיפָא.

וְנִשְׁאַר־בּוֹ עֽוֹלֵלֹת כְּנֹקֶף זַיִת (Yeshayahu 17:6), and gleanings will be left in it as at the cutting of an olive tree, and on another pattern וְתַחַת חֲגוֹרָה נִקְפָּה (Yeshayahu 3:24), and instead of a girdle, a rent.

וְנִקַּף סִֽבְכֵי הַיַּעַר בַּבַּרְזֶל (Yeshayahu 10:34), the thickets of the forest are cut down with iron, and וְאַחַר עוֹרִֽי נִקְּפוּ ־זֹאת (Iyov 19:26), and after my skin they have broken this, which he explains as the worms having broken and bored into this, the word this standing for the bone. All of them are the sense of breaking and cutting.

Chazal speak of המנקף בראש הזית, one who cuts at the top of an olive tree, and they said (Chullin 7b) that a man does not so much as cut his finger below unless it has been declared of him above, and that the blood of such a cut is accepted like the blood of an olah.

וּמְצוּדוֹ עָלַי הִקִּֽיף (Iyov 19:6), and has closed His net around me, and כִּי הִקִּיפוּ יְמֵי הַמִּשְׁתֶּה (Iyov 1:5), when the days of the feast had gone round, are written under the root יָקַף.

וְסָבַב בֵּֽית־אֵל (Shmuel I 7:16), he went round to Beis El; סֹבּוּ צִיּוֹן וְהַקִּיפוּהָ (Tehillim 48:13), go round Tzion and encircle her; סוֹבֵב סֹבֵב הוֹלֵךְ הָרוּחַ (Koheles 1:6), round and round goes the wind; and וְהִנֵּה תְסֻבֶּינָה אֲלֻמֹּתֵיכֶם (Bereishis 37:7), your sheaves came round about.

וַיַּסֵּב אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָעָם (Shemos 13:18), He led the people round about; וַיַּסֵּב חִזְקִיָּהוּ פָּנָיו אֶל־הַקִּיר (Yeshayahu 38:2), Chizkiyahu turned his face to the wall; וַתִּסֹּב הַמְּלוּכָה (Melachim I 2:15), the kingship turned about; and כִּֽי־הָֽיְתָה סִבָּה (Melachim I 12:15), for it was a turn of events.

The noun is סָבִיב: סָבִיב סָבִיב (Yechezkel 37:2), round about, round about; in the plural, וּסְבִיבָיו נִשְֽׂעֲרָה מְאֹֽד (Tehillim 50:3), and round about Him it storms greatly, סְבִיבוֹת שִׁנָּיו אֵימָֽה (Iyov 41:6), round about his teeth is terror, and וְעַל־ סְבִֽיבֹתָיו שָׁב הָרֽוּחַ (Koheles 1:6), and on its circuits the wind returns.

Rabbi Yonah divided the root into three senses and answered Rabbi Yehudah, who wrote them all as one. Radak holds Rabbi Yehudah's view straight and right, that they are all one sense: of the pesukim that seemed strange to Rabbi Yonah, so that he took them out of the sense of going round and encircling, not one escapes it, since there is no rolling, returning or reversing without going round and encircling.

Rabbi Yonah's claim that עַד־שֶׁהַמֶּלֶךְ בִּמְסִבּוֹ (Shir HaShirim 1:12), while the king was in his circle, and רֹאשׁ מְסִבָּי (Tehillim 140:10), the head of those round me, are a sense apart, reclining, drawn from Chazal's saying that one does not eat until he reclines (Pesachim 99b), Radak says is not so. Reclining in Chazal's language is itself a word of going round: they used to sit round about at the food and drink, and while eating and drinking they leaned to the left as a mark of standing, so they called the leaning too by that name; no other leaning in the world is called by it, only at eating and drinking, when they sat round. And so the Targum renders וַיֵּֽשְׁבוּ לֶֽאֱכָל־לֶחֶם (Bereishis 37:25), they sat down to eat bread, with a word of going round.

נְקֵבָה תְּסוֹבֵֽב גָּֽבֶר (Yirmiyahu 31:21 in his edition), a woman shall go round a man, is a figure: Knesses Yisrael is likened to a woman seeking her husband, as it says elsewhere that they will seek Hashem their God and David their king (Hoshea 3:5).

כַּֽחֲלוֹם יָעוּף (Iyov 20:8), he flies off like a dream; מֵחֵץ יָעוּף יוֹמָֽם (Tehillim 91:5), the arrow that flies by day; וַיָּעָף אֵלַי אֶחָד מִן־הַשְּׂרָפִים (Yeshayahu 6:6), one of the Serafim flew to me, where the first root letter is read with a short kamatz. Also כִּי־גָז חִישׁ וַנָּעֻֽפָה (Tehillim 90:10), it passes quickly and we fly away. Doubled, וְעוֹף יְעוֹפֵף עַל־הָאָרֶץ (Bereishis 1:20), and let birds fly over the earth; and turned back on itself, כָּעוֹף יִתְעוֹפֵף כְּבוֹדָם (Hoshea 9:11), their glory will fly off like a bird.

מֻעָף בִּיעָף (Daniel 9:21), made to fly, in flight, may belong to this root, its yud added as the yud of יְקוּם is added to קוּם, and Radak has set it out already under the root יָעַף. Rabbi Yehudah brings here מְגִלָּה עָפָֽה (Zecharyah 5:1), a flying scroll, and so the Targum, which renders it מְגִלָה פִּרְחָא, a flying scroll. Some read it as folded, from the Targum of וְכָפַלְתָּ (Shemos 26:9), and you shall fold, which is וְתֵיעוּף.

תָּעֻפָה כַּבֹּקֶר תִּהְיֶֽה (Iyov 11:17), which he reads as: if you grow dark now, you will be like the morning. So too עֹשֵׂה שַׁחַר עֵיפָה (Amos 4:13), who makes the dawn darkness, and אֶרֶץ עֵיפָתָה כְּמֽוֹ־אֹפֶל (Iyov 10:22), a land of darkness like gloom, that last carrying two feminine endings as יְשׁוּעָתָה does. His father writes that כמו אפל, like gloom, is a place where the sun does not shine for six months, which is not under the line of the earth and which the light of the sun does not reach; and that ולא סדרים, and no order, is that there is no order of moon and stars there, and that וַתֹּפַע כְּמוֹ־אֹֽפֶל, and it is dark like gloom, is that the darkness is like that same gloom. The noun, in another form, is מְעוּף צוּקָה (Yeshayahu 8:22), the darkness of distress, and in the passive כִּי לֹא מוּעָף לַֽאֲשֶׁר מוּצָק לָהּ (Yeshayahu 8:23): it was not made dark for Eretz Yisrael at the first as it is now, for the first trouble, when Pul king of Ashur exiled them, was light and took only Zevulun and Naftali away, while this last time Sancheriv bore down hard. מוּעָף may be a noun, and so מוּצָק. Rabbi Yehudah brings הֲתָעִיף עיניך בו (Mishlei 23:5), will you make your eyes dark upon it, into this group as well. The sense of them all is darkness and gloom.

Most of the commentators take תָּעֻפָה כַּבֹּקֶר תִּהְיֶֽה and הֲתָעִיף עיניך בו the other way, of flashing and light, and explain עֹשֵׂה שַׁחַר עֵיפָה the same way. בְּעֽוֹפְפִי חַרְבִּי עַל־פְּנֵיהֶם (Yechezkel 32:10) is in this sense when I make my sword flash and flame before them as I draw it from its sheath; or it can be read from the first sense, of movement, when I wave it and shake it over them to kill, and movement is close to flight. The noun here is doubled: בְּעַפְעַפֵּי־שָֽׁחַר (Iyov 3:9), the glow of dawn and its light. In this sense the pupil of the eye is called עפעף: לְֽעַפְעַפַּי תְּנוּמָֽה (Tehillim 132:4), slumber to the pupils of my eyes; עַפְעַפָּיו יִבְֽחֲנוּ בְּנֵי אָדָֽם (Tehillim 11:4), the pupils of His eyes try the sons of man; וְעַל עַפְעַפַּי צַלְמָֽוֶת (Iyov 16:16), and on the pupils of my eyes is the shadow of death; and וְעַפְעַפֵּינוּ יִזְּלוּ־מָֽיִם (Yirmiyahu 9:17), the pupils of our eyes will run with water, which Targum Yonasan renders וְגַלְגַלֵי עֵינָנָא יִגְרוּן מַיָא, the balls of our eyes will run with water.

In the words of Chazal it is used this way: אין מדליקין בצרי, one may not light with balsam, מפני שהוא עף, because it flies (Shabbos 25b), that is, it darts and moves off the lamp and spatters here and there; and היתה מעופפת בזמן שכנפיה נוגעות בקן חייב לשלח (Chullin 140b), if she was hovering, at a time when her wings touch the nest, one is bound to send her away, that is, she is stirring, not flying but near to flight. So too, in Radak's own view, וְעָפוּ בְכָתֵף פְּלִשְׁתִּים יָמָּה (Yeshayahu 11:14), and they shall move on the shoulder of the Pelishtim seaward: Israel will move toward the side of the Pelishtim to spoil and to plunder there. בכתף stands as a construct although it is not pointed as one, which would be בְּכֶתֶף with segol; Ben Asher wrote that it came so because of the peh of פלשתים, to set the reading right.

עָֽיְפָה נַפְשִׁי לְהֹֽרְגִֽים (Yirmiyahu 4:31), my soul is faint before the killers; וְהֽוּא־נִרְדַּם וַיָּעַף וַיָּמֹֽת (Shoftim 4:21), he was asleep and spent and died; and וַיָּעַף דָּוִֽד (Shmuel II 21:15), and David grew weary. These last two take a patach in the first root letter to keep them apart from וַיָּעָף אלי, and he flew to me, which is the other sense. The adjective is עָיֵף וְיָגֵעַ (Devarim 25:18), weary and worn. Since a weary man thirsts for water, a thirsty man is called עָיֵף by borrowing, though there is no weariness in him at all but thirst alone, as it says וְכַֽאֲשֶׁר יַֽחֲלֹם הַצָּמֵא וְהִנֵּה שֹׁתֶה וְהֵקִיץ וְהִנֵּה עָיֵף וְנַפְשׁוֹ שֽׁוֹקֵקָה (Yeshayahu 29:8), as when the thirsty man dreams and here he is drinking, and he wakes and here he is thirsty and his soul longs. So too land that thirsts because no rain has fallen on it: בְּאֶֽרֶץ־צִיָּה וְעָיֵף בְּלִי־מָֽיִם (Tehillim 63:2), in a dry and thirsty land without water; נַפְשִׁי כְּאֶֽרֶץ־ עֲיֵפָה לְךָ סֶֽלָה (Tehillim 143:6), my soul is to You like a thirsty land, selah; and כְּצֵל סֶֽלַע־כָּבֵד בְּאֶרֶץ עֲיֵפָֽה (Yeshayahu 32:2), like the shade of a heavy rock in a thirsty land. Some take וְעָפוּ בְכָתֵף פְּלִשְׁתִּים from this sense, and Radak has explained it under the root כָּתֵף.