Fight (To)

"to fight, do battle, engage in combat." This word is found in all periods of Hebrew, as well as in ancient Ugaritic. It occurs in the text of Hebrew Bible more than 170 times. Laham appears first in Exod 1:10, where the Egyptian pharaoh expresses his fears that the Israelite slaves will multiply and join an enemy "to fight" against the Egyptians.

While the word is commonly used in the context of "armies engaged in pitched battle" against each other (Num 21:23; Josh 10:5; Judg 11:5), it is also used to describe "single, hand-to-hand combat" (1Sam 17:32-33). Frequently, God "fights" the battle for Israel (Deut 20:4). Instead of swords, words spoken by a lying tongue are often used "to fight" against God's servants (Psa 109:2).

In folk etymology, laham is often connected with lehem, the Hebrew term for "bread," on the contention that wars are fought for bread. There is, however, no good basis for such etymology.

"battle; war." This noun occurs more than 300 times in the Old Testament, indicating how large a part military experience and terminology played in the life of the ancient Israelites. Gen 14:8 is an early occurrence of milhamâ: "And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah,… and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim."