Channel

Channel - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(1.) The bed of the sea or of a river (Ps. 18:15; Isa. 8:7).

(2.) The "chanelbone" (Job 31:22 marg.), properly "tube" or "shaft," an old term for the collar-bone.

Channel - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

CHANNEL, n.

1. In a general sense, a passage; a place of passing or flowing; particularly, a water course.

2. The place where a river flows, including the whole breadth of the river. But more appropriately, the deeper part or hollow in which the principal current flows.

3. The deeper part of a strait, bay, or harbor, where the principal current flows, either of tide or fresh water, or which is the most convenient for the track of a ship.

4. That through which any thing passes; means of passing, conveying, or transmitting; as, the news was conveyed to us by different channels.

5. A gutter or furrow in a column.

6. An arm of the sea; a straight or narrow sea, between two continents, or between a continent and an isle; as the British or Irish channel.

7. Channels of a ship. [See Chain-wales.]

CHANNEL, v.t. To form a channel; to cut channels in; to groove; as, to channel a field or a column.

chan'-el ('aphiq (root 'aphaq, "to hold or contain," "to be strong"; compare Arabic 'afaq "to overcome" and 'afiq, "preeminent"); shibboleth (shabhal, "to go," "to go up or grow," "to flow"; compare Arabic 'asbal, "to flow," "to rain," "to put forth ears"; sabalat, "an ear of grain"; sabil, "a road," "a public fountain")): In Job 12:21; 40:18; 41:15 we have 'aphiq in the sense of "strong" (but compare 40:18, the Revised Version (British and American) "tubes" (of brass)). Elsewhere it is translated "river," "brook," "stream," "channel" or "watercourse." Shibboleth (in the dialect of Ephraim cibboleth (Jud 12:6)) means "an ear of grain" (Ge 41:5 ff; Ru 2:2; Isa 17:5) or "a flood of water" (Ps 69:2,15; Isa 27:12). In 2Sa 22:16 (compare Ps 18:15) we have: "Then the channels of the sea appeared, The foundations of the world were laid bare, By the rebuke of Yahweh, At the blast of the breath of his nostrils." This is reminiscent of "fountains of the deep" (Ge 7:11; 8:2; Pr 8:28). It is a question how far we should attribute to these ancient writers a share in modern notions of oceanography, but the idea seems to be that of a withdrawal of the water of the ocean, and the laying bare of submarine declivities and channels such as we know to exist as the result of erosion during a previous period of elevation, when the given portion of ocean floor was dry land.

The fact that many streams of Palestine flow only during the rainy season seems to be referred to in Job 6:15; and perhaps also in Ps 126:4.

See BROOK; RIVER.

Alfred Ely Day