Part

Portion - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

PORTION, n. [L. portio, from partio, to divide, from pars, part. See Part.]

1. In general, a part of any thing separated from it. Hence,

2. A part, though not actually divided, but considered by itself.

These are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of him. Job 26.

3. A part assigned; an allotment; a dividend.

How small

A portion to your share would fall.

The priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh. Gen 47.

4. The part of an estate given to a child or heir, or descending to him by law, and distributed to him in the settlement of the estate.

5. A wife's fortune.

PORTION, v.t. To divide; to parcel; to allot a share or shares.

And portion to his tribes the wide domain.

1. To endow.

Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest.

part: "to part" as a verb is no longer in good use (except in a few special phrases, compare Ru 1:17), but is obscure only in Pr 18:18, where the meaning is "break up their quarrel" (compare 2Sa 14:6). the Revised Version (British and American) has not changed the King James Version's usage, except (strangely) in 1Sa 30:24, where "share" is written. For the noun see PORTION.

por'-shun: As far as a distinction between these words is possible in English, it lies in the fact that a "portion" is a "part" about whose destiny something is implied (Ps 142:5, etc.). The Hebrew has no two synonyms similarly related, and in consequence the use of the words in English Versions of the Bible is settled either by rather arbitrary considerations (menah, is always "portion" in the Revised Version (British and American), but is "part" in the King James Version, Ex 29:26; Le 7:33; 8:29) or by the context, irrespective of the Hebrew word used. So "part" and "portion" both represent dabhar, 1Ki 6:38; Ne 12:47; peh, Zec 13:8; De 21:17; chebhel, Jos 17:5 (Revised Version); Eze 47:13; meros, Lu 11:36; 12:46. And in the vast majority of cases in the Old Testament both words represent simply some derivative of chalaq, normally the noun cheleq.

Burton Scott Easton