To faint, grow faint, or be covered over β used for physical collapse from exhaustion and for the spiritual languishing of the soul.
The Hebrew alaph means to faint, swoon, or grow weak β to be enveloped by exhaustion or grief until one collapses. It appears in Amos 8:13 ('young women and strong young men will faint (alapph) from thirst'), in Song of Songs 2:5 ('I am faint with love' β rendered 'sick with love' in some translations), and in Isaiah 51:20 where Zion's sons have 'fainted... like antelope caught in a net.' The word captures the total depletion of strength β body and soul given out.
The alaph of Song of Songs 2:5 ('I am faint with love') is one of the most theologically beautiful uses of this verb. The bride is not collapsed from despair or thirst but from the overwhelming weight of love β too much grace, too much nearness. Bernard of Clairvaux built much of his mystical theology on this verse. And Amos 8:13 warns that those who have despised God's word will one day faint β not from too much divine presence but from its total absence: 'a famine of hearing the words of the LORD' (Amos 8:11). Faint with love, or faint from thirst: these are the two directions of the human soul.