Abarim Publications' online Biblical Hebrew Dictionary
אנף
The verb אנף ('anap) means to be angry but, as we shall see below, in a cool and composed and productive way. Our verb is exclusively applied to YHWH (Deuteronomy 1:37, 4:21, 9:8, 9:20, Psalm 79:5, 85:3, 1 Kings 8:46, 2 Kings 17:18, Isaiah 12:1), and Elohim (Psalm 60:1, Ezra 9:14) and the Son (Psalm 2:12) but never of men. This is rather curious because from this verb derives the important masculine noun אף ('ap), meaning either anger or nostril, which is that specific bodily organ via which the breath of life enters from YHWH Elohim into Adam (Genesis 2:7) and all life (Genesis 7:22). This in turn implies that anger (i.e. any form of displeasure, which comes from any perceived departure from a perceived ideal) is the most essential quality of life and that the nose is one's seat of that (Isaiah 2:22). In Lamentations 4:20, Jeremiah even deems the breath of our nostrils, the Lord's anointed: משיח (mashiah), or in Greek: χριστος (christos).
This is highly essential, since the grand summary of the Law — which is the Logos, which is God's most intimate nature, which is unity (Deuteronomy 6:4), and is with God before there is creation (John 1:1), and in turn within creation as creation's most fundamental quality (Romans 1:20), which is where the preservation laws come from, as the singularity was never compromised (Colossians 1:16-17) — entails a knowing what one wants: "Treat others the way you want to be treated" (Matthew 7:12). If this Law Of Everything describes God's core nature, and there are no others to treat, then this same law proclaims the necessity of creation: "Let there be others to treat — and be treated by!"
This is then also the most fundamental definition of consciousness (because every "thing" begins its ontological journey as a "word" spoken by God, upon which it materializes): which begins when the whole of existence splits into two, and "that which is me" is separated from "that which is not me", and that which thus begins to be says "I am" (Genesis 1:1-8).
The marvel of all this continues in our verb's more mundane counterpart, namely נחר (nahar), to snort vigorously (mostly of horses), whose derivative נחיר (nahir) means nostril, and which looks like a reflexive version of the verb חרר (harar), to be hot, whose derivative חר (hor) describes a hollow (a cavern, oven or kiln) in which a fire is aspirated. Likewise, the verb אפף ('apap) means to surround or encompass, but always of death or masses of deadly elements: waves of death (2 Samuel 22:5), cords of death (Psalm 18:4, 116:3), evils beyond number (Psalm 40:12), and waters (Jonah 2:6).
The quintessential thing that waters surround is of course dry land (Genesis 1:9), and the quintessential thing that waters kill is fire. For a closer look at how fire centralized ancient societies, see our article on πυρ (pur). For now, let's observe that the verb אנף ('anap), to be angry, drops its central נ (nun) to form the noun אף ('ap), nostril, in a way that seems comparable to how the verb אנש ('anash), to be a social being (i.e. to be individually weak but collectively strong), drops its central נ (nun) to form the noun אש ('esh), meaning fire (and these patterns go on and on: noun איש, 'ish, means man or husband; noun אשה, 'isha, means woman or wife; verb אפה, 'apa, means to bake; also see our article on αρτος, artos, bread).
Deuteronomy 32:22 reads: "For a fire (אש, 'esh) is kindled in My anger (אף, 'ap), and burns to the lowest part of Sheol." And Deuteronomy 33:10 says: "They shall put incense in Your nose (באפך, beappeka)."
Our noun אף ('ap) is the primary derivation of the verb אנף ('anap), to be angry, and hence most essentially means anger, which is the mental effect of the perception of a misalignment between how one wants things to be and how one observes them to be. It's why even the smallest creatures move about in ways that cannot be explained by thermodynamics, which in essence places life in the realm beyond: a living cell is a "transfinitively black body" and causes in the physical world more entropy than any comparable sized non-animated object, and pays that back by decreasing the entropy in the realm of pure information — which in Hebrew is called שמים (shemayim), literally "words" (imprecisely and confusingly translated as "heavens"), which explains the link in Greek between ονομα (onoma), noun or name, and νομος (nomos), law.
We humans use our unique pyramid nose to point at the object of our interest, regardless whether we look, hear or smell it: noun פנים (panim), meaning face, comes from the verb פנה (pana), meaning to turn. This may have helped the Greeks form their otherwise inexplicable noun νους (nous), mind, which resembles nothing but the Proto-Indo-European root "nas-", nose, from which English indeed gets the word "nose".
This may help to explain why someone would press their nostrils — dual: אפים (appaim), pronounced different but spelled the same as אפים ('opim), baker (Genesis 40:16-22, Jeremiah 37:21) — to the earth in a show of humility and agreeableness (Genesis 19:1, 42:6, 48:12, Numbers 22:31, 1 Samuel 20:41, 24:8, 25:23, 25:41, 28:14, 2 Samuel 14:4, 14:33, 18:28, 24:20, 1 Kings 1:23, 1:31, 1 Chronicles 21:21, 2 Chronicles 7:3, 20:18, Nehemiah 8:6, Isaiah 49:23). Hence nostrils not pressed to the ground but stuck high in the air show the opposite: Daniel 11:20 uses our word אפים (appaim) parallel to לחמ (lehem), which here means war, but which is also identical to the noun meaning bread (hence the name Bethlehem).
At the blast of YHWH's nostrils (dual: אפים, appaim) the waters of the Sea of Reeds were piled up (Exodus 15:8, also see 2 Samuel 22:16), yet YHWH declared Himself to be slow (ארך, 'arok, long) of anger (dual: אפים, appaim: Exodus 34:6, Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 103:8, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2, Nahum 1:3), which is the opposite of being קצר־אפים (qetsar-appaim), short-nosed (Proverbs 14:17; also see the name Simon). Proverbs 14:29 reads: "He who is long-nosed (i.e. like YHWH) has great understanding, but he who is קצר (qetsar, short) - רוח (ruah; of spirit) exalts folly." Proverbs 15:18 juxtaposes long-nosedness with חמה (hema), hotness, which means that being long-nosed equals being cool. This in turn explains the nature of our verb אנף ('anap), which describes not mere anger but a cool and calculated assessment of a situation that needs changing: to be wisely angry, to be stirred to calmly improve unacceptable conditions.
This may explain how the Hebrews saw typically long-nosed animals such as horses (ιππος, hippos) and perhaps even elephants (ελεφας, elephas, ivory): namely very slow to anger, but when they do get there, they explode. Proverbs 16:32 equates a long-nosed man with someone who rules his רוח (ruah). Proverbs 25:15 explains that a lengthy nose can sway a prince, but Proverbs 30:33 declares that "chomping" milk produces butter, like "chomping" the nose (אף, 'ap, singular) produces blood, like "chomping" the nostrils (אפים, appaim, dual) produces strife.
Somewhat of that latter sense is reflected in the scene that describes how Elkanah, the future father of Samuel, traveled to Shiloh to sacrifice to YHWH, where he gave proper portions to his wife Peninnah and all their children, but a passionate double-nostril (אפים, appaim) portion to poor childless Hannah (1 Samuel 1:5), whose childlessness may have had something to do with her being Elkanah's trophy wife, whereas Peninnah was the breeder (see Rashi on Genesis 4:19, the part on "two wives").
In the singular, the noun אף ('ap) most commonly means anger, mostly but not exclusively of God (Genesis 39:19, 44:18, 49:6-7, Exodus 22:24, 32:10-12, Numbers 11:1, Deuteronomy 13:17, 29:23, 31:17, 32:22, Joshua 7:26, Judges 6:39, 9:30, 14:19, 1 Samuel 11:6, 28:18, 2 Kings 23:26, 2 Chronicles 25:10, 29:10, 30:8, Ezra 8:22, dozens of times in Job and the Psalms, Proverbs 19:11, 24:18, and dozens of times in the prophets).
On rare occasions, our noun אף ('ap) refers that body part upon which one may place a ring (נזם, nezem, and note the similarity with PIE "nas-", nose) (Genesis 24:47), or into which one may slam a hook (2 Kings 19:28), or from which an excess of food re-emerges (Numbers 11:20). In 2 Samuel 22:9, David sings of smoke (עשן, 'ashan) coming out of YHWH's אף ('ap) and fire (אש, 'esh) out of his mouth (פה peh). In Song of Solomon 7:4, the King likens the Bride's nose to the tower (מגדל, migdol, from גדל, gadel, to be great) of Lebanon, which, we shall repeat, was a huge compliment in those days. In Song of Solomon 7:8, he likens the fragrance (ריח, reah) of her אף ('ap) to apples.
- The noun אנפה ('anapa) describes some class of unclean bird. It's mentioned in Leviticus 11:19 and Deuteronomy 14:18, where most translations have it as the heron. Some commentators suggest it may have denoted the parrot, but it's ultimately unknown which bird is meant or why it was named after a verb that describes making an angry intervention in the goings on. Perhaps this type of bird was named after its aggressive nest building or defense of territory, or perhaps after a beak that reminded of a nose. But these are all guesses.
אף II
A second word אף ('ap), which is identical to the word for nostril or anger, is a particle that expresses doubt or addition, and especially of something more emphatic or surprising. It's usually translated as: also, moreover, "and additionally ...", or a somewhat condescending: "... really?"
This word occurs 134 times in the Bible, but rather strikingly, the first time this word appears is in Genesis 3:1, where the serpent says to the woman: "אף ('ap), that God would say ...".
It's unclear where our word comes from, but it's indistinguishable from אף ('ap), anger, which doubtlessly the Hebrew poets noted. Whether this word lives up to any suspicions this association may have generated, namely that our word may express some fundamental quality of the mind, is not evidenced one way or the other. What is clear, however, is that our word is dramatically similar to Greek's ubiquitous suffix επι (epi), meaning on, upon or unto.
If indeed there is a connection between אף ('ap) and επι (epi), it remains unclear whether the Semitic version informed the Indo-European one, or vice versa, or that perhaps both evolved separately from a common, even more fundamental language. In post-Biblical Hebrew אף ('ap) combined with אלו (illu), if, to form אפלו (apilu), "even if", which rather reminds of the אפלה ('apela), darkness — the idiom "who darkens counsel?" (Job 38:2) uses חשך (hoshek), the common word for darkness — and hence the entire פלל (palal) cluster, which speaks of distinguishing and discerning; verb פלה (pala) means to be distinct or separated, whose synonym בין (bin), to distinguish, reminds of בן (ben), meaning son, verb בנה (bana), to build, noun בת (bat), daughter, and בית (bayit), house or temple. Verb נפל (napal) means to fall; hence the Nephilim, and possibly the noun νεφελη (nephele), cloud (from which rain falls), and even the name Apollo.