Usually a flexible cord or leather lash with a handle. This instrument has been used since ancient times to beat humans (2Ch 10:11, 14) as well as to drive and direct animals.​—Pr 26:3; Na 3:2.

King Rehoboam boasted that, whereas his father Solomon had chastised the Israelites with “whips,” he would do so with “scourges.” Rehoboam’s expression was figurative, but the scourges alluded to may have been lashes equipped with sharp points, since the Hebrew word (ʽaq·rab·bimʹ) for “scourges” literally means “scorpions.”​—1Ki 12:11, 14, ftn; 2Ch 10:11, 14.

Eliphaz the Temanite spoke of “the whip of a tongue.” (Job 4:1; 5:21) Apparently the allusion was to the use of the tongue to inflict injury, as in slandering and speaking abusively.​—Compare Pr 12:18; Jas 3:5-10.

At Passover time of 30 C.E., “after making a whip of ropes, [Jesus] drove all those with the sheep and cattle out of the temple.” Indicating that Jesus used the whip only on the animals, not on the men with the sheep and cattle, is the fact that he evicted the sellers of doves verbally, not with the whip. Also, by driving out the cattle with the whip, he upset their business activity, and the men would naturally follow after their cattle, to round them up.​—Joh 2:13-17.