Abarim Publications' online Biblical Hebrew Dictionary
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It's not clear what the unused verb לבב (labab) may have meant but judging from its important derivatives, namely the nouns לבב (lebab) and לב (leb), both meaning heart, it had to do with having, using or forming the emotional part of consciousness: the emotional "self" with which all complex animals are endowed, in contrast to the rational and word-filled mind that is unique to humans.
Where this root may have come from isn't clear either, but note that the very common prefix ל (le) describes a motion toward, whereas the equally common verb בוא (bo') means to come, or rather (to quote our own article on this verb): "to move from a condition of wide dispersal toward a focal point of contraction". This verb frequently occurs in the contracted form בא (bo), while from the (presumably unrelated) root לבא (lb') derive several words for lion (as discussed below).
Moreover, the familiar noun בן (ben) means son, whereas אבן ('eben) means stone and the verb בנה (bana) means to build. These words augmented with the prefix ל (le) results in words closely similar to the verb לבן (laben), to be or become white as an unwritten slate (in the intellectual sense: letting feelings dominate one's, i.e. to be foolish). Noun לבנה (lebanah) describes the moon: a widely attested symbol of feelings and roused sentiments. Nouns להב (lahab) and להבה (lehaba) mean flame
לבב
To the Hebrews, a creature with a heart was a creature who was able to assess the kaleidoscope of impulses around him, sieve out the things that were most important and more or less disregard the rest. The having of a heart and thus of seated courage and resolve is the foundation and a requisite of the forming of an intelligent mind. The opposite of having a heart is being either ignorant, indifferent or cowardly.
The parent verb לבב (labab) isn't used in extant Hebrew literature, so we don't exactly know what it may have meant (but probably to have or form a heart, and hence to have or call upon one's courage). The denominative verb לבב (labab) occurs sporadically with the meaning of to catch attention, both emotionally (Song of Solomon 4:9) and intelligently (Job 11:12).
Since ancient times, this mind-central heart and the blood-pump that creatures usually carry in their chest have been associated with each other, although it's by no means certain that the ancients also believed that the mind sat in the physical blood pump. The Hebrews, after all, associated the mental heart equally with the penis (see below). But we can be sure that the ancients realized that one's heartbeat can be felt throughout the body, and from there it's not a huge step to realize that the heartbeat has something to do with blood (דם, dam), in which was the life of a creature (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:10-14).
It's not clear whether the Bible writers were aware of an intrinsic difference between the nouns לבב (lebab) and לב (leb), but what is clear is that we aren't. They are used pretty much equally.
The noun לב (leb) occurs 600 times in the Hebrew Bible, and the noun לבב (lebab) an additional 252 times. On occasion these words denote the "heart" of something that's not human. In Jonah 2:3, Jonah laments that YHWH had hurled him into the "heart" of the sea, which not simply denotes the middle of the ocean, but rather the emotional heart of it (emotional from the perspective of Jonah); the place which is farthest removed from the "heart" of heaven (Deuteronomy 4:11). Besides the heart of heaven and the sea (Exodus 15:8, Psalm 46:2, Proverbs 23:34, 30:19, Ezekiel 27:4, 27:25-27, 28:2-8), Scriptures mention the heart of an oak (2 Samuel 18:14) and the heart of the enemies of the king (Psalm 45:5).
The nouns לבב (lebab) and לב (leb) designate the inner person and is associated with one's שאר (she'er), flesh (Psalm 73:26) but mostly one's נפש (nepesh), soul (Deuteronomy 4:29, Joshua 22:5, Jeremiah 32:41). It's often endowed with qualities that we moderns ascribe to the mind (Genesis 31:26, Job 12:3, Ecclesiastes 9:3), such as thinking (Isaiah 10:7), memorizing (1 Samuel 21:13) and forgetting (Deuteronomy 4:9). The heart is the seat of determination (1 Samuel 7:3), courage (Daniel 11:25, Psalm 31:24, Amos 2:16), secrets (Psalm 44:21), conscience (Job 27:6) and morality (Deuteronomy 9:5), and all kinds of specified feelings (Leviticus 26:36, 1 Kings 8:38, Isaiah 30:29), but also of wickedness (1 Samuel 17:28), erring (Psalm 95:10), pride (Psalm 101:5) and arrogance (Deuteronomy 8:14).
Crucially though, the heart is something we humans share with animals and is precisely the seat of those qualities that define us as animals: Psalm 73:22, Ecclesiastes 3:18, 2 Peter 2:12, Jude 1:10. According to Jeremiah, the heart is more deceitful than anything else (Jeremiah 17:9), yet the heart wakes when the rest of a person is asleep (Song of Solomon 5:2). It may be broken (Psalm 34:18), molten (2 Samuel 17:10), clean (Psalm 51:10), new (Ezekiel 18:31), fat (Isaiah 6:10), even double (Psalm 12:3).
The heart may be circumcised (Deuteronomy 30:6, Jeremiah 9:25, Romans 2:29), although it's never quite explained what that means in practice: why a surgical procedure done to the male ירך (yarek) might affect the לב (leb). From Deuteronomy 30:6 we learn that YHWH will circumcise our heart and the heart of our descendants, so that we will love him with all our heart and with all our soul, and so that we may live. The verb to circumcise is מול (mul) and the word for foreskin is ערלה ('orla). Also see our article on the verb περιτεμνω (peritemno), to circumcise.
Besides the nouns לבב (lebab) and לב (leb), the following words are drawn from this same root:
- The (probably) feminine noun לבה (libba), probably also meaning heart. The rule is that body parts of which there is only one are masculine, while the pairs are feminine, which makes a feminine form of the word לב (leb) rather unexpected. It only occurs in Ezekiel 16:30, where YHWH makes an observation of Israel's harlot heart — and such a heart is not unified and focused but shattered over many lovers. Then again, we humans are endowed with a single emotional heart because our trillions of body-cells are all endowed with an identical nucleus — see our article on fractals: the many hearts of wisdom.
- The noun לבבה (lebiba), which denotes a kind of dough-based products (2 Samuel 13:6-10). Most commentators seem to believe that these things were called such because of their shape, but it's difficult to imagine how a heart-shaped bun would look long before the familiar heart-shape was connected to the heart phenomenon. This word only occurs in the scene in which Amnon abuses his half-sister Tamar. He pretends to be sick and asks if Tamar could make him some heart-buns. These things most probably were not shaped in a certain way, but rather designed to have someone regain heart, or strength: wellness-cookies. From this noun comes:
- The associated denominative verb לבב (libbeb), meaning to make wellness-cookies (2 Samuel 13:6-8 only).
לבא
The root לבא (lb') isn't used as verb in the Bible and its meaning is unknown, but it obviously has to do with a kind of behavior lions were known for as all extant derivations describe lions. Gesenius was wholly convinced that this root is onomatopoetic and imitates the sound of a lion's roar. Here at Abarim Publications we strongly doubt that, and are more convinced by our word's similarity to the noun לב (leb), heart or courage, or even (as indicated further above), to the prefix ל (le), meaning for or onto, plus the verb בוא (bo') or בא (bo'), meaning to come, or more precise: to converge upon a central point. The more common word for lion, namely ארי ('ari) derives from the verb ארה ('ara), meaning to gather up or compact (namely the herds), so a link to בא (bo') would be a perfect match.
This root and it derivatives speak of gathering and compacting herds (or human populations) by means of predatorial entities that patrol the periphery. Predators like lions would be the wild version of such beings, but in the early agricultural era, the dog would assume this role, as agent of the shepherd. Later still, human governments and their military and police would take on this canine role, while the real shepherds of the world are hidden in plain sight within a world that neither dogs nor herdlings can begin to imagine.
From our root come:
- The masculine or feminine noun לבי (lebi), meaning lion or lioness. It occurs only in plural (Psalm 57:4 and Nahum 2:13 only). Note that this word is spelled the same as an adjective derived from לב (leb), heart, and would mean courageous, or pertaining to the formation of a heart.
- The feminine noun לביא (lebiya'), meaning lioness. This noun only occurs in Ezekiel 19:2, where it symbolizes the mother of Israel.
- The masculine or feminine noun לביא (labi'), meaning either lion or lioness (Genesis 49:9, Job 4:11, Isaiah 30:6).
Other words meaning lion are ארי ('ari), as mentioned earlier from the verb ארה ('ara), to gather up; גור (gur), which appears to describe the lion as quarreler; כפר ( kpr), which seems to depict the lion as an animal which has earned its own freedom, and ליש (lysh), which depicts the lion as being strong.
כלב
The noun כלב (keleb) is the common Hebrew word for dog, and it's formally unclear where it comes from, although it looks like a combination of the common prefix כ (ke), meaning 'like' or 'as if', or else the word כל (kal), meaning all or whole, plus our word לב (leb), meaning heart or courage. This means that to the Hebrews, the dog was "all heart" but both in the sense of "very courageous" and "all emotions and very little rational consideration". Our article on the Greek equivalent of this word, namely κυων (kuon), looks elaborately at the role of dogs in the Bible and human history.
Across the ancient world, wild canines were regarded with great disdain, even when the most willing among wolves became feral dogs, and the most willing among those entered into human captivity. In the eyes of very early humans, the obvious cunning of canines served mostly to sneak into camp in the night and purloin provisions and take off either laughing or loudly complaining. Domesticated dogs were appreciated for their willingness to serve, but their lowly origins and were never forgotten and their obvious lack of refinery served many a metaphor for low functioning humans. In the Hebrew Bible, dogs proverbially vile (Proverbs 26:11), aggressive (Jeremiah 15:3), worthless (1 Samuel 17:43), or worthy of distrust (Psalm 59:6).
But even though the Biblical tradition loathes dogs, the Israelites were not unfamiliar with their services or companionship. Job 30:1 speaks of shepherd dogs and in Matthew 15:27 dogs are reported to exist under the table from which people ate. Certainly, the Israelites knew that dogs could learn many a trick or skill, or even show compassion and affection for its master, and this in contrast to other animals that lived around the house.
A very similar word, that may either derive from the previous or was independently imported from abroad and accidentally turned out looking the same, is the noun כלוב (kelub), which describes a basket or cage, specifically with contents: birds in Jeremiah 5:27 and fruit in Amos 8:1 (and see our article on the huge significance of baskets in the Bible). This seems to imply that dogs were not only considered "all-heart" but also endowed with a few "birds" flying upstairs, or even some berries dangling from a twig of budding rationality.
It's important to remember that before there were cities and writing, there was not a great deal of interacting with unfamiliar humans, which in turn meant that proper languages that were spoken over large areas had limited vocabulary. That in turn means that it was not at all obvious whether the dog or the man was most intelligent: both lived in stratified tribal groups, hunted in packs and communicated by means of a wide range of sounds. When humans and dogs began to live together, they certainly learned each other's languages, and shepherds became dog whisperers as much as dogs became human whisperers. The Greek word for dog is κυων (kuon), while the verb κυω (kuo) or κυεω (kueo) means to be or become pregnant, even "pregnant" with thoughts (as Plato wrote: "all men are pregnant, Socrates, both in body and in soul"; Symposium 206c).
לבן
The verb לבן (laben) means to be or become white (Joel 1:7). Contrary to the common understandings of white as a symbol, in the Bible white either denotes a blank state — and thus emptiness or stupidity or, more virtuously, the absence of any records of wrong doings: a wiped slate (Isaiah 1:18, Daniel 11:35) or a heart that's all love (1 Corinthians 13:5) — or the state of greatest resistance to the absorption of light, which comes down to pride, stubbornness and more stupidity. Contrary to popular conception, black and white are both equally dark (neither emits light, so yes, they're both entirely dark), but black things absorb light and become hot (or smart), whereas white things reflect light and stay cold (or stupid). Hence leprosy, or the "white disease" signifies unwarranted pride and arrogance. Note that a black thing that absorbs light must also emit it again, which may help to explain the noun להב (lahab), flame (see further below).
Our verb's derivatives are:
- The adjective לבן (laban), meaning white. In our modern sense of symbolism, white is often associated to goodness and black to badness but in the Bible this difference is far less pronounced. In the Bible, whiteness may simply be a hue (Genesis 30:35), and it may denote moral purity (Psalm 51:7; washed "whiter than snow") but it's also the color of judgment (Joel 1:7) and skin disease such as leprosy (Leviticus 13:3, Numbers 12:10, where Miriam turns leprous and "white as snow").
- The feminine noun לבנה (lebanah), meaning moon (Song of Solomon 6:10, Isaiah 24:23).
- The feminine noun לבנה (lebonah) or לבונה (lebonah), meaning frankincense (a white powder; Exodus 30:24, Jeremiah 6:20).
- The masculine noun לבנה (lebneh), meaning poplar (Genesis 30:37 and Hosea 4:13).
- The feminine noun לבנה (lebenah), meaning brick (Genesis 11:3, Ezekiel 4:1, Exodus 24:10).
- The denominative verb לבן (laban), meaning to make bricks. The latter two are used in succession in Genesis 11:3, where the tower builders say, "Let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly".
- The masculine noun מלבן (malben), meaning brick-mold (2 Samuel 12:31) or quadrangle (Jeremiah 43:9).
להב
The verb להב (lhb) isn't used in the Bible but in cognate languages it occurs with meanings that all have to do with fire and burning. But this root must have existed, even though none of the Bible writers happened to use it, because three derivatives appear quite regularly:
- The masculine noun להב (lahab), meaning flame (Judges 13:20, Isaiah 29:6). This word may also denote the blade of a sword (Nahum 3:3) or the tip of a spear (Job 39:23), but it isn't clear how the connection works. Is it because light flashed off these weapons, as BDB Theological Dictionary proposes? Probably not because those implements at that time weren't very shiny. Perhaps it was because swords and spears were shaped like little flames. But in Hebrew, nouns usually come from verbs, which means that things were usually known not for their shape but for some kind of action. In the case of these weapons, that action is probably the process by which they were made: through fire. In fact, the art of making a fire hotter was directly tied in to the art of making your metals purer, which meant the art of making your weapons stronger. The hotter your fire, the stronger your military force, and the greater your chances of survival.
- The feminine equivalent להבה (lehaba), also means flame or blade but tends to be used in much more poetic contexts — flame of conquest: Numbers 21:28; flame of anger: Hosea 7:6; the flame of God's judgment: Isaiah 5:24.
- The feminine noun שלהבת (shalhebet), also meaning flame and also used poetically (Job 15:30, Song of Solomon 8:6).
See for a more exhaustive discussion on fire in the Bible our article on πυρ (pur), the Greek word for fire.