בית

Forms

בַּיִת (bayiṯ) noun, masculine, plural בָּתִּים^[1][4] Construct בֵּית, with suffixes בֵּיתִי, בֵּיתְךָ, plural בָּתִּים, which HALOT notes was pronounced bātîm, construct plural בָּתֵּי, directional בַּיְתָה “homeward, inward”; masculine.^[5][4] The inscriptions write byt, with the diphthong, as at Arad and on an ostracon from Tell Qasile.^[6][7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Semitic *bayt- (“house”), one of the Proto-Semitic nouns whose form and meaning can be reconstructed precisely.^[8][2] It is kept in Akkadian bītu (“house”),^[9][10] Ugaritic bt (plural bhtm),^[5] Phoenician בת (bt),^[5][4] Aramaic בַּיְתָא (baytā), Classical Syriac ܒܰܝܬܳܐ (baytā),^[4] Arabic بَيْت (bayt),^[4][5] Sabaean byt (“house, fortress, temple”)^[4][11] and Ge'ez ቤት (bet).^[4][5]

BDB calls the etymology doubtful and reports Gesenius's derivation from the verb “to spend the night”, Aramaic בּוּת (bûṯ) and Arabic بَاتَ (bāta);^[4] Gesenius–Buhl calls the etymology unknown,^[11] and HALOT takes the verb “to spend the night” to be formed on the noun.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest dated record is an ostracon from Tell Qasile, which Sáenz-Badillos dates to the 9th or the beginning of the 8th century BC; it writes byt “house (of)” with the diphthong unreduced.^[13][6] In the Bible the noun is one of the most frequent, 2,042 times in all parts of the text, including the archaic Psalm 68 and Habakkuk 3.^[1][14] Psalm 68:7 praises God as môšîḇ yəḥîḏîm bayṯâ, “who settles the lonely in a home”.^[1]

Semantic evolution

HALOT starts from the dwelling house, built of clay, brick or stone, and the word could also be used of a tent.^[5] From it come the king's house, a palace (bêṯ hammeleḵ), and the house of a god, a temple: at Shiloh, in Jerusalem, and the house of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:2).^[5] The palace official ʾăšer ʿal-habbayiṯ, “the one over the house”, was first a steward and then a high officer of state;^[15] Tawil matches the title with Akkadian ša muhhi bīti.^[5][15] A house could be a part of a building, such as the women's quarters in Esther 2:3;^[7][16] Sheol and the grave are houses, the grave bêṯ ʿôlām, “the eternal house” (Qoheleth 12:5); and mibbayiṯ means “inside” (Genesis 6:14).^[5]

The house stood also for those who lived in it: the household of wives, children and servants (Genesis 7:1), the bêṯ ʾāḇ “father's house”, the extended family, like Akkadian bīt abi, and a line of descendants, as in “the house of David”.^[5] An ostracon from Arad, from the 6th century BC, mentions byt yhwh, “the house of YHWH”.^[7][16] The Biblical Aramaic noun of the same spelling appears 44 times in Ezra and Daniel.^[1]

The Septuagint renders it mostly with Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos), less often with οἰκία (oikía).^[1] The Dead Sea Scrolls use it 1,041 times.^[17] Post-biblical Hebrew named the second letter of the alphabet bêṯ after it, since the old letter was drawn as a house.^[18] Modern Hebrew בית (báyit) now adds the senses “school” and “stanza”.^[19]

Timeline

• 9th or early 8th century BC – byt on an ostracon from Tell Qasile.^[13][6]
• Archaic Hebrew poetry – Psalm 68:7, 13 and Habakkuk 3:13.^[14][1]
• Classical Biblical Hebrew – 770 occurrences from Genesis to Kings.^[1]
• 6th century BC – byt yhwh in an ostracon from Arad.^[16][7]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint translates it with Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos).^[20][1]
• 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 1,041 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[21][17]
• Post-biblical Hebrew – bêṯ, the name of the letter beth.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. a house, a dwelling; also a tent.^[5][4]
2. a palace, the king's house.^[5]
3. a temple, the house of a god.^[5][4]
4. a part of a building, a room or quarters; a container; figuratively a dwelling place, the grave.^[5]
5. the inside: mibbayiṯ, within.^[5]
6. a household, a family;^[1] bêṯ ʾāḇ, the extended family.^[5][4]
7. descendants, a dynasty: the house of David.^[5]

Descendants

• Yiddish בית (beys)^[2]

Usage notes

As the first part of place names, bêṯ- (MACULA's separate lexeme 1037, as in bêṯ millô, Judges 9:6) first meant a settlement named after its founder or clan, or the sanctuary of a god around which a settlement grew.^[5][1] In a few verses (Ezekiel 41:9, Job 8:17, Proverbs 8:2, 2 Kings 11:15, 2 Chronicles 23:14), which MACULA keeps under this word, HALOT and Wagner read a preposition bêṯ “between”, the feminine of בַּיִן (bayin), which has a separate origin;^[22][23][24] Proverbs 8:2 bêṯ nəṯîḇôṯ is then “where the paths meet”.^[22][23][24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. בַּיִת
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. בַּיִת I
6. ^ a b c Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 78
7. ^ a b c d Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2.018.9
8. ^ Kogan, Leonid (2015), Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses, Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 27
9. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. bītu
10. ^ von Soden, Wolfram (1965–1981), Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. 132
11. ^ a b Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. בַּיִת
12. ^ Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. בית
13. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 76
14. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
15. ^ a b Tawil, Hayim ben Yosef (2009), An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents, Jersey City: Ktav, p. 48
16. ^ a b c Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 77
17. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
18. ^ a b Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. בֵּית
19. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. בַּיִת
20. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
21. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
22. ^ a b Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. בַּיִת II
23. ^ a b Wagner, Max (1966), Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebräisch, Berlin: Töpelmann (BZAW 96), p. 35
24. ^ a b Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. בֵּית