Etymologically
Log in

לוט

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 1 November 2026 at 06:55. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

לוט1 to wrap, cover

Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: lûṭ[1]

Forms

לוּט (lûṭ) verb[2] Qal passive participle feminine לוּטָה (1 Samuel 21:10); perfect לָאַט (2 Samuel 19:5), for לָאט; hiphil imperfect וַיָּלֶט (1 Kings 19:13).[3][4] Isaiah 25:7 has the active participle לוֹט beside the noun, which HALOT, after Nöldeke, would read as passive לוּט.[3][4]

Etymology

The verb “to wrap” is inherited from Proto-West Semitic *lwṭ (“to twist, turn”), which Kogan reconstructs on the evidence of the Hebrew verb, of Mehri and of Jibbali, where it means “to turn”; the Ethiopian Semitic verbs for “to change” may belong here too.[5] HALOT gives the root a basic meaning “to cover, conceal”, which it finds in Arabic لَاطَ (lāṭa, “to paint over, conceal”) and, with a question mark, in Akkadian lâṭu (“to encompass”).[3] In Arabic the verb means to stick or cleave to a thing, and to smear with perfume.[6][4] The Akkadian verb means “to confine, keep in check”, used of a god encircling the world, and Tawil sets it beside the Hebrew wrapping.[7][8] The Aramaic and Syriac verb Classical Syriac ܠܘܛ (lāṭ, “to curse”) goes back to a root with /ẓ/, Old Aramaic לוץ (lwṣ), so it has a separate source.[9][10] HALOT and Gesenius–Buhl take the perfect of 2 Samuel 19:5, which Strong numbers apart, as a form of this verb.[3][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is found three times in the prose of Samuel and Kings, and once more in Isaiah 25:7.[2] The priest tells David that Goliath's sword lûṭâ ḇaśśimlâ, “is wrapped in a cloak” behind the ephod (1 Samuel 21:10).[2][4]

Semantic evolution

The covering is always of the face or of an object, with a garment: David covers his face in mourning for Absalom (2 Samuel 19:5), and Elijah wraps his face in his mantle before God (1 Kings 19:13).[3][4] SDBH describes the hiphil as covering the face as a sign of reverence before God or of deep sorrow.[12] The Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek ἐπικαλύπτω (epikalúptō) in 1 Samuel 21:10 and κρύπτω (krúptō) in 2 Samuel 19:5.[2] Klein lists later derivatives of the root, among them Modern Hebrew לוּט (lut), “enclosed”.[13][14]

Timeline

  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – Goliath's sword lûṭâ ḇaśśimlâ (1 Samuel 21:10) and Elijah's mantle (1 Kings 19:13).[2][3]
  • Prophetic books – the participle in Isaiah 25:7.[2][4]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek ἐπικαλύπτω (epikalúptō).[15][2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. qal: to wrap up, cover; passive participle, wrapped (in a garment).[3][4]
  2. hiphil: to wrap (one's face), in mourning or reverence.[3][12]

לוט2 covering, veil

Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: lôṭ[2]

Forms

לוֹט (lôṭ) noun, masculine[2][1]

Etymology

The covering is from Biblical Hebrew לוּט (lûṭ, “to wrap, cover”), with the noun pattern Bauer and Leander list for it.[16] HALOT compares Arabic لِيط (līṭ) and, with a question mark, Akkadian lîṭu, which Gesenius–Buhl and Klein take as “curtain”.[16][11][13] Tawil instead pairs it with the Akkadian word in the sense “sketch, drawing”.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun occurs only in Isaiah 25:7, where God will swallow up pənê-hallôṭ hallôṭ ʿal-kol-hāʿammîm, “the face of the covering that covers all the peoples”, parallel to hammassēḵâ, “the veil”, spread over the nations.[2][4][17]

Semantic evolution

HALOT takes the covering of Isaiah 25:7 as a metaphor, BDB as a sign of mourning, and SDBH as the cloth used to cover a corpse before burial, a thing associated with death and sorrow.[16][4][18] The verse is preserved in two Isaiah scrolls from Qumran Cave 1, 1QIsaa and 1Q8.[19] Ben-Yehuda defines it as a wide garment to wrap oneself in, citing only this verse.[20]

Timeline

  • Prophetic books – pənê-hallôṭ in Isaiah 25:7, the only occurrence.[2][17]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – Isaiah 25:7 in the scrolls 1QIsaa and 1Q8.[21][19]

Meanings

Noun

  1. a covering, a veil or shroud spread over the peoples.[16][22][18]

Usage notes

The name Lot, Abraham's nephew (Genesis 11:27), is spelled the same way;[23] HALOT leaves its origin open.[23] The noun lōṭ, “ladanum”, a resin (Genesis 37:25, 43:11), is written לֹט in the Bible and has a separate source: Klein compares Akkadian ladunu and Arabic lādan.[24] The noun לָט, “secrecy”, and bal-lāṭ, “secretly”, belong with this root according to HALOT.[25]

References

  1. ^ 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
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. לוט
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. לוּט
  5. ^ Kogan, Leonid (2015), Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses, Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 464
  6. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 2682
  7. ^ Black, Jeremy; George, Andrew; Postgate, Nicholas (2000), A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, p. s.v. lâṭu
  8. ^ a b Tawil, Hayim ben Yosef (2009), An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents, Jersey City: Ktav, p. 187
  9. ^ Sokoloff, Michael (2009), A Syriac Lexicon, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns; Piscataway: Gorgias Press, p. 677
  10. ^ Kaufman, Stephen A., ed., Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, cal.huc.edu, p. s.v. לוט
  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. לוט
  12. ^ a b de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. לוט
  13. ^ 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. לוט
  14. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  15. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  16. ^ a b c d 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. לוֹט I
  17. ^ 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. לוֹט I
  18. ^ a b de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. לֹוט
  19. ^ 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
  20. ^ Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer (1908–1959), Millon ha-lashon ha-ʿivrit ha-yeshanah ve-ha-ḥadashah / Thesaurus totius hebraitatis, 16 vols, Jerusalem; typed edition, Project Ben-Yehuda (benyehuda.org), p. s.v. לוֹט
  21. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  22. ^ 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. לוֹט
  23. ^ 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. לוֹט II
  24. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. לוֹט II
  25. ^ 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. לָט