Hebrew word · H1019

בֵּית הַגִּלְגָּל

umibeit

Beth-gilgal

'Circle', related to the verb gālal, 'to roll'. It most likely refers to a circle of standing stones. Several places in Israel had the name.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

Beth-gilgal = "the house of the wheel"

a place in Palestine

Another name of gil.gal (גִּלְגָּל "Gilgal" H1537G)

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Nehemiah 12:29

Range of meaning

'Circle', related to the verb gālal, 'to roll'. It most likely refers to a circle of standing stones. Several places in Israel had the name.

Against the English

KJV and YLT translate the first part ('the house of Gilgal'). Modern versions treat the whole as one place name, 'Beth-gilgal'.

Used elsewhere in the period

The best-known Gilgal is the camp near Jericho with twelve memorial stones (Joshua 4:19–20; 5:9 makes a wordplay on gālal, 'roll away'). Other Gilgals appear in the hill country (2 Kings 2:1; Deuteronomy 11:30). 'Beth-gilgal' appears only here.

Where it appears

Nehemiah · 2

  1. Nehemiah 12:29 וּמִבֵּית֙ הַגִּלְגָּ֔ל and from Beth, <of the> Gilgal

    from Beth-gilgal, and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth, for they had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem.

    Here: 'And' + 'from' + 'house of'. It carries on the list of places from verse 28 that the singers were gathered from. 'Beth' ('house') is the first part of the place name.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.