Hebrew word · H2184

זְנוּת

zenut

fornication

Sexual infidelity or prostitution. In the prophets it is overwhelmingly a picture of Israel, as YHWH's wife, chasing other gods and foreign powers.

Appears 9 times in 9 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 30, 2026

What it means

fornication, harlotry

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

Range of meaning: Sexual infidelity or prostitution. In the prophets it is overwhelmingly a picture of Israel, as YHWH's wife, chasing other gods and foreign powers.
Against the English: KJV 'whoredom' and BSB/WEB 'prostitution' keep the sexual image. A modern reader may think first of literal commercial sex, which is not the main point here.
How it drifted: In modern English 'prostitution' means a commercial sex trade. In the prophets the root focuses on breaking an exclusive bond.
Used elsewhere in the period: Ezek 16 and 23 (extended allegories of Jerusalem and Samaria as unfaithful wives); Hos 1–4; Jer 3. Ezekiel also uses the image for political alliances with Egypt and Assyria (16:26–29; 23:5–21).

Range of meaning: This is an abstract noun from the verb zānâ, 'to act as a prostitute, to be sexually unfaithful.' In the prophets it is mainly a metaphor for covenant unfaithfulness: worshipping other gods, using illicit cult practices, and depending on foreign empires instead of YHWH. The image rests on the marriage picture of Israel as YHWH's wife.
Against the English: KJV and YLT have 'whoredom,' and BSB and WEB have 'prostitution.' Both are accurate to the image but can make a modern reader think of commercial sex or personal sexual sin. NLT-style paraphrases replace the image with 'idolatry,' which keeps the meaning but loses the marriage-betrayal picture.
How it drifted: Modern English uses 'prostitution' almost only in its literal, commercial sense. The prophetic metaphor of a nation's religious adultery is no longer an everyday image.
Used elsewhere in the period: In Ezekiel the word family occurs mostly in chapters 16 and 23, where Jerusalem and Samaria are pictured as unfaithful wives. The unfaithfulness there includes idol worship, child sacrifice and alliances with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. Hosea 1–3 and Jeremiah 2–3 use the same image. In 43:7 and 43:9 the word is paired with the royal dead, so it most likely covers the idolatrous practices that had gathered around the temple and palace complex.

Range of meaning: From the root z-n-h, 'to act as a prostitute, to be sexually unfaithful.' The root mostly describes a woman's sexual relations outside her proper bond (to father or husband), whether paid or not. Its standard figurative use in the prophets is Israel 'whoring after' other gods, which treats YHWH as husband and Israel as wife. The noun zenut is rare, about nine times (Num 14:33; Jer 3:2, 9; 13:27; Ezek 23:27; 43:7, 9; Hos 4:11; 6:10). It names the practice or habit of unfaithfulness, not a single act.
Against the English: KJV/YLT 'whoredom' keeps the harshness and the image of prostitution. WEB/NIV 'prostitution' sounds commercial to modern ears. BSB 'promiscuity' keeps the sexual sense but loses the covenant-betrayal image that drives Hosea. No English word holds the literal and religious senses together the way the Hebrew does.
How it drifted: Modern 'prostitution' means sex for money. The Hebrew word group is wider: any sexual faithlessness, and above all the faithlessness of a people to its God.
Used elsewhere in the period: Hosea's book is built on this root: 'a wife of whoredom' (1:2), the mother who 'played the harlot' (2:5), 'a spirit of whoredom' (4:12; 5:4), 'Ephraim's whoredom' (6:10). The Septuagint translates zenut with porneia, the source of the later New Testament word for sexual immorality.

Numbers · 1

Numbers 14:33 זְנוּתֵיכֶ֑ם prostitution your

Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

Here: A deliberately shocking word. The sin at Kadesh was not sexual. It was refusing to trust God and wanting to go back to Egypt, and the text calls that betrayal of the covenant 'prostitution', the act of a wife who has abandoned her husband. 'Your' here means the parents.

Jeremiah · 3

Jeremiah 3:2 בִּזְנוּתַ֖יִךְ by prostitution your

“Lift up your eyes to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been violated? You sat beside the highways waiting for your lovers, like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.

Here: 'By your whorings': the plural stresses repeated acts. In the prophets it is the stock image for Israel's disloyalty to YHWH by worshipping other gods, pictured as a wife who sells herself to many men.
Jeremiah 3:9 זְנוּתָ֔הּ prostitution her

Indifferent to her own infidelity, Israel had defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.
Jeremiah 13:27 זְנוּתֵ֔ךְ prostitution your

Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”

Here: "Your whoring." Sex outside the bond one owes, used throughout Jeremiah 2–3 for Judah chasing other gods. 'The lewdness of your whoring' means whoring at its most brazen.

Ezekiel · 3

Ezekiel 23:27 זְנוּתֵ֖ךְ prostitution your

So I will put an end to your indecency and prostitution, which began in the land of Egypt, and you will not lift your eyes to them or remember Egypt anymore.’
Ezekiel 43:7 בִּזְנוּתָ֔ם by prostitution their

and He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place for the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the Israelites forever. The house of Israel will never again defile My holy name—neither they nor their kings—by their prostitution and by the funeral offerings for their kings at their deaths.

Here: Sexual infidelity used as a picture of unfaithfulness to YHWH: worship of other gods and foreign alliances, as developed at length in Ezekiel 16 and 23.
Ezekiel 43:9 זְנוּתָ֛ם prostitution their

Now let them remove far from Me their prostitution and the funeral offerings for their kings, and I will dwell among them forever.

Here: 'Their whoring.' In Ezekiel this is the main image for Israel's unfaithfulness to YHWH, meaning the worship of other gods and trust in foreign powers. A wife unfaithful to her husband stands for a people unfaithful to their God (see Ezekiel 16 and 23).

Hosea · 2

Hosea 4:11 זְנ֛וּת prostitution

to promiscuity, wine, and new wine, which take away understanding.

Here: An abstract noun for the practice or condition of acting like a prostitute. In Hosea it covers literal sexual conduct at the hilltop shrines (4:13–14) and also Israel's unfaithfulness to YHWH as a wife unfaithful to her husband. It heads the list as the first thing that robs people of sense.
Hosea 6:10 זְנ֣וּת prostitution

In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing: Ephraim practices prostitution there, and Israel is defiled.

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