Hebrew word · H3523

כָּבִיר

kevir

quilt

The word appears only in 1 Sam 19:13 and 19:16. It is usually tied to a root meaning 'plait, net, interweave'. A related word, makber, names the cloth Hazael soaked in water to smother Ben-hadad (2 Kgs 8:15).

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

What it means

(something) netted, a quilt, fly net, pillow

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 1 Samuel 19:13

Range of meaning

The word appears only in 1 Sam 19:13 and 19:16. It is usually tied to a root meaning 'plait, net, interweave'. A related word, makber, names the cloth Hazael soaked in water to smother Ben-hadad (2 Kgs 8:15). Proposed meanings include a woven goat-hair net or mat, a quilt or blanket, and a tangle of hair used like a wig.

Against the English

KJV and ESV have 'pillow'. NASB has 'quilt'. BSB and NIV have only 'goat hair', which drops the word for the object. YLT has 'mattress'. The renderings that turn it into bedding hide its likely purpose, which was to look like a man's dark hair.

How it drifted

Translators could not pin down a word that occurs only here, so they reached for familiar bedding words. 'Pillow' and 'bolster' were the KJV's guesses.

Used elsewhere in the period

Only here in the Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint read kaved ('liver'). Josephus (Antiquities 6.217) builds on that: Michal put a goat's liver in the bed, and its quivering made the bedclothes seem to breathe. The Vulgate has 'a hairy skin of goats'. For 'goats' meaning goat hair, see Exod 25:4; 26:7; 35:26.

Where it appears

1 Samuel · 2

  1. 1 Samuel 19:13 כְּבִ֣יר <the> quilt of

    Then Michal took a household idol and laid it in the bed, placed some goat hair on its head, and covered it with a garment.

    Here: The word appears only here and in v.16, so its exact sense is uncertain. It is something made of goat hair and set at the head: a net, a mat, a tangle of hair. Most likely its job was to look like a man's dark hair sticking out from under the cover.

  2. 1 Samuel 19:16 וּכְבִ֥יר and [the] quilt of

    And when the messengers entered, there was the idol in the bed with the goat hair on its head.

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