Hebrew word · H3822

לְבָאוֹת

uleva'ot

Lebaoth

Feminine plural of a word for "lioness" (compare lavi', "lion"). As a place name it means "Lionesses".

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

§ Lebaoth = "witness"

a town in southern Judah

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 Joshua 15:32

Range of meaning

Feminine plural of a word for "lioness" (compare lavi', "lion"). As a place name it means "Lionesses".

Against the English

English versions transliterate it as "Lebaoth", so readers miss the picture in the name.

Used elsewhere in the period

In Joshua 19:6 the town is Beth-lebaoth, "House of Lionesses", and the parallel in 1 Chronicles 4:31 has Beth-biri at the same point in the list. Lions are well attested in the southern Levant in biblical times (Judges 14; 1 Samuel 17:34). A Canaanite lion goddess ("the Lady of the Lions") is known from Late Bronze Age sources, which may lie behind the "House of" form, but that link is only a guess.

Where it appears

Joshua · 1

  1. Joshua 15:32 וּלְבָא֥וֹת and Lebaoth

    Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon—twenty-nine cities in all, along with their villages.

    Here: A town in the far south. The name probably means "lionesses", which suggests lions once lived in the area or that a lion cult or emblem was linked to the place. In Joshua 19:6 the same town is called Beth-lebaoth, "house of lionesses".

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