Hebrew word · H4027

מִגְדַּל־אֵל

umigdal-

Migdal-el

'Tower of El/God'. Migdal means a tower, fortification or watchtower. El is the general word for 'god' and also the Canaanite high god.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 30, 2026

What it means

§ Migdal-el = "tower of God"

one of the fortified towns in Naphtali

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: 'Tower of El/God'. Migdal means a tower, fortification or watchtower. El is the general word for 'god' and also the Canaanite high god.
Against the English: Transliterated in every major English version, so the meaning 'tower of God' does not show.
Used elsewhere in the period: Migdal place names are common: Migdal-gad (Joshua 15:37), Migdol in Egypt (Exodus 14:2), and the later Magdala on the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew Migdal Nunya). It is uncertain whether Migdal-el has anything to do with Magdala. Most proposals put Migdal-el further north, in Upper Galilee.

Joshua · 2

Joshua 19:38 וּמִגְדַּל־ אֵ֔ל and Migdal, El

Iron, Migdal-el, Horem, Beth-anath, and Beth-shemesh. There were nineteen cities, along with their villages.

Here: First half of a two-part place name. Migdal means 'tower' or 'fortified tower', a common element in place names for settlements built around a fort or watchtower.

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