Hebrew word · H5244

נְמָלָה

nemalah

ant

Ant. In the Hebrew Bible it occurs only here and in Proverbs 30:25 ("the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in summer"). It matches Arabic namlah (ant).

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

What it means

ant

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 Proverbs 6:6

Range of meaning

Ant. In the Hebrew Bible it occurs only here and in Proverbs 30:25 ("the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in summer"). It matches Arabic namlah (ant). In context it means the harvester ants (genus Messor) common in Israel, which carry grain and seeds into underground storage chambers.

Against the English

Every English version has "ant". KJV and NASB use "her ways" and NIV and ESV use "its ways"; that difference is only grammar (see the drift note).

Used elsewhere in the period

The Mishnah (Peah 4:11) rules on who owns grain found in "ant holes" (ḥore ha-nemalim) in a field. That ruling shows ancient farmers knew well that ants hoarded grain. Greek writers made the same observation, most famously in Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper. That is a parallel idea, not a source for this verse.

Where it appears

Proverbs · 2

  1. Proverbs 6:6 נְמָלָ֥ה an ant

    Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; observe its ways and become wise.

    Here: "An ant", with no article, meaning any ant at all. In context (v. 8) these are the harvester ants of the Levant that carry seed into underground stores. The word is grammatically feminine, which is why the next pronoun is "her".

  2. Proverbs 30:25 הַ֭נְּמָלִים the ants

    The ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;

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