שֵׁ֫פֶל

From the study of Psalm 136:23

Range of meaning

Lowness or low position: abasement, humiliation, being brought down in status or power. It comes from the root šāpēl, 'to be low, to sink, to be humbled', used of hills that are levelled, of people who are humiliated, and of the proud whom God brings down.

Against the English

KJV, BSB and WEB 'low estate', YLT 'lowliness', NASB 'low condition', NLT 'weakness'. 'Low estate' is accurate but old-fashioned. A modern reader may hear only 'poverty' (the supplied lexicon gloss is also 'poverty'), or may hear a pious 'lowliness' meaning humility as a virtue. The word describes a situation forced on someone, not a moral quality.

How it drifted

'Estate' once meant 'condition, standing in life'. Today it means property or social class, so the phrase narrows toward economics. 'Lowliness' in church language leans toward the virtue of humility, which is not in view here.

Used elsewhere in the period

The noun occurs only here and in Eccl 10:6 ('the rich sit in a low place', בַּשֵּׁפֶל), where it means a lowered social position. The root is common: 1 Sam 2:7 (the LORD 'brings low and also exalts'); Ps 113:6–7 (God 'stoops low to look' and lifts the poor from the dust); Isa 2:11–17 (the proud brought low). The Septuagint renders it tapeinōsis, 'humiliation, low state', the same word Mary uses in Luke 1:48.