Hebrew word · H822

אֶשְׁנָב

'eshnabi

lattice

A lattice, grille or openwork screen fitted into a window opening. Where the word comes from is uncertain. One proposal links it to a root meaning "cool", as an opening that catches the breeze, but this is not certain. It occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible.

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

What it means

window-lattice

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 7:6

Range of meaning: A lattice, grille or openwork screen fitted into a window opening. Where the word comes from is uncertain. One proposal links it to a root meaning "cool", as an opening that catches the breeze, but this is not certain. It occurs only twice in the Hebrew Bible.
Against the English: BSB, WEB, NIV, ESV and NASB say "lattice", which is accurate. KJV and YLT say "casement". In 1611 that meant the frame or opening of a window, but today it suggests a hinged, glazed window. Israelite houses had no glass panes.
How it drifted: "Casement" was a fair word in Jacobean English. As houses changed, the word came to mean a particular kind of glazed window that did not exist in Iron Age Israel.
Used elsewhere in the period: Judges 5:28: "Through the window she looked down (נִשְׁקְפָה, the same verb) and wailed, the mother of Sisera, through the lattice (הָאֶשְׁנָב)." The two verses share the window, the lattice, the preposition בְּעַד and the verb שׁקף. The Greek of Judges renders the lattice with a word for netted or latticed work (δικτυωτόν), and the Vulgate of Proverbs has per cancellos, "through the grating".

Where it appears

Judges · 1

Judges 5:28 הָֽאֶשְׁנָ֑ב the widow-lattice

Sisera’s mother looked through the window; she peered through the lattice and lamented: ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? What has delayed the clatter of his chariots?’

Proverbs · 1

Proverbs 7:6 אֶשְׁנַבִּ֣י lattice my

For at the window of my house I looked through the lattice.

Here: "My lattice": a wooden grille or screen set in the window. It let air and light in and let someone inside see out without being easily seen. The word is very rare; its only other use is Sisera's mother at her window (Judges 5:28).

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