כֶּ֫לֶא
ke.le
prison
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# כֶּ֫לֶא (keleh) – Prison The Hebrew word *keleh* denotes a place of confinement or prison, appearing ten times throughout the biblical text. Based on its consistent designation, this term represents a physical location where individuals were held under restraint, typically as punishment or during legal proceedings. The word's straightforward semantic range—limited to the concrete meaning of "prison"—suggests it was a standard term in ancient Hebrew for such institutions rather than a metaphorical or spiritualized concept. The ten occurrences of *keleh* indicate that imprisonment was a recognized practice in biblical society, though the word's relatively modest frequency suggests it was neither the most common nor the most emphasized punishment in biblical narratives. Its presence across the biblical corpus demonstrates that prisons were an established feature of Israelite life and legal administration. The term appears to have functioned as a neutral, descriptive word without carrying the emotional weight or theological significance that some other terms for affliction or bondage might carry.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
10 total occurrences across the text
to open the blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison.
Isaiah 42:22But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’
Jeremiah 37:15The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.
Jeremiah 37:18Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?
Jeremiah 52:33and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life.
1 Kings 22:27Say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.” ’ ”
2 Kings 17:4The king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison.
2 Kings 25:27In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison;
2 Kings 25:29and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life;
2 Chronicles 18:26and say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace.” ’ ”