מִסְתּוֹר

# מִסְתּוֹר (mistor): A Rare Hebrew Term for Shelter The Hebrew word *mistor* appears only once in the biblical text, making it an exceptionally rare lexical item. Its definition as "shelter" indicates a place of protection or refuge—a location where one finds safety or concealment. The singular occurrence limits our ability to observe how the term functions across different contexts or to trace variations in its usage. Given that the word appears merely once in the biblical corpus, we cannot determine whether *mistor* was a common term that happened to be used sparingly, a poetic or specialized word reserved for particular contexts, or a term that fell out of usage during the period when most biblical texts were composed. The rarity of this word means that biblical writers had other, more frequently employed terms available to express the concept of shelter, suggesting that *mistor* occupied a specific—though now largely obscure—niche in Hebrew vocabulary.