נֵ֫בֶל
ne.vel
bag
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Nevel (נֵבֶל): The Hebrew Word for Bag The Hebrew word *nevel* appears eleven times in the biblical text and carries the straightforward meaning of a "bag"—a container used for holding and transporting goods. This is a concrete, material term referring to a practical object rather than an abstract concept. The consistency of its definition across biblical occurrences suggests it was a common item in ancient Israelite life, used much as bags serve in any agricultural or nomadic society. The relative frequency of *nevel* in the biblical corpus (eleven occurrences) indicates that bags were significant enough to merit specific vocabulary but not so central to biblical narrative that the word dominates the text. Its modest presence reflects its utilitarian nature—bags are mentioned when relevant to a story's practical details rather than as subjects of theological or symbolic importance. The word appears to function as a neutral, descriptive term without the figurative or metaphorical extensions that characterize some Hebrew vocabulary. In context, *nevel* likely referred to containers made from leather or woven material, typical of ancient Near Eastern storage and transport technology. The word's straightforward semantic range—a simple designation for a functional object—demonstrates how biblical Hebrew vocabulary could express everyday material culture alongside more theologically laden terminology. Understanding such concrete terms helps reconstruct the ordinary physical conditions of ancient Israelite life.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
11 total occurrences across the text
Who can count the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the containers of the sky,
Isaiah 22:24They will hang on him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, every small vessel, from the cups even to all the pitchers.
Isaiah 30:14He will break it as a potter’s vessel is broken, breaking it in pieces without sparing, so that there won’t be found among the broken pieces a piece good enough to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”
Jeremiah 13:12“Therefore you shall speak to them this word: ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel says, “Every container should be filled with wine.” ’ They will tell you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every container should be filled with wine?’
Jeremiah 13:12“Therefore you shall speak to them this word: ‘Yahweh, the God of Israel says, “Every container should be filled with wine.” ’ They will tell you, ‘Do we not certainly know that every container should be filled with wine?’
Jeremiah 48:12Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will send to him those who pour off, and they will pour him off; and they will empty his vessels, and break their containers in pieces.
Lamentations 4:2The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
1 Samuel 1:24When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bulls, and one ephah of meal, and a container of wine, and brought him to Yahweh’s house in Shiloh. The child was young.
1 Samuel 10:3“Then you will go on forward from there, and you will come to the oak of Tabor. Three men will meet you there going up to God to Bethel, one carrying three young goats, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a container of wine.
1 Samuel 25:18Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five seahs of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
2 Samuel 16:1When David was a little past the top, behold, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him with a couple of donkeys saddled, and on them two hundred loaves of bread, and one hundred clusters of raisins, and one hundred summer fruits, and a container of wine.