סֶ֫מֶל
se.mel
idol
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
ExploredThe word סֶ֫מֶל (se.mel) appears 5 times in the Hebrew Bible, and its short definition is "idol". This suggests that the term primarily refers to an object of worship or veneration, other than the one true God. The fact that סֶ֫מֶל is classified within the semantic domain of "Deity & Divine" indicates a close association with the concept of idolatry and polytheism. Its presence in the biblical text may imply the existence of rival deities or objects of worship that threaten the exclusive devotion to the one God. Given its brief occurrence in the Hebrew Bible, סֶ֫מֶל highlights the significance of monotheism and the rejection of idolatrous practices in the biblical narrative.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
5 total occurrences across the text
He set the engraved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s house, of which God said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever.
2 Chronicles 33:15He took away the foreign gods, and the idol out of Yahweh’s house, and all the altars that he had built in the mountain of Yahweh’s house, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city.
Ezekiel 8:3He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
Ezekiel 8:5Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
Deuteronomy 4:16lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,