קָלַט
qa.lat
be stunted
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Analysis of קָלַט (qa.lat) The Hebrew word קָלַט appears only once in the biblical text, where it carries the meaning "be stunted." This extreme rarity makes it one of the most limited-use terms in the Hebrew Bible. The word describes a state of physical diminishment or failure to reach normal growth, though the single occurrence prevents us from determining whether it applies exclusively to human development, plants, animals, or other subjects. The lexicon identifies this as a verb expressing a negative condition—something becoming or remaining small or underdeveloped. However, with only one biblical occurrence and no associated definition of related noun forms or extended meanings, the word's full semantic range remains unclear. We cannot determine from the available data whether "stunted" was its primary sense or whether it had figurative applications in Hebrew thought. The extreme scarcity of this term in Scripture suggests it was either a specialized vocabulary item used for particular contexts, a word that fell out of usage in later biblical Hebrew, or one preserved in only a single narrative moment. Without additional occurrences, examples, or cognate data provided here, definitive claims about its cultural or theological significance cannot be made from the lexicon alone.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
1 total occurrence across the text