שַׁבְּתַי
shab.b.tay
Shabbethai
Lexicon Entry
Lexicon data from STEPBible TIPNR, Tyndale House, Cambridge. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
What Original Readers Understood
Supported# Shabbethai: A Biblical Personal Name Shabbethai (שַׁבְּתַי) is a Hebrew personal name that appears only once in the biblical text. As a proper noun, it functions as an identifier for an individual rather than conveying semantic meaning in the way common nouns do. The name itself appears to derive from Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath), though the lexicon data provided does not detail the etymological composition or its precise significance. Given its single occurrence in scripture, Shabbethai was not a prominent figure in biblical narrative. The name's appearance once in the biblical record suggests it belonged to a minor or briefly mentioned character whose identity the original audience would have recognized, but whose broader story or role was not developed in the preserved text. Without additional lexical data about the passage context, we cannot determine whether this person held religious, administrative, or familial significance, only that they existed within the biblical timeline and were worthy of individual naming.
Source data & methodology
Occurrences in Scripture
1 total occurrence across the text