HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H7642
שַׁבְּלוּל
shav.lul — snail
snail
1 tagged verse occurrence · see every occurrence →BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
Snail
Original Hebrew / Aramaic / Greek connected to this term
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
GREEK · G8561
ὄστρακον
ostrakon — a potsherd
1. an earthen vessel , Lat. testa, (Aristophanes Comicus) 2. a tile or potsherd , especially the tablet used in voting (see. ὀστρακίζω); (Plato Philosophus) 3. a sort of earthenware castanet , (Aristophanes Comicus) 4. the hard shell of testaceous animals , as snails, muscles, tortoises, (Homeric Hymns) (ML)
0 tagged verse occurrences · see every occurrence →Historical dictionary entry
(1.) Heb. homit, among the unclean creeping things (Lev. 11:30). This was probably the sand-lizard, of which there are many species in the wilderness of Judea and the Sinai peninsula. (2.) Heb. shablul (Ps. 58:8), the snail or slug proper. Tristram explains the allusions of this passage by a reference to the heat and drought by which the moisture of the snail is evaporated. “We find,” he says, “in all parts of the Holy Land myriads of snail-shells in fissures still adhering by the calcareous exudation round their orifice to the surface of the rock, but the animal of which is utterly shrivelled and wasted, ’melted away.’”
Scripture references
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.