BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
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.
HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H3941
lap.pi.dot — Lappidoth
A woman living before Israel's Monarchy, only mentioned at Jdg.4.4; married to Deborah (H1683H) § Lapidoth = "torches" the husband of Deborah the prophetess in the time of the judges
1 tagged verse occurrence · see every occurrence →GREEK · G8998
purseuō — to light a fire
1. to light up, kindle , πυρσεύσας σέλας Εὐβοίαν having lit up Euboea with beacon-fires σέλας combining with the notion of the Verb), (Euripides) 2. to make signals by torches or beacon-fires , (Xenophon Historicus): metaphorically, πυρσεύετε κραυγὴν ἀγῶνος give a shout in signal of battle, (Euripides):—;Pass., δόξα ὥσπερ ἀπὸ σκοπῆς πυρσεύεται (Plutarch): impersonal, πυρσεύεται fire-signals are made , (Lucian) (ML)
0 tagged verse occurrences · see every occurrence →GREEK · G9000
purphoros — a fire-bearer
1. fire-bearing , (Aeschulus Tragicus); of lightning, (Pindar):—; πυρφόροι ὀϊστοί arrows with combustibles tied to them , (Thucydides) 2. in special senses, 3. epithet of Zeus in reference to his lightnings, (Sophocles Tragicus); of Demeter, in reference to the torches used by her worshippers, (Euripides); of Artemis, (Sophocles Tragicus); but θεὸς πυρφόρος the fire-bearing god, the god who produces plague or fever , (Sophocles Tragicus) 4. ὁ πυρφόρος, in the Lacedaemonian army, was the priest who kept the sacrificial fire , which was never allowed to go out, (Xenophon Historicus); hence proverbial of a total defeat, ἔδεε δὲ μηδὲ πυρφόρον περιγενέσθαι (Herdotus Historicus) (ML)
0 tagged verse occurrences · see every occurrence →On the night of his betrayal, when our Lord was in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas, “having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:1-3). Although it was the time of full moon, yet in the valley of the Kidron “there fell great, deep shadows from the declivity of the mountain and projecting rocks; there were there caverns and grottos, into which a fugitive might retreat; finally, there were probably a garden-house and tower, into whose gloom it might be necessary for a searcher to throw light around.” Lange’s Commentary. (Nahum 2:3, “torches,” Revised Version, “steel,” probably should be “scythes” for war-chariots.)
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.
