StrongerBible

gelel

גֵּל

HebrewH1561“dung, excrement, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Job 20:7Ezk 4:12Ezk 4:15
Word studyResearch-gradeGEH-lelnoun

What gelel means

dung: excrement, animal or human, named bluntly, both as the ordinary substance and as the byword for what is worthless.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This word names excrement with no polite covering: animal droppings, and in Ezekiel human waste. In the world of the Bible that was not only refuse but a commodity. Dried dung burns slowly and steadily, so cakes of it were the ordinary fuel for a baking fire wherever wood was scarce.

That background is what gives Ezekiel's sign its edge. Told to bake barley bread over human dung in front of the people, acting out the siege of Jerusalem, the prophet is not startled that dung is fuel. He is horrified that it is human, and he protests that he has never eaten anything defiled. God relents only about the source, allowing cow dung instead, and the picture that remains is of a city so stripped that people burn whatever is left.

Everywhere else the word sits at the bottom of the scale of worth, and it always arrives as a comparison: a royal house cleared out like dung, the bodies of the guilty left lying like dung in the street, a man who had everything perishing like his own waste. The point is not squeamishness about filth but total contempt, the end of something nobody will trouble to keep.

The word belongs to a group of Hebrew words built on the idea of rolling and roundness, which is why many scholars connect it to the word for stones rolled together into a heap (גַּל) and to a word for a round bowl. On that reading, dung is named for the shape of the pellet. Later the prophets turned this word-world into an insult, and Ezekiel's favorite name for idols (גִּלּוּל) amounts to calling them "dung-gods."

Nuances

1adung as the actual substance, in particular the dried waste burned as fuel for baking
TranslatabilityDirect
Ezk 4:12Ezk 4:15
1bdung as the measure of worthlessness: what is cleared away completely, and what a disgraced body or life is compared to
1Ki 14:10Job 20:7Zep 1:17
Job 20:7

What the word means in Job 20:7, where the Masoretic Text has the wicked man perish "like his own dung."

  • majority"Dung" as the consonants stand: the harder reading, retained for its deliberately degrading force.; David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC 17), on 20:7; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job (OTL, 1985), on 20:7; Marvin H. Pope, Job (Anchor Bible 15), on 20:7; Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, and Special Studies (1978), on 20:7
  • minorityA different derivation of the form, giving "like a phantom he vanishes forever"; followed by the New Jerusalem Bible.; Edouard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (English translation 1967), on 20:7
  • minority"Dung" understood specifically as dried fuel, so that the wicked man is consumed like the fuel of his own fire.; New American Bible, Job 20:7
Variants

The same word in another spelling or form.

גָּלָל“dung”The word galal, "dung," is the plain standing shape of the same Hebrew noun that appears as gelel when it is joined to another word. It carries the identical sense, animal or human excrement named bluntly for its worthlessness. It turns up in the sentence against the house of Jeroboam, whose line God will sweep away as a man sweeps away dung, and in Zephaniah, where the bodies of the guilty are left lying like dung. Because it means exactly what gelel means, the two shapes are studied together as one word.

What scholars say about gelel

The lexica agree on the gloss "dung" and divide only over how to file it. BDB lists a bracketed [גֵּל] for the construct forms at Ezekiel 4:12, 15 and Job 20:7, cross-referenced to a second entry II גָּלָל for the absolute forms at 1 Kings 14:10 and Zephaniah 1:17, while implying that both share the root גלל, "to roll, be round"; HALOT and DCH register the sense without dispute, DCH (vol. 2, 347) defining by attested usage rather than by cognate etymology after Barr's methodological caution. G. Münderlein's TDOT article on גלל (3:20ff.) organizes the whole family around a rolling/roundness core, and Daniel Bodi argues explicitly against "postulating two different roots gl/gll," deriving "excrement" from the rotundity of fecal matter within a single root. Ezekiel 4:12, 15 is the secure anchor for the sense, where גֶּלְלֵי צֵאַת הָאָדָם is commuted to צְפִיעֵי הַבָּקָר; the same degrading register stands behind Ezekiel's גִּלּוּלִים for idols (39 of its 48 biblical occurrences fall in that book), which Hans Walter Wolff proposed rendering "Scheissgoetter." Job 20:7 is the single contested occurrence: Dhorme derived כְּגֶלֲלוֹ from a different base and read "like a phantom he vanishes," followed by the New Jerusalem Bible, the Peshitta rendered "whirlwind," and the New American Bible took the dung as fuel, while Pope, Gordis, Habel, and Clines weigh the options and mostly retain "dung" as the lectio difficilior.

Where scholars disagree about gelel

Whether the words for dung belong to the same root as the words for a heap of rolled-together stones, rolling waves, and a round bowl, or are better listed as a separate word that merely looks similar.

  • majorityOne root meaning "to roll, be round," from which every sense radiates: stones rolled together into a heap, water rolling as waves, a round bowl, and dung as round pellets.; G. Münderlein, "גלל", TDOT 3:20ff.; Daniel Bodi, in Studies in Honor of David Marcus (2022), 98
  • minorityThe dung words are best listed as a distinct word, however they may be related historically, since nothing in their attested use overlaps the heap and wave senses.; BDB, s.v. [גֵּל] and II גָּלָל
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB, s.v. [גֵּל] and II גָּלָלlexicon
  • HALOT, s.v. גָּלָלlexicon
  • DCH, vol. 2, 347, s.v. גללlexicon
  • G. Münderlein, "גלל", TDOT 3:20ff.theological-dictionary
  • Daniel Bodi, in Studies in Honor of David Marcus (2022), 98essay
  • Edouard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (English translation 1967), on 20:7commentary
  • David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (WBC 17), on 20:7commentary
  • Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job (OTL, 1985), on 20:7commentary
  • Marvin H. Pope, Job (Anchor Bible 15), on 20:7commentary
  • Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Translation, and Special Studies (1978)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of גֵּל

m p construct

גֶּלְלֵי

Ezk 4:12, Ezk 4:15

m s construct

גֶלֲלוֹ

Job 20:7