StrongerBible

zalal

זָלַל

HebrewH2151“glutton, worthless, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 21:20Pro 23:20Pro 23:21Pro 28:7Isa 64:1(63:19)Isa 64:3(2)Jer 15:19Lam 1:11
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradezah-LALverb

What zalal means

1

to treat what is precious as cheap: to squander it, or to be counted worthless

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The heart of this word is not overeating but contempt for value: it names someone who takes what is precious and holds it lightly, wasting it. From that one idea the word branches two ways. Applied to a person's whole way of living, it paints the wastrel who pours out money, food, wine, and family standing on his own appetites. Applied to worth itself, it means being counted cheap, the flat opposite of being precious or honored.

Most English Bibles translate it "glutton," but that is a guess drawn from the company it keeps, not the word's core. It sits beside the drunkard in the charge against the rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21:20) and beside heavy meat-eaters in Proverbs, so translators reach for "glutton." Yet in Proverbs 28:7 no food is anywhere in view, and the word still describes the same reckless character. The better sense throughout is the wastrel who makes light of everything valuable.

The same word carries a second, colder use: to be worthless, held in contempt. Jeremiah is told to separate "the precious from the worthless" in his own speech (Jeremiah 15:19), and in Lamentations the ruined city of Zion confesses that she has "become worthless" (Lamentations 1:11). Here the word is the shadow-side of honor. A near-relative in Hebrew, קָלַל, works the same field of being "light" and so treated as trifling, though it is a separate word.

Nuances

1aa dissolute wastrel who squanders what is precious, often shown through excess food and drink; a glutton
Deu 21:20Pro 23:20Pro 23:21Pro 28:7
1bworthless, held in contempt; the opposite of precious or honored
Jer 15:19Lam 1:11
2

to quake or tremble, said of mountains shaking at God's coming

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested

A rare and separate use of the same spelling means to shake violently. In Isaiah's prayer the mountains "quake" at the Lord's descent, and the plea is that God would tear open the heavens and come down as he once did at Sinai (Isaiah 64:1, 64:3). This is the language of an overwhelming arrival, the ground itself convulsing before God.

Scholars are not fully agreed that this is even the same word as the "worthless" sense above, or a distinct word that happens to look identical. Some read these verses instead as the mountains "flowing" or "melting" down. Either way the picture holds: creation cannot stand steady when God draws near.

Isa 64:1(63:19)Isa 64:3(2)

Disputed

Whether the Isaiah forms belong to a rare root meaning "quake, tremble" or to the common look-alike verb נזל "flow, trickle," yielding "the mountains flowed / melted."

  • majorityA distinct "quake" root; the form nazollu at Isaiah 63:19b [Eng 64:1] is a geminate pattern that fits this root, not the flow-verb, and the parallel earth-quaking imagery and Septuagint "were shaken" support it.; HALOT, s.v. זלל II; John Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66 (ICC, 2014); Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66 (Anchor Bible 19B, 2003), 265-270
  • minorityThe traditional reading takes the form from נזל "flow," giving "the mountains flowed / melted" down before the Lord.; Robert Holmstedt, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 14, art. 8 (2014)

What scholars say about zalal

The lexica largely agree on the sense inventory while dividing the material differently by root. BDB posits two homonyms; HALOT (1:272) splits I "be worthless, squander, glutton" (Deut 21:20; Prov 23:20-21; 28:7; Jer 15:19; Lam 1:11) from a rare II "quake, tremble" (Isa 63:19b [Eng 64:1]); DCH divides more finely into three. The comparative-Semitic key is that Hebrew z collapses Proto-Semitic *z and interdental *dh, which Arabic keeps apart: the "worthless, despise" sense answers to Arabic dhalla (be lowly, abject) and to Aramaic zll (be light, cheap, despise), while the "quake" sense answers to Arabic zalla / zalzala (slip; shake violently), with the reduplicated noun zalzallim (swaying twigs, Isa 18:5) a near-exact match. This favors two originally distinct roots that fell together. For the "worthless, glutton" material Waltke states the programmatic sense: the participle denotes a profligate who makes light of anything precious and so squanders it, with "glutton" arising by context (the pairing with sove drunkard and with basar flesh). Fox reads zoleley basar as those who treat meat as cheap; Tigay and Weinfeld read Deut 21:20 and Prov 23:20-21 as a shared wisdom stereotype of the incorrigible wastrel; Holladay and Lundbom read Jer 15:19 as a call to purge worthless speech; Hillers and Berlin read Lam 1:11 (with the Hiphil in 1:8) as an honor-and-contempt wordplay in which Zion becomes the antithesis of what is precious. The Septuagint never renders the root by mere overeating, reaching instead for symbolokopon, pornokopos, asotia, anaxiou, and etimomene, i.e. the vocabulary of dishonor and dissipation. For the quake material Blenkinsopp, Goldingay, Childs, and Westermann read Isaiah's mountains as quaking in a plea for renewed Sinai theophany, Goldingay holding the form morphologically decisive against the traditional "flow" derivation; Holmstedt defends the parallel Judges 5:5 form as ordinary nazal "flow." TDOT and TLOT carry no dedicated article, while TWOT (#553) and NIDOTTE treat the material under a single lemma.

Where scholars disagree about zalal

Whether זלל is one word with several senses or two (even three) originally distinct words that came to be spelled and pronounced alike, one meaning "treat as cheap, squander, be worthless" and a rare one meaning "quake."

  • majorityTwo originally distinct Proto-Semitic roots (one "be lowly, despised," one "slip, shake") fell together in Hebrew; Arabic keeps them apart, which is the decisive evidence.; HALOT, s.v. זלל I, II; BDB, s.v. זָלַל; DCH, s.v. זלל (three roots)
  • minorityThe material is better kept as a single entry whose senses context sorts out, without multiplying homonyms.; TWOT #553 (Harris-Archer-Waltke); NIDOTTE (VanGemeren, ed.)
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

  • HALOT, s.v. זלל I, II (Koehler-Baumgartner, 1:272)lexicon
  • BDB, s.v. זָלַל (Brown-Driver-Briggs, p. 273)lexicon
  • DCH, s.v. זלל (Clines, ed., vol. 3)lexicon
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 15-31 (NICOT, 2005), 255-256, 411-412commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Yale Bible 18B, 2009), ad 23:20commentary
  • Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996), 196-197commentary
  • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (1972), 244-319monograph
  • William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1 (Hermeneia, 1986), 458-465commentary
  • Delbert R. Hillers, Lamentations (Anchor Bible 7A, 2nd ed. 1992), 74-76commentary
  • Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66 (Anchor Bible 19B, 2003), 265-270commentary
  • John Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66 (ICC, 2014)commentary
  • TWOT #553 (Harris-Archer-Waltke, 1980); NIDOTTE (VanGemeren, ed., vol. 1)dictionary

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

All attested forms of זָלַל

qal participle m s absolute

וְזוֹלֵל, זוֹלֵל, מִזּוֹלֵל

Pro 23:21, Deu 21:20, Jer 15:19

niphal perfect 3cp

נָזֹלּוּ

Isa 64:1, Isa 64:3

qal participle f s absolute

זוֹלֵלָה

Lam 1:11

qal participle m p absolute

זוֹלְלִים

Pro 28:7

qal participle m p construct

זֹלֲלֵי

Pro 23:20