fat: the thick suet of an animal, the prime part set apart to be burned for God and never eaten
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the literal meaning, and it carries almost all the occurrences. It is not lean meat but the heavy suet packed around the inner organs, the kidneys, and the tail of a sheep. In the sacrifices this fat is singled out and burned on the altar as the choicest portion, given wholly to God.
Because it belonged to God, Israel was forbidden to eat it. The same word names both the fat on the altar and the fat a person is told not to touch, so the two ideas always travel together: this is the part that is too good for people, reserved for the LORD.
The word also pictures the body grown heavy with fat. A man whose sides are thick with it, eyes that seem to bulge out of fat, or a heart described as gross and unfeeling all use this image, usually to portray the arrogant and the well-fed who have stopped caring about God or others.
Nuances
1athe suet of a sacrifice, burned on the altar as God's portion and forbidden to eat
the best part: the richest, choicest portion of something
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Because the fat was the prime cut given to God, the word stretched into a figure for the finest of anything. To be given the fat of the land is to receive its richest produce, and the finest wheat is literally its fat.
This sense keeps the flavor of the literal one. It is not merely a large amount but the choice, the abundant, the best on offer, the part you would set aside as most valuable. The image moves easily from the altar to the table to the harvest while holding onto the same idea of the prime portion.
Gen 45:18Num 18:12 (2×)Deu 32:14Psa 63:5Psa 81:16Psa 147:14
the figure grows out of the altar fat, so the best it names is the choice, prime portion you would set apart as most valuableGen 45:18Num 18:12
Both
both point to the finest, richest part of something on offerPsa 147:14
Only best
the English word best is an abstract ranking term and loses the concrete picture of rich fat and the choicest cut behind the Hebrew
“finest”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How ḥelev differs from similar Hebrew words
פֶּדֶרanother word for the fat or suet of a sacrifice, but rare and tied only to the offerings, where this word also reaches into everyday and figurative speech
The general word for animal fat, especially the prized fat of a sacrifice that belongs to God and is forbidden as food; it covers fat from many parts of the animal and recurs throughout the offering laws.Lev 3:3Lev 7:23
Reaches beyond the altar into figurative speech for the richest, best, or choicest part of something, a sense the narrow butcher's term never carries.Gen 45:18Psa 81:16Deu 32:14
Both
Both name fatty animal portions handled in the sacrificial system and burned on the altar as part of an offering to God.Lev 8:16Lev 8:20
A rare, concrete term for the specific fatty pieces or suet laid on the altar fire alongside the head and other portions; it appears only in the burnt-offering procedure, never figuratively.Lev 1:8Lev 1:12Lev 8:20
חֵלֶבHeleb is a biblical name written exactly like חֵ֫לֶב, the common Hebrew word grouped here.
Fat names the best or richest part of anything at all, not only of an animal: the best of a whole country, and the finest of the oil, the new wine, the grain, and the wheat.Gen 45:18Num 18:12Psa 81:16Psa 147:14
Fat pictures a comfort that has made someone smug and unfeeling: a heart grown thick with fat, a face padded out by it, eyes that bulge with plenty.Psa 17:10Psa 73:7Psa 119:70Job 15:27
Fat is rich food that satisfies, so it can stand for a full and contented meal, and a thin offering is described as failing to satisfy.Psa 63:5Isa 43:24
Both
Both name a portion of a sacrificial animal that belongs to God alone, and both fall under the same lasting rule that Israel is never to eat them.Lev 3:17
Both are handled in one continuous motion at the altar, the blood put against it and the fat burned on it, so the two together are what the offering actually gives to God.Lev 17:6Num 18:17Exo 23:18Lev 7:33
Both are named as the pair God is being handed when prophets say that generous offerings count for nothing from people who keep breaking faith.Isa 1:11Ezk 44:7Ezk 44:15
Both fill out the horror of a judgment pictured as a slaughter meal, where the guests eat fat until they are full and drink blood until they are drunk.Ezk 39:19Isa 34:6Isa 34:7
Both are stretched past the altar into poetry, where each stands for the richest or strongest that something has to give: fat of lambs beside the blood of the grape, the fat of warriors beside the blood of the slain.Deu 32:142Sa 1:22
Blood is identified with life itself, and that identification is the stated reason it may not be eaten and the reason it can make atonement.Lev 17:11Gen 9:4Deu 12:23
Blood is the ordinary word for violent death and for the guilt a killing leaves behind, so it can cry out from the ground, settle on a killer's own head, and defile a whole land.Gen 4:10Gen 9:6Num 35:33Pro 6:17
Blood is applied to objects and to people, smeared on doorframes, sprinkled over a crowd, dabbed on a priest's ear, brought inside the most holy place, so that it marks, shields, and sets apart.Exo 12:13Exo 24:8Lev 8:23Lev 16:14
Blood carries a duty of pursuit and accounting: a watchman who stays silent answers for the dead man's blood, and a relative takes up the case of one who was killed.Ezk 33:6Num 35:19
Names the greasy ash left after the altar fat has burned away, the fatty residue lifted off the altar and carried outside the camp.Lev 1:16Lev 6:101Ki 13:3
Reaches beyond any animal to fatness as a general picture of rich abundance: well-watered ground, satisfying food, the yield of tree and field.Psa 65:11Isa 55:2Jdg 9:9
fat is the ritual portion reserved for God alone, burned on the altar and forbidden as human food: a cultic boundary milk never carriesLev 3:16Lev 3:17
fat extends metaphorically to mean the choicest or best part of any category (the fat of the land, the fat of wheat, the fat of oil), an abstraction milk does not shareGen 45:18Num 18:12
Both
both fat and milk are rich animal products that together paint the Hebrew picture of lavish natural abundance and divine blessingDeu 32:14
milk anchors the "land flowing with milk and honey" formula, serving as the standard image of the promised land's abundance: a role fat never fillsExo 3:8Deu 6:3
milk appears as literal food in hospitality and practical household contexts (served to guests, carried as provisions, sustaining daily life), while fat is not eaten as a dishGen 18:8Jdg 4:19
It is first of all a physical substance, the solid fat of an animal, which Israel was forbidden to eat because it belonged on the altar.Lev 3:16Lev 7:23Lev 7:25
It can name fat inside a living body, something a blade sinks into or that thickens over a man as he grows heavy.Jdg 3:22Job 15:27
Its idea of "the best" grows out of richness itself, so it can cover a whole land or a whole crop with no act of picking behind it.Gen 45:18Psa 147:14
Turned on people, it becomes an image of comfortable arrogance: a heart closed up and grown insensitive.Psa 17:10Psa 73:7
Both
Both can name the prime portion of a class of things rather than a thing in its own right: the best of a harvest, the best of a flock.Num 18:12Ezk 24:5
Both name what is held back for God as the finest part of a gift, so either word can stand in a law about what worshipers owe.Num 18:29Deu 12:11
It is built on the act of choosing, so a wider group is always in view behind it: what stands here is what was picked out from the rest.Gen 23:6Ezk 31:16
It regularly names people, the elite fighters and the pick of a nation's young men, which the word for fat never does.Exo 15:4Jer 48:15Dan 11:15Ezk 23:7
It applies to things that are not food or produce at all, naming the finest timber or the best stretch of country.Isa 37:24Jer 22:7Isa 22:7
It names the fat itself, the rich tissue cut away from an animal and burned on the altar as God's own portion, never the animal as a whole.Lev 3:3Lev 3:16Gen 4:4
Because that portion belonged to God, Israelites were forbidden to eat it, and taking it before it went up in smoke counted as contempt for the offering.Lev 7:23Lev 7:251Sa 2:151Sa 2:16
It reaches past meat altogether and becomes a word for the choicest part of any harvest, so English Bibles render it "the best" of the oil, the wine, or the wheat.Num 18:12Deu 32:14Psa 81:16Psa 147:14
It turns into a picture of a person grown thick and unfeeling, with the heart shut up in fat or the face padded over with it.Psa 17:10Psa 73:7Psa 119:70Job 15:27
It can also be plain body fat with nothing religious about it, as when the fat of Eglon's belly closed over the blade that killed him.Jdg 3:22
Both
The two fit together as substance and source, and Isaiah joins them in a single phrase, "the fat of fattened beasts": the animal is bred rich so that the part burned for God will be rich.Isa 1:11
Both stand for worship at its most expensive, and both turn up in the prophets' complaint that God has had his fill of costly gifts brought by people whose lives do not match them.Isa 1:11
It names a whole animal rather than a substance: a beast deliberately fattened up, one you can count, drive, and slaughter alongside oxen and sheep.2Sa 6:131Ki 1:9Amo 5:22
It belongs to the scene of a lavish banquet, where the number of fattened animals killed measures how grand the occasion is and the guests are eating and drinking in front of the host.1Ki 1:91Ki 1:191Ki 1:25
Since it is a living creature, it can be pictured alive: grazing beside a young lion in a scene of peace, or as well fed stock from the pastures of Bashan.Isa 11:6Ezk 39:18
Only this word names the actual suet of a sacrificed animal, the thick fat packed around the organs that is lifted off and burned on the altar as God's own portion and that Israel is forbidden to eat.Gen 4:4Lev 3:16Lev 7:23
Only this word names fat as a solid thing you could touch, cut into, or chew: the fat a blade sinks into, the fat shepherds eat off their own flock, the fat a sword is said to be gorged with.Jdg 3:22Ezk 34:32Sa 1:22
Only this word turns fat into a picture of arrogance: bodies swollen with it, eyes bulging out of it, and a heart described as fat, meaning a heart too padded to feel anything God says.Psa 17:10Psa 73:7Psa 119:70Job 15:27
Both
Both name the richest part of a land, whether the produce a country hands over or the best districts of a province seized by an invader.Gen 45:18Num 18:12Gen 27:28Dan 11:24
Both name the rich food of a good table, the satisfying fatty portion that marks a meal as generous rather than plain.Psa 63:5Deu 32:14Neh 8:10
Only this word names richness as a quality that God can thin out. It is the fatness a wasting sickness is sent into, and the fat of a body that grows lean under judgment, so plenty and its loss are told with one word.Isa 10:16Isa 17:4
Only this word points past the fat to the well fed people who carry it, naming the sturdiest and strongest men in a crowd as the ones struck down.Psa 78:31
specifically designates animal suet and organ fat (kidney fat, liver lobe, intestinal fat): the portions that belong entirely to God and may never be eatenLev 3:16
the fatty pieces from the slaughtered animal that are burned on the altar as the LORD's portion of the sacrificeLev 9:10
used figuratively for the choicest and richest portion of the land or its produce: what is most prized, withheld, or reservedGen 45:18
used figuratively for a heart grown thick and unresponsive: a moral dullness compared to being covered in fatPsa 119:70
Both
both appear together in a single altar ceremony as the richest offerings presented to God: the fatty animal pieces and the oil-bread wave offering side by sideLev 8:26
designates pressed plant oil (olive oil above all) used in the grain offering, in lamps, and in cooking: it is never an animal product and carries no sacrificial prohibition on eatingLev 2:1
the substance used to anoint priests, kings, sacred objects, and the tabernacle: a ritual act that sets a person or thing apart, with no parallel in the use of animal fat1Sa 16:13
used in everyday life as food, fuel for lamps, cosmetics, medicine, and a trade commodity: a staple of ordinary existence as well as the sanctuaryPro 21:17
used figuratively for smooth, slippery speech: words that seem pleasant but conceal hostilityPsa 55:21
This is the noun for the fat itself, the thick layer taken off a slaughtered animal. In the sacrifices it is a specific portion that belongs to God, burned on the altar and forbidden as food, which no describing word for "rich" could name.Gen 4:4Lev 3:16Lev 7:23
Because the fat was the prime part of the animal, the word becomes a way of saying "the very best of" a crop: the finest of the oil, wine and grain given to the priests, and the choicest wheat God feeds his people.Num 18:12Deu 32:14Psa 147:14
It also names plain flesh on a human body, as when Ehud's blade disappears into Eglon, and from there it becomes a picture of a person padded and insensitive, a heart gone dull with comfort.Jdg 3:22Psa 17:10Psa 119:70
Both
Both belong to the vocabulary of a land at its most productive and the food it yields. Joseph promises his family the fat of Egypt and God gives the finest of the wheat, while the other word calls the settled land itself rich and its bread plentiful.Gen 45:18Psa 81:16Neh 9:25Isa 30:23
Both turn up in Ezekiel's charge against Israel's shepherds and flock: the shepherds eat the fat while the sheep go untended, and the well fed sheep that shoved the weak aside are the ones God destroys.Ezk 34:3Ezk 34:16
In both words plenty can become an accusation, prosperity so comfortable that God is forgotten. The psalm pictures the untroubled wicked swollen with fat, and Nehemiah's prayer recalls a people who grew content in the rich land they were given and still would not serve the one who gave it.Psa 73:7Neh 9:35
This word describes rather than names: it is what you call land or pasture that produces abundantly. The scouts are sent to see whether Canaan is rich or lean, and God promises his flock grazing of this quality.Num 13:201Ch 4:40Ezk 34:14
It describes a person's living as generously supplied, so that whoever has it eats well: Asher's food is rich, and the fisherman who worships his net calls his own share rich because the net keeps filling.Gen 49:20Hab 1:16
It can call people and animals themselves well fed and sturdy, a straightforward comment on their condition with no hint of arrogance: the Moabite fighting men are all robust, and the overfed sheep are the ones God will put down.Jdg 3:29Ezk 34:16
What scholars say about ḥelev
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) and TDOT agree on a single word with two related senses: literally the suet of an animal, the portion burned in sacrifice and forbidden as food, and figuratively the choicest or richest part of a thing. The figurative use is read as a natural extension of the sacrificial prime portion, not a separate root. The word for fat is kept distinct from the identically spelled word for milk.