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levanon

לְבָנוֹן

HebrewH3844Proper Noun“Lebanon”

Appears 71 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Deu 1:7Deu 3:25Deu 11:24Jos 1:4Jos 9:1Jos 11:17Jos 12:7Jos 13:5Jos 13:6Jdg 3:3Jdg 9:151Ki 4:33(5:13)1Ki 5:14(28)2Ki 19:232Ch 2:8(7)Psa 29:6Psa 104:16Sng 4:11Sng 4:15Isa 14:8Isa 29:17Isa 33:9Isa 37:24Isa 40:16Jer 18:14
Word studyleh-vah-NOHNnoun

What levanon means

Lebanon: the cedar-covered mountain range north of Israel, and the byword for towering grandeur that its forests became.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Lebanon is a real place. It is a double range of mountains running north from Israel along the coast, snow-capped in winter, split down the middle by a wide valley, and covered in the ancient world with forests of cedar and cypress. Israel's writers use the name first the way a mapmaker would, marking the northern edge of the land promised to Abraham's descendants, and as the address of the timber that built Solomon's temple and palace.

Because everyone knew what grew there, the name turned into shorthand. Its cedar (אֶרֶז) was the tallest tree most people had seen and the most expensive wood anyone could buy, and its slopes ran with cold water and smelled of resin. So the poets reach for the name in two opposite directions:

  • to say that something is lush, fragrant, and built to last, as when a bride's clothes are said to carry the scent of Lebanon
  • to say that something stands too tall and is about to be cut down, as when the prophets line up its cedars beside the world's proud empires

The second use is the one that fills the prophets, often with Bashan (בָּשָׁן) and Carmel (כַּרְמֶל) named alongside it. A cedar of Lebanon stands for Assyria in Ezekiel and for the fallen king of Babylon in Isaiah, and the boasting Assyrian emperor claims to have climbed the range himself and felled its finest trees. The point lands the same way every time: what towers there falls when God decides it falls.

One further turn is worth watching. Judah's kings paneled their palace in Lebanese cedar, and Solomon named a whole hall of it the House of the Forest of Lebanon. Once that was true, a prophet could speak to Jerusalem itself as Lebanon, and Jeremiah does, calling the royal house "you who live in Lebanon, nested among the cedars."

Nuances

1athe mountain range and the region itself: the wooded highland north of Israel, named as a landmark and as the far northern edge of the promised land.
TranslatabilityDirect
Deu 1:7Deu 3:25Deu 11:24Jos 1:4Jos 9:1Jos 13:5Jos 13:6Jdg 3:31Ki 9:192Ch 8:6Sng 4:8Jer 22:20
1bthe Valley of Lebanon: the broad valley lying between the two ranges, used as a fixed boundary marker for the land Joshua took.
TranslatabilityDirect
Jos 11:17Jos 12:7
1cits forest, and above all its cedars: the trees themselves and the prized timber cut there, floated down the coast, and hauled inland for royal building.
1Ki 4:33(5:13)1Ki 5:61Ki 5:91Ki 5:14(28)2Ch 2:8(7)2Ch 2:16Ezr 3:7Psa 104:16Sng 3:9Isa 40:16Isa 60:13Ezk 27:5
1dpart of a building's name: the House of the Forest of Lebanon, Solomon's great hall in Jerusalem, called that for its rows of cedar pillars.
TranslatabilityDirect
1Ki 7:21Ki 10:171Ki 10:212Ch 9:162Ch 9:20
1ea picture of lush growth, sweet scent, and beauty that holds up over time.
Psa 72:16Psa 92:12Sng 4:11Sng 4:15Sng 5:15Sng 7:4Isa 35:2Jer 18:14Hos 14:5Hos 14:6Hos 14:7
1fa picture of towering height and pride that God cuts down.
Jdg 9:152Ki 14:92Ki 19:232Ch 25:18Psa 29:5Psa 29:6Isa 2:13Isa 10:34Isa 14:8Isa 29:17Isa 33:9Isa 37:24
1gthe name used of Jerusalem and its royal house, whose palace was built and paneled with Lebanese cedar.
CertaintyContested
Jer 22:6Jer 22:23Ezk 17:3

What scholars say about levanon

The name is generally derived from the root lbn, "to be white," pointing either to the snow that lingers on the higher summits or to the pale limestone of the range, and it is attested well outside Israel from the third millennium onward (Akkadian Labnanu, Egyptian rmnn, Ugaritic lbnn). The Hebrew Bible applies it to the western range, to the great valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon (Joshua 11:17; 12:7), and, in the fixed building name "house of the forest of Lebanon," to Solomon's cedar-pillared hall (1 Kings 7:2). Beyond geography, standard treatments (Mulder, TDOT 7) distinguish a fertility and glory motif, in which Lebanon supplies the top term for luxuriance, fragrance, and enduring stature, from a hubris motif, in which its cedars stand for world powers destined for felling (Isaiah 2:13; 10:34; Ezekiel 31). A separate question is whether the name works in some prophetic texts as a cipher for Jerusalem, the temple, or the Davidic house. The identification is transparent in Jeremiah 22:23 and Ezekiel 17:3, and an early exegetical tradition, traced by Vermes through the Targums and the Qumran material, extends it to passages such as Zechariah 11:1 and Habakkuk 2:17, where most modern commentators retain the geographical referent.

Where scholars disagree about levanon

Whether the prophets use Lebanon in some passages as a settled cover name for Jerusalem, the temple, or the royal house, or only as a comparison drawn from the mountain and its cedars.

  • majorityThe prophetic passages normally speak of the actual range and its forest. Where the name is applied to Judah's royal house (Jeremiah 22; Ezekiel 17), it works as an image taken from the cedar palace rather than as a fixed code word, and passages like Zechariah 11:1 and Habakkuk 2:17 keep their geographical reference.; M. J. Mulder, "לְבָנוֹן lebanon," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 7; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. לבנון; J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Old Testament Library (1991)
  • minorityAn early symbolic reading already treated Lebanon in several prophetic passages as a standing reference to Jerusalem and its temple, a tradition visible in the Aramaic translations and in the Qumran material and arguably rooted in the prophetic texts themselves.; Geza Vermes, "The Symbolical Interpretation of Lebanon in the Targums," Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1958)

Sources

  • M. J. Mulder, "לְבָנוֹן lebanon," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT), vol. 7dictionary
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. לבנוןlexicon
  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. לבנוןlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. לבנוןlexicon
  • Geza Vermes, "The Symbolical Interpretation of Lebanon in the Targums," Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1958)article
  • J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, Old Testament Library (1991)commentary
  • Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Zechariah 9-14, Anchor Bible (1993)commentary

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

All attested forms of לְבָנוֹן

noun

לְּבָנוֹן, לְבָנוֹן, לְבָנוֹנָ

Deu 1:7, Deu 3:25, Deu 11:24, Jos 1:4, Jos 9:1, Jos 11:17, Jos 12:7, Jos 13:5