to attach oneself to another, becoming joined, allied, or bound to them.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word describes one party fastening itself to another, so that the two now belong together. Usually the subject joins itself to someone else, and the range runs from simply keeping company with a person to forming a lasting alliance to being counted as part of a group.
Its most weighted use is about belonging to the LORD. Outsiders, foreigners, and even whole nations attach themselves to Israel's God and are welcomed as his own. This pictures a people joined to God by choice and commitment rather than only by birth, a theme the prophets return to when they look ahead to who will belong to God.
The name Levi grows out of this verb. When Leah bears her third son she hopes that now, at last, her husband will be joined to her, and she names the boy Levi. The line is a play on the sound and sense of the word. Scholars are not certain the name actually comes from this root, but the story fixed the word's link with attachment and joining in Israel's memory.
Nuances
1ato join or ally oneself with a person or group.
Gen 29:34*Num 18:2Num 18:4Psa 83:8(9)Dan 11:34*
1bto join oneself to the LORD or to his covenant people.
Est 9:27Isa 14:1Isa 56:3Isa 56:6Jer 50:5Zec 2:11(15)
1cto accompany or stay with someone.
Ecc 8:15
2
to take or give a loan: to borrow, or, seen from the other side, to lend.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the vocabulary of a loan. One form of the verb belongs to the borrower, who takes the loan, and the matching form belongs to the lender, who supplies it. It is a single transaction described from either side.
In the Bible a loan is usually a matter of one person helping a neighbor in need, not a commercial deal. Lending generously to the poor is praised as a mark of the good person, while borrowing and then failing to repay marks out the wicked. Proverbs warns that the borrower ends up the lender's servant, and being able to lend to other nations while never having to borrow from them is held out as a sign of blessing.
One proverb turns the picture around in a striking way: to be generous to the poor is to make the LORD himself your debtor, lending to him, and he is the one who repays.
Nuances
2ato borrow: to take a loan as the debtor.
Deu 28:12 (2×)Neh 5:4Psa 37:21Pro 22:7 (2×)Isa 24:2 (2×)
names one party fastening itself to another so that the two now belong together, and often binds an outsider to the LORD and his people.Isa 56:3Zec 2:11
Both
both describe coming alongside and associating oneself with another person or group.Num 18:2
Only join
English "join" can sound like signing up for a club or a group, a lighter and more casual act than the lasting attachment the Hebrew pictures.
“accompany”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“borrow”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“lend”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How lavah differs from similar Hebrew words
חָבַרjoining or uniting people or things into a single combined whole (allies bound together, curtains fastened into one), rather than one party attaching itself to another.
דָּבַקclinging tightly and holding fast to someone (a husband to his wife, Ruth to Naomi), a closer and more physical grip than simply associating oneself with another.
Means formally joining a group or people, allying oneself so as to belong to a body: foreigners attaching themselves to the covenant people, nations joined to Israel. The idea is membership and affiliation, not a physical grip.Isa 56:3Zec 2:11
Means accompanying or attaching as a companion or helper: the Levites joined to Aaron to assist him, and the naming of Levi, whose name plays on being joined to another. The sense is association and escort, closer than merely being present but short of clinging.Num 18:2Gen 29:34
Both
Both describe a person binding himself in loyal devotion to the LORD: one holds fast to God, the other joins himself to the LORD, and each names the same wholehearted commitment to belong to him.Deu 10:20Isa 56:6
Describes physical sticking, one surface pressed fast against another: a tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth, a bone clinging to the skin. This is bodily adhesion, not affiliation.Psa 137:6Job 19:20
Names a devoted attachment that grips and refuses to let go: Ruth holding on to Naomi, a man holding fast to his wife. The force is the tenacity of love, an embrace that will not release.Rut 1:14Gen 2:24
נָשָׁהto act as a creditor, holding and pressing a claim for what is owed; the loan word here instead covers both sides of the transaction, the borrowing as well as the lending.
Covers the borrower's side of the loan as readily as the lender's, so it is the ordinary word for taking on a debt.Deu 28:12Psa 37:21Pro 22:7Neh 5:4
Its lending is often praised: the good person lends freely to a neighbor in need, and helping the poor is even pictured as making a loan to the LORD himself.Psa 37:26Psa 112:5Pro 19:17
Measures where a nation stands: being able to lend to others and never having to borrow marks blessing, and the reverse marks ruin.Deu 28:12Deu 28:44
The same spelling also stands for a completely separate word meaning to attach oneself to someone, which is why it lies behind the name Levi and behind the prophets' picture of foreigners joining themselves to the LORD.Gen 29:34Isa 56:6Zec 2:11Est 9:27
Both
Both describe putting money or goods out to someone in need, close enough that a single law can use one for the act and the other for the wrong way of going about it: lend to the poor, but do not stand over them as a creditor.Exo 22:25
Both belong to the fixed pairs of everyday economic life, and stand side by side in the same prophetic list of the social ranks that coming judgment will level.Isa 24:2
Names the creditor as a person with a hold over someone: the figure who turns up to collect, take the debtor's children, or strip his house.2Ki 4:1Psa 109:11Isa 50:1
It is the word the law hedges about with restraints: the claim is released in the seventh year, and the creditor may not walk into the debtor's house to seize what was put up as security.Deu 15:2Deu 24:10Deu 24:11
It is what leaders are accused of doing to their own people, and what Nehemiah admits to and then calls off.Neh 5:10Neh 5:11
Stretched into a phrase for having no money dealings with anyone at all, used twice over in one breath to say that no debt runs in either direction.Jer 15:10
lavah in the other biblical languages
κολλάωGreek“to join”the Greek verb for joining or attaching oneself closely to a person or group, the counterpart to the joining meaning.
δανείζωGreek“to lend/borrow”the Greek verb that covers a loan from both sides, lending in its active form and borrowing in its middle form, matching the borrow-and-lend meaning.
What scholars say about lavah
Standard lexica treat two distinct roots under this spelling. לוה I, attested mainly in the niphal (with one qal in Eccl 8:15), means "join oneself, be attached to," and carries a marked covenantal use for the alien and the nations attaching themselves to YHWH (Isa 14:1; 56:3, 6; Jer 50:5;Zech 2:11). The name Levi is popularly derived from it in Gen 29:34, though the actual etymology of the name is disputed and often traced elsewhere. לוה II, qal "to borrow" and hiphil "to lend," belongs to Israel's loan legislation and its wisdom traditions (Exod 22:25;Deut 28:12, 44; Prov 19:17; 22:7). BDB, HALOT, and DCH keep the two as separate entries, and TWOT likewise treats them apart.
Sources
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. לָוָה I, IIlexicon
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. לוה I, IIlexicon