StrongerBible

megillah

מְגִלָּה

HebrewH4039“scroll, roll, ...”

Appears 21 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 40:7(8)Jer 36:2Jer 36:4Jer 36:6Jer 36:14 (2×)Jer 36:20Jer 36:21Jer 36:23Jer 36:25Jer 36:27Jer 36:28 (2×)Jer 36:29Jer 36:32Ezk 2:9Ezk 3:1Ezk 3:2Zec 5:1Zec 5:2
Word studymeh-gee-LAHnoun

What megillah means

a scroll: a rolled length of leather or papyrus written on in columns and unrolled to be read

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

A megillah is a scroll: a long strip of prepared animal skin or papyrus, written on in columns and then rolled up for storage. To read it you unrolled it from one end; to put it away you wound it back. This was simply what a written document looked like in the biblical world, long before bound books with separate pages existed.

Every place the word appears it names one of these rolled documents, and the Bible's most vivid scroll scenes gather around it:

  • Jeremiah dictates a scroll that King Jehoiakim slices apart column by column and feeds to the fire, only to have it rewritten longer than before
  • Ezekiel is handed a scroll covered with writing on front and back and is told to eat it
  • Zechariah watches a giant scroll fly over the land, carrying a written curse against thieves and liars

The word often pairs with the general term for a written document (סֵפֶר) in the phrase usually rendered "scroll of a book," where megillah names the physical rolled object and the other word names the writing it carries.

Psa 40:7(8)Jer 36:2Jer 36:4Jer 36:6Jer 36:14 (2×)Jer 36:20Jer 36:21Jer 36:23Jer 36:25Jer 36:27Jer 36:28 (2×)Jer 36:29

What scholars say about megillah

The standard lexica converge without dissent on "scroll, roll" as the sense of מְגִלָּה, a feminine noun derived from the root גלל "to roll" (BDB p. 166; HALOT 2:544; DCH 5:117). The word denotes the writing material in its rolled physical form (leather or papyrus), and the lexica note its frequent appearance in the bound phrase מְגִלַּת־סֵפֶר "scroll of a document" (Ps 40:8 [Eng 40:7]; Jer 36:2, 4; Ezek 2:9). Jeremiah 36, where the scroll is dictated, read publicly, cut with a scribe's knife, burned in a brazier, and rewritten, is the fullest biblical account of scroll production and use and is treated as the key passage by the commentary tradition (Holladay, Jeremiah 2, Hermeneia; Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, Anchor Yale Bible). TDOT and TWOT treat the noun under the root גלל, and the noun's later technical use for the five festival scrolls (the Megilloth) is a post-biblical development that does not affect the biblical sense.

Sources

  • Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 166, s.v. מְגִלָּהlexicon
  • Koehler, Baumgartner, and Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 2:544, s.v. מְגִלָּהlexicon
  • Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 5, s.v. מְגִלָּהlexicon
  • Harris, Archer, and Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, §353 (גלל)theological-dictionary
  • Holladay, Jeremiah 2, Hermeneiacommentary
  • Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, Anchor Yale Bible 21Bcommentary

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

All attested forms of מְגִלָּה

f s absolute

מְּגִלָּה, מְגִלָּה

Jer 36:6, Jer 36:14, Jer 36:14, Jer 36:20, Jer 36:21, Jer 36:23, Jer 36:25, Jer 36:27

f s construct

מְגִלַּת

Psa 40:7, Jer 36:2, Jer 36:4, Ezk 2:9