a basin or bowl: a wide, shallow open vessel for holding liquid.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This is the everyday word for an open dish or basin, the kind of vessel you pour blood or water into. At the first Passover it is the basin the family dips a bunch of hyssop into to catch the lamb's blood, and among the temple furnishings it names the fine gold and silver bowls kept for worship. The point is simply the shape and use: something wide-mouthed that holds and pours out liquid.
The prophets can pick the word up as an image. When Zechariah says God will make Jerusalem a bowl that makes the surrounding nations stagger, he is drawing on the picture of a cup or basin whose contents leave everyone who drinks reeling, a common way of speaking about the wine of God's judgment. The vessel itself is ordinary; the reeling is what it pours out.
Note that this is a completely separate word from the identical-looking word for a doorway threshold. They are spelled the same and sound the same, but they are two different words with two different histories, the way "bat" the animal and "bat" for baseball are unrelated in English.
Nuances
1aa basin or bowl for holding liquid, whether an ordinary dish or a fine vessel used in worship.
1ba bowl or cup pictured as the container of staggering judgment.
Zec 12:2*
2
a threshold: the sill of a doorway, and by extension the guarded point of entry to a building.
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This word names the threshold of a door, the raised sill you step over as you go in or out. It shows up in stories (a woman collapses with her hands on the threshold of the house) and, most often, in descriptions of the temple and palace: the thresholds of the gates, the doorframes overlaid with gold, the thresholds that shake when the building is struck.
Because the threshold was the controlled point of entry, a whole class of temple and palace officials took their title from it: the "keepers of the threshold." These were senior gatekeepers who guarded the entrance, collected the money brought in, and controlled who came and went. The phrase is not about a literal doorstep so much as the office of guarding the way in.
This is a separate word from the identical-looking word for a basin or bowl. The two are spelled and pronounced the same but are unrelated in meaning and origin; only the surrounding text tells you which one is meant.
the same spelling also names a doorway threshold, so the vessel meaning is clear only from context; the English word carries no such double life.Exo 12:22
Both
both name a wide, shallow open container that holds liquid.1Ki 7:502Ki 12:13
Only basin
to a modern ear "basin" can suggest a fixed bathroom or kitchen sink; the Hebrew is a portable open dish or bowl you carry and pour from.
“bowl”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
in the temple accounts the word often stands for the whole guarded point of entry, watched by the "keepers of the threshold," not just the physical sill.2Ki 22:4
Both
both name the raised sill at the base of a doorway that you cross going in or out.Amo 9:1
Only threshold
English "threshold" is frequently figurative (on the threshold of a discovery); the Hebrew is almost always the literal doorsill.
“door”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How saph differs from similar Hebrew words
מִפְתָּןthe other Hebrew word for a doorway threshold; it names the sill itself and never carries the separate basin meaning.
Also means the threshold or doorway of a building, and by extension its gatekeepers, a sense the sacrificial bowl never carries.Jdg 19:27Isa 6:4Est 2:212Ki 12:9
Both
Both name a metal basin counted among the sacred vessels of the temple.1Ki 7:50
Often not part of a building at all but a free-standing vessel, a basin or bowl, listed among the gold and silver implements of the temple alongside snuffers, bowls, and spoons.Jer 52:191Ki 7:502Ki 12:13
As a part of the doorway it is the bottom sill one steps over, the base of a gate, which is why the temple officials who controlled access were called keepers of this part.Ezk 40:6Ezk 40:72Ki 22:4
Both
Both name a structural part of one and the same doorway, so they appear side by side describing a single entrance: the doorposts framing the opening and the threshold or basin at its foot.Exo 12:22Ezk 43:8
Always the upright side-piece of a doorway, the vertical post that frames the opening on either hand. At Passover the blood went on the two of these and the lintel above (the top beam), marking the frame the household passed through.Exo 12:7Exo 12:23
The fixed surface where Israel was told to write God's commands, so the words met the household at every coming and going. This writing-place sense belongs only to the doorpost.Deu 6:9Deu 11:20
The spot to which a bondservant who chose to stay for life was brought, his ear pierced against it as a permanent sign of belonging to that house.Exo 21:6
saph in the other biblical languages
νιπτήρGreek“wash basin”the Greek word for a wash basin (the vessel Jesus uses to wash the disciples' feet); it matches the basin sense, not the threshold one.
The same word also names the threshold or doorsill of a building, and by extension the officials called keepers of the threshold who guard the entrance.2Ki 22:4Est 2:21Ezk 40:6
As a vessel it is the bowl that catches sacrificial blood and the gold basins of temple service, not a washing tool.Exo 12:221Ki 7:50
Both
Both name a shallow open basin that holds liquid for a set purpose.Jhn 13:51Ki 7:50
A specific vessel for washing, the basin Jesus fills with water to wash the disciples' feet; it names the tool of a humble act of service.Jhn 13:5
φιάληGreek“bowl”the Greek word for a shallow bowl, including the bowls of judgment poured out in Revelation; it overlaps the basin sense and its judgment imagery.
Most often not a bowl at all but the threshold or doorway of a building, the spot where doorkeepers stood and where the posts shook.Jdg 19:272Ki 12:9Isa 6:4Amo 9:1
As a vessel, the basin that holds blood or drink, such as the one that caught the Passover blood.Exo 12:22Zec 12:2
Both
In its vessel sense both name a basin or bowl that holds a ritual liquid.Rev 5:81Ki 7:50
In Revelation the bowl is emptied out as God's wrath, its pouring a stroke of judgment.Rev 16:1Rev 16:2
Also the golden bowl of incense that stands for the prayers of God's people.Rev 5:8
What scholars say about saph
The standard lexicons treat this as two homonyms: סַף I "basin, bowl" and סַף II "threshold, sill" (HALOT; BDB; DCH). The basin word denotes an open bowl for liquids, used of the Passover blood basin and of gold and silver temple vessels; Zechariah 12:2 extends it to the figurative cup or bowl of staggering judgment. The threshold word denotes the sill of a doorway and, in the recurring construct phrase שֹׁמְרֵי הַסַּף "keepers of the threshold," a class of senior gatekeepers responsible for guarding the entrance and administering funds brought into the temple. Many lexicographers connect the threshold sense with Akkadian sippu "doorframe, jamb," suggesting an early loan into West Semitic, whereas the basin sense is generally kept etymologically distinct. In the visionary architecture of Ezekiel 40 to 43 the word is discussed by commentators (e.g. Zimmerli, Ezekiel, Hermeneia) in terms of the precise structural element intended (threshold versus a recessed sill), but the core meaning "threshold" is not in doubt.
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. סַף I, IIlexicon