a mixed company: an assorted, largely foreign body of people mingled together with a nation
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This word grows from a root that means to mix or interweave. It names not a single tribe but a crowd of assorted people thrown together, usually foreigners mingled in among a larger nation.
Its most famous appearance is at the exodus, where a "mixed multitude" went up out of Egypt alongside Israel (Exodus 12:38): an unsorted crowd of non-Israelites who joined the departure. Nehemiah later uses the same word for the foreigners the returned community set apart from itself. A related Hebrew word, אֲסַפְסֻף, describes the same kind of ragtag crowd whose craving stirred up trouble in the wilderness.
The prophets use it for mixed foreign populations caught up in oracles of judgment against Egypt, Babylon, and their neighbors (Jeremiah 25:20;Jeremiah 50:37;Ezekiel 30:5). In Jeremiah 25:24 the "mingled people" are pinned to those "who dwell in the desert," which many read as the mixed Arab tribes of the wilderness. Whether these prophetic groups are best understood as mixed foreign populations in general, or specifically as Arab and mercenary peoples, is genuinely debated.
Nuances
1athe mixed crowd of non-Israelites who left Egypt alongside Israel, and foreigners later mingled into the community
Exo 12:38Neh 13:3
1ba mixed population of foreign or allied peoples, named in the prophets' oracles of judgment
Jer 25:20Jer 25:24*Jer 50:37Ezk 30:5*
2
woof: the crosswise threads woven across the lengthwise warp in a piece of cloth
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
In the laws about clothing that breaks out with a greenish or reddish spot (Leviticus 13), this same spelling means something completely different: the woof, the crosswise threads a weaver runs back and forth across the lengthwise warp to make cloth. Its partner term, the warp, is שְׁתִי.
Together the two words simply mean "the fabric, thread by thread." The priest inspects both warp and woof to see whether the mold has worked its way through the whole weave. Because English has no everyday word for the crosswise threads, versions range from "woof" and "weft" to "woven or knitted material," but the thing in view is the ordinary structure of a piece of cloth.
Lev 13:48Lev 13:49Lev 13:51Lev 13:52Lev 13:53Lev 13:56Lev 13:57Lev 13:58Lev 13:59
names the crosswise threads a weaver runs across the lengthwise warp of a clothLev 13:48
Both
both refer to the crosswise threads of woven fabricLev 13:49
Only woof
"woof" is archaic and, to modern ears, easily confused with the sound a dog makes, hiding that it means the weft threads of a weave
“weft”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How erev differs from similar Hebrew words
אֲסַפְסֻףa contemptuous word for the rabble, the collected riffraff whose craving flared up in the wilderness; it stresses the disorderly, low character of the crowd, while the mixed multitude simply stresses its mixed and foreign makeup
Defines the group by its mixed and foreign makeup: the assorted non-Israelites who left Egypt together with Israel.Exo 12:38Neh 13:3
Applies to the mixed foreign populations living among the nations, named among the peoples marked out for judgment.Jer 25:20Jer 25:24Jer 50:37Ezk 30:5
A plainly descriptive term for a mixture of peoples, carrying no built-in scorn: it simply says the crowd was of assorted, non-native stock.Exo 12:38
Both
Both name a crowd of mixed, assorted makeup rather than a single unified people, the kind of loosely gathered group that trails along with Israel.Num 11:4Exo 12:38
A word of open contempt: it brands the crowd as riffraff, a disorderly mob defined by its low character rather than by where its members came from.Num 11:4
Fixes on unruly appetite and bad influence: it is the greedy, complaining crowd whose craving for meat drags the whole camp into discontent.Num 11:4
שְׁתִיthe warp: the lengthwise threads stretched taut on the loom, the partner term to the woof, which is the crosswise threads woven across them
The woof (weft): the crosswise threads carried back and forth across the loom, laid into the standing warp to make the cloth.Lev 13:48Lev 13:51
It is the thread that interlaces across the fabric, and the same consonants elsewhere name a "mixed" crowd, so the word carries the idea of threading one thing through another.Lev 13:49Lev 13:59
Both
Both name one of the two thread-systems of a single woven garment, and the two are always inspected side by side in Leviticus 13 to locate a spreading mildew.Lev 13:48
Both face the identical verdict: the cloth is burned if the plague has spread in warp or woof, or washed and watched again if it has not.Lev 13:52Lev 13:58
The warp: the lengthwise threads stretched onto the loom first, forming the fixed foundation onto which the woof is woven.Lev 13:48Lev 13:57
What scholars say about erev
The root ערב denotes mixing or interweaving, and the lexicons list the noun עֵרֶב under two headings: a "mixture, mixed company" and, in the garment laws of Leviticus 13, a "woof" or weft. The mixed-company sense covers the exodus "mixed multitude" (Exodus 12:38;Nehemiah 13:3) and the "mingled peoples" of the oracles against the nations (Jeremiah 25:20;Jeremiah 50:37;Ezekiel 30:5). In Jeremiah 25:24 and Ezekiel 30:5 the term is variously taken as ethnically mixed populations or as the Arab and mercenary tribes of the desert; the underlying data reflects this unsettled referent, tagging those two verses under an "Arab, foreigner" sub-entry while keeping Jeremiah 25:20 and Jeremiah 50:37 under "mixed people." The word is a homograph of, and must be kept distinct from, the Hebrew words for "evening," for "raven," and for "Arabia."
Sources
BDB, s.v. עֵרֶבlexicon
HALOT, s.v. עֵרֶבlexicon
DCH, s.v. עֵרֶבlexicon
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible)commentary