a morsel: a small piece broken off, most often a bit of bread
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word names something small that has been broken off, and its natural home is the table. Most often it is paired with the ordinary word for bread (לֶחֶם) in the phrase "a morsel of bread," the customary way a host offers food to a guest. Abraham runs to fetch "a morsel of bread" for three visitors; the woman at Endor presses the same modest meal on an exhausted king; the widow of Zarephath is asked for a little bread when she has almost nothing left.
The word can also mean a literal broken fragment. In the grain offering the flat cake is broken "into pieces" before oil is poured over it, and in one vivid image a poet says God scatters his ice "like morsels," comparing hailstones to crumbs flung from a table.
Because a morsel is by definition a small thing, the word often carries a note of how little is at stake. A dry crust eaten in peace is better than a house full of feasting and strife, and a person who twists justice "for a piece of bread" is shown selling their integrity for next to nothing.
Nuances
1aa bit of bread; a small serving of food, especially one offered to a guest
names a single piece broken off the whole: a morsel or fragment, defined by being a part rather than the loaf.Lev 2:62Sa 12:3
stands for a bare, meager amount of food, the little scrap someone has to eat.Pro 17:1Job 31:17
Both
the two join in the hospitality phrase "a morsel of bread," where פת is the piece and לחם is the bread it comes from, together naming the food a host sets before a guest.Gen 18:51Ki 17:11Jdg 19:5
A bit of bread broken off by hand, small enough for one person at one sitting, which is why English Bibles reach for "morsel" here.Gen 18:51Ki 17:11Rut 2:14
It is the standard thing a host offers a traveler, a modest "bit of bread" that in practice introduces a full meal.Jdg 19:51Sa 28:22
It measures the barest minimum a person can live on, so it becomes the yardstick of poverty and of how cheaply someone can be bought.1Sa 2:36Pro 17:1Pro 28:21Ezk 13:19
It reaches beyond food when something is scattered in small fragments, as when hail is thrown down like crumbs.Psa 147:17
Both
Both name a part that exists only because something whole was deliberately divided, and both show up in instructions for what to bring to the altar: the burnt offering cut into its parts, the grain offering broken into bits.Lev 1:6Lev 8:20Lev 2:6Lev 6:21
Both can name food at the point of being handled and eaten, a portion dropped into the pot or dipped into the dish rather than a whole loaf or a whole animal.Ezk 24:4Rut 2:14Job 31:17
Always a section of a slaughtered animal's body, produced by cutting the carcass apart at its joints. It names butchery, never anything baked.Exo 29:17Lev 1:6
The parts form a complete set that accounts for the whole body, so they are counted and laid out in order rather than taken as one bit among many.Lev 1:8Lev 9:13
Because it is a body taken apart, the word can carry real horror: a woman's corpse divided into twelve parts and sent through Israel, and Jerusalem hauled out of the cooking pot one hunk of meat at a time.Jdg 19:29Ezk 24:6
pat in the other biblical languages
ψωμίονGreek“piece”the Greek word for a morsel of bread, the piece Jesus dips and hands to Judas.
Belongs to the language of hospitality: a bit of bread offered to sustain a traveler or guest who has stopped along the way.Gen 18:5Jdg 19:51Ki 17:11
Stands for the bare minimum of food, the little that keeps a person alive when there is nothing more.1Sa 2:361Sa 28:22
Carries a figurative charge English readers miss: a dry crust that is better with peace than a feast with strife, or the trivial payment for which a person will do wrong.Pro 17:1Pro 28:21
Both
Both name a single small piece broken off a loaf and given to someone to eat at a meal, the everyday act of sharing bread by hand.Rut 2:14Jhn 13:26
Names the specific piece of bread that is dipped and handed from one person to another at the table. In John it is the sop Jesus dips and gives to Judas, a gesture of a host honoring a guest that here marks out the betrayer.Jhn 13:26
Marks a turning point in a shared meal: the moment the morsel is taken, Satan enters Judas and he goes out into the night.Jhn 13:27Jhn 13:30
κλάσμαGreek“fragment”a broken fragment or leftover piece, such as the scraps gathered after feeding the crowds.
פת is the morsel of bread offered in hospitality: the bit of food you set before a guest, press on a traveler, or share with the hungry. It is the language of welcome and of feeding the needy.Gen 18:5Rut 2:141Ki 17:11
It also stands for the small portion as a measure of very little, so that a plain crust with peace can be weighed against a feast full of strife.Pro 17:11Sa 2:36
Both
Both name a piece of bread broken off from the whole rather than a full loaf: a fragment or morsel, less than the entire portion. Greek renders this idea with κλάσμα in the feeding accounts, Hebrew with פת wherever someone offers or breaks a bit of bread.Jhn 6:12Gen 18:5
κλάσμα is the broken-off piece left over after a meal and gathered up afterward. Every New Testament use counts the baskets of fragments collected once Jesus has fed the crowd, so the word carries the note of surplus: more remains than the people could eat.Mat 14:20Jhn 6:12Mrk 8:19
It is a plural, collective word: the scattered scraps that are picked up so that nothing is wasted, not a single portion set before one person.Luk 9:17Jhn 6:13
What scholars say about pat
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat פַּת as a noun from the root פתת ("to break up, crumble"), denoting a fragment broken off and specifically the morsel or bit of bread that dominates its usage. The stereotyped construct phrase פַּת־לֶחֶם functions as an idiom for a portion of food extended in hospitality (Gen 18:5;Judg 19:5;1 Kgs 17:11), while the plural פִּתִּים names the broken pieces of the grain offering (Lev 2:6; 6:14) and, by comparison, fragments of hail (Ps 147:17). No semantic dispute attends the word.