StrongerBible

peti

פֶּתִי

HebrewH6612“simple, naive, ...”

Appears 19 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Psa 19:7(8)Psa 116:6Psa 119:130Pro 1:4Pro 1:22 (2×)Pro 1:32Pro 7:7Pro 8:5Pro 9:4Pro 9:6Pro 9:16Pro 14:15Pro 14:18Pro 19:25Pro 21:11Pro 22:3Pro 27:12Ezk 45:20
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradePEH-teenoun

What peti means

1

a person whose mind and loyalties are still open and unformed: naive and easily led, yet teachable, the raw material wisdom hopes to shape.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

At its heart this word pictures a person who is open: a mind, a character, and a set of loyalties not yet closed around anything. That openness is the word's whole story. It is what lets such a person learn, and also what makes them easy to fool.

The book of Proverbs turns this one quality in different directions. It calls the open person its ideal student, the very one the book exists to shape ("to give shrewdness to the simple," Proverbs 1:4). It also warns what that same person becomes when the openness is never filled with wisdom: someone who believes anything, walks straight into danger, and is ruined by their own lack of formation. The Psalms take the word in a warmer direction still: the open person is the humble worshiper whom God guards and teaches.

So this is not a word for "stupid." A כְּסִיל is a settled dullard and a לֵץ is a hardened mocker beyond help, but the simple person is the one fool the Bible still speaks to directly, because they can still be changed. The danger is not low intelligence; it is being open to everything and committed to nothing, so that whoever speaks last, wisdom or folly, wins the door.

Nuances

1athe untrained learner, open to being taught; the one wisdom summons and hopes to form.
Pro 1:4Pro 1:22 (2×)Pro 8:5Pro 9:4Pro 9:6Pro 9:16Pro 19:25Pro 21:11
1bthe credulous, heedless one who comes to ruin; openness that was never filled with wisdom.
Pro 1:32Pro 7:7Pro 14:15Pro 14:18Pro 22:3Pro 27:12
1cthe humble, childlike worshiper whom God protects and makes wise.
Psa 19:7(8)Psa 116:6Psa 119:130
1dthe unwitting sinner: the naive person whose unintentional wrongdoing the sin offering covers.
Ezk 45:20

Disputed

Within Proverbs, whether the simple person is morally neutral (an untrained youth) or already blameworthy for staying open to folly.

  • contestedBasically neutral: an untutored, immature person rather than a wicked one. The priestly use in Ezekiel 45:20 for the unintentional sinner is taken as proof that the core sense is innocent.; Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (ICC, 1899); William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (OTL, 1970); Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22, 1998); Tremper Longman III, Proverbs (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, 2006)
  • contestedAlready culpable: refusing to embrace wisdom is itself an act of disloyalty, since the simple person is open to everything and committed to nothing, and neutrality is not a real option.; Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1-15 (NICOT, 2004)
  • contestedUnformed rather than innocent or guilty: the openness is morally neutral in itself, and becomes blameworthy only if it closes around folly instead of wisdom.; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9 (Anchor Yale Bible 18A, 2000); Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, The Book of Proverbs, New Interpreter's Bible 5 (1997); Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs (Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, 2009)
2

naive openness itself, treated as a quality: the untaught, gullible state the simple person needs to leave behind.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

Once, in Proverbs 1:22, the word names not the person but the quality they carry: "How long will you who are open love your own naivety?" It is the same openness seen from the inside, as a habit someone can grow attached to and be reluctant to give up. Read this way, the verse sharpens the point of the whole book: openness is only a starting place, and clinging to it is itself the danger.

Many read the same word here as just another way of naming the simple people. Either way the sense turns on the one core idea running through this word: an unformed, unguarded mind.

Pro 1:22 (2×)

What scholars say about peti

The standard lexicons agree on the sense: HALOT glosses the word "inexperienced, simple, gullible, naive," the 18th edition of Gesenius adds "credulous," and BDB derives it from a root "be open, wide." They divide over derivation. BDB, Rudolf Mosis (TDOT), and NIDOTTE trace a single root of openness, so the simple person is "the open one"; HALOT, DCH, and Gesenius separate an "open, wide" root from a "be simple, entice" root; Mosis argues that two Proto-Semitic roots ("open" and "youth, be susceptible") merged in Hebrew after the loss of a final consonant. The Arabic parallel fatan "youth," a person whose character is not yet fixed, is the strongest support for the "open, impressionable" reading, though Barr and Kaltner warn against overreaching with cognate etymology. Fifteen of the nineteen occurrences are in Proverbs, three in the Psalms, and one in Ezekiel. The Septuagint renders the word three ways by context, using akakos ("guileless"), aphron ("mindless"), and nepios ("childish"); Johann Cook shows the Proverbs translator distinguishes these deliberately, registering the same double valence modern commentators debate. On the fool-typology, Fox and Waltke rank the simple person as the mildest and most teachable of the fool-types, over against the dullard, the obstinate fool, the senseless impious fool, and the incorrigible scoffer. Ezekiel 45:20, the one prophetic use, pairs the word with "one who errs" as the unintentional sinner covered by the sin offering (so Block); Zimmerli and Allen discuss the text-critical questions in that verse.

Where scholars disagree about peti

Whether the word derives from a single root meaning "to be open, wide" or from two originally separate roots that later merged in Hebrew.

  • contestedA single root meaning "to be open, wide, spacious," so the simple person is "the open one" whose mind is not yet closed.; BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. פתה; W. R. Domeris, "פתה," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE) 3 (1997)
  • contestedTwo distinct roots that merely look alike, an "open, wide" root kept apart from a "be simple, entice" root.; HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. פתה I, פתה II; DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. פתה
  • contestedTwo Proto-Semitic roots ("open" and "youth, be susceptible") that converged in Hebrew, so the word draws on both streams at once.; Rudolf Mosis, "פתה," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 12 (2003), 162-181
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. פתה, פֶּתִיlexicon
  • HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm), s.v. פתה II, פֶּתִיlexicon
  • DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. פֶּתִיlexicon
  • Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebraisches und Aramaisches Handworterbuch, 18th ed. (Donner, 2007), s.v. פֶּתִיlexicon
  • Rudolf Mosis, "פתה," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 12 (2003), 162-181dictionary
  • W. R. Domeris, "פתה," in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE) 3 (1997)dictionary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1-9 (Anchor Yale Bible 18A, 2000)commentary
  • Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10-31 (Anchor Yale Bible 18B, 2009)commentary
  • Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1-15 (NICOT, 2004)commentary
  • Tremper Longman III, Proverbs (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, 2006)commentary
  • Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs (WBC 22, 1998)commentary
  • William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (OTL, 1970)commentary
  • Crawford H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (ICC, 1899)commentary
  • Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, The Book of Proverbs, New Interpreter's Bible 5 (1997)commentary
  • Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs (Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, 2009)commentary
  • Johann Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs (VTSup 69, 1997)monograph
  • Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48 (NICOT, 1998)commentary
  • Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2 (Hermeneia, 1983)commentary
  • James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (1968)monograph

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

All attested forms of פֶּתִי

m p absolute

פְּתָאיִם, פְּתָיִים, פְּתָיִם

Psa 116:6, Pro 1:4, Pro 7:7, Pro 8:5, Pro 9:6, Pro 14:18, Pro 27:12, Psa 119:130

m s absolute

פֶּתִי

Psa 19:7, Pro 1:22, Pro 9:4, Pro 9:16, Pro 14:15, Pro 19:25, Pro 21:11, Ezk 45:20