a net: a mesh of cords for trapping birds, animals, or people, most often pictured as a hidden and deadly trap
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
At its core this word names a net woven of cords, the kind a hunter or fowler spreads on the ground to catch birds and small game. Only once, though, is it a plain hunting tool: Proverbs observes that a bird watching the net go down will not walk into it. Almost everywhere else the net is a picture.
The picture is always the same: a concealed trap set to seize a victim before it knows the danger. What changes is whose hands hold it. In the Psalms and Proverbs it is the trap enemies or the wicked lay in secret for the innocent, a partner in imagery to the snapping bird-trap (פַּח) it is often named beside. In the Prophets it becomes the net God spreads to catch and judge the guilty, a solemn reversal in which the trapper is finally trapped.
Because the word carries this menace, English "net" tells only half the story. The reader should hear ambush and helplessness, not a fishing trip.
Nuances
1aa literal net spread on the ground to catch birds or animals
Pro 1:17
1ba hidden net as an image of the trap enemies or the wicked lay to destroy someone
1cthe net God spreads to seize and judge the guilty
Lam 1:13Ezk 12:13Ezk 17:20Ezk 32:3Hos 7:12
2
a grating: the net-shaped bronze meshwork fitted to the altar of burnt offering
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In the instructions for building the altar, the same word names a piece of bronze hardware: a lattice of interwoven bronze, set into the altar and fitted with rings for carrying poles. It is called a net because it looks like one, an open web of metal rather than a solid sheet.
There is no trap or hunting here. This is simply the everyday word for a net pressed into service for a familiar object it resembles, the way English can call a metal screen "a grate of network."
when it names the altar's bronze lattice, the word is still the plain word for a net, chosen because the metal mesh looks like oneExo 27:4
Both
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Only network
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How reshet differs from similar Hebrew words
פַּחthe snapping bird-trap that springs shut on its prey, where the net is the spread mesh that covers and entangles; the two are often named together.
Also names a plain physical object with no trapping sense at all: the bronze lattice grating built for the tabernacle altar.Exo 27:4Exo 27:5Exo 38:4
As a hunting tool it is a woven mesh spread out and concealed on the ground or drawn around the prey, stressing the hidden spread rather than any bait.Psa 9:15Psa 35:7Psa 10:9
Both
Both serve as images for the deadly traps laid for the righteous, and they stand side by side in one verse describing a single ambush.Psa 140:5
Names a baited trap that lures before it catches, so it is applied again and again to whatever entices Israel into ruin: foreign peoples and their idols are called a snare precisely because their attraction is the danger.Exo 23:33Psa 106:36
Reaches into speech and attitude, warning that a person's own rash words or dread of others can spring shut on him like a hidden catch.Pro 18:7Pro 12:13Pro 29:25
מָצוֹדthe hunter's catching-net and, by extension, the prey and the siege-works, where this word stays focused on the woven net itself.
Can name a fabricated mesh object in its own right, notably the bronze grating of netlike lattice fitted under the altar of burnt offering.Exo 27:4Exo 38:4
Is the fixed word for the fowler's net as a physical trap that is spread on the ground and hidden, pictured with the concrete mechanics of laying and springing it.Psa 140:5Pro 1:17Hos 7:12
Both
Both picture a net that closes over its victim and leaves it caught and helpless, whether fish, bird, or human.Ecc 9:12Psa 9:15
Both serve as a metaphor for the deadly trap that one person sets to snare another, so that the schemer's own scheme becomes the image of the net.Ecc 7:26Pro 29:5
Reaches beyond a net into the works of a siege: the ramps, walls, and towers thrown up to trap and starve a city until it falls.Ecc 9:14Isa 29:7
Names the whole apparatus of capture, so it can stand for the fortified hold a hunted man is dragged into rather than the mesh that first catches him.Ezk 19:9
חֵרֶםthe fisherman's dragnet hauled through water to gather a catch, where this word is the fowler's and ground net for birds and game.
This word can name a fixed lattice or meshwork rather than a catching net at all: the bronze grating built into the altar of the tabernacle is a rešet, a network of metal, an object of craftsmanship with no prey in view.Exo 27:4Exo 27:5Exo 38:4
As a trap it is above all the fowler's net secretly laid for the unsuspecting, and this is its dominant use in the Psalms as a picture of the concealed snare enemies set for the innocent, who are caught in the very trap they hid.Psa 35:7Psa 140:5Pro 1:17
Both
Both are catching nets that are spread out over a victim, and both serve as an image of a powerful captor seizing people who cannot escape. Ezekiel pairs the two words in one oracle: God spreads his net over Pharaoh and then hauls him up in his dragnet.Ezk 32:3
In its net sense this is specifically the fisherman's dragnet, the large seine hauled through water to bring up a whole catch at once. The imagery is always the sea and the mass sweep: fishermen spread their nets to dry along a ruined coast, and a conqueror is a fisherman who gathers up entire nations in his dragnet and even worships the net that made him rich.Hab 1:15Hab 1:16Ezk 47:10
The ordinary, general word for a net, dominating the picture of the hidden snare set to catch the innocent all through the Psalms and the prophets, a breadth of everyday use that the other word never has.Psa 9:15Psa 35:7Ezk 32:3
Reaches into pursuit and capture imagery where a nation or ruler is caught like hunted game, the net thrown over a fleeing king.Ezk 12:13Ezk 17:20Hos 7:12
Both
Both name a mesh of bronze cast for the place of worship, the one word for the grating set under the altar of burnt offering and the other for the network covering the pillar capitals.Exo 27:4Exo 38:41Ki 7:41
Both can be the entangling snare that catches the feet of the doomed, and one verse sets them side by side as parallel words for the trap.Job 18:8
Names ornamental interwoven latticework with no trapping sense at all, the checkered network wreathing the tops of the temple pillars.1Ki 7:171Ki 7:20Jer 52:22
Can be a household lattice or window grating, the barrier a person may fall through.2Ki 1:2
reshet in the other biblical languages
δίκτυονGreek“net”the ordinary Greek word for a fishing net, matching the literal, physical side of this word.
Chiefly a hunting or trapping net: a concealed mesh spread on the ground to catch prey, and above all the hidden snare the wicked lay to entrap an unsuspecting person.Psa 9:15Psa 35:7Pro 1:17
Overwhelmingly figurative: the trap the enemy sets for the innocent, and the net God himself spreads to bring down a nation or its king in judgment.Psa 31:4Ezk 12:13Hos 7:12
Uniquely also names a fixed object rather than a catching device: the bronze grating of network fitted beneath the altar of the tabernacle.Exo 27:4Exo 38:4
Both
Both name a net of knotted cords that is spread or cast to enclose and take living creatures, drawn shut once the catch is inside.Luk 5:6Ezk 32:3
Always a fishing net: the mesh let down into the sea to gather fish, the everyday working gear of Galilean fishermen. Every occurrence sits in a fishing scene, and the word never names a trap for people or a piece of furniture.Mat 4:21Luk 5:4Jhn 21:6
A physical tool its owner tends between catches: washed after a night's work, mended while it hangs, and hauled up so full it nearly bursts yet holds.Luk 5:2Mat 4:21Jhn 21:11
παγίςGreek“trap”the Greek word for a snare or trap, matching this word's dominant use as a hidden trap laid for a victim.
A woven mesh net, concrete enough to name the bronze grating built into the altar, so it is a real object and not only a figure.Exo 27:4Exo 38:4
As a hunting device it is spread out and hidden, usually along the ground or over a pit, so the victim walks into what was concealed for their feet.Psa 9:15Psa 35:7
It is characteristically the net that enemies or the wicked lay for the righteous, and the psalmist prays to be pulled out of it.Psa 25:15Psa 31:4
Both
Both name a concealed hunting device that catches a person suddenly and inescapably: the net spread for prey and the snare that springs on the unwary each picture capture no one saw coming.Psa 35:7Luk 21:35
Both serve as the stock image for a trap the wicked lay to bring another down to ruin, the danger hidden until it closes.Psa 140:5Rom 11:9
A snapping trap or bird-snare whose danger is the sudden, unforeseen closing on its victim, so it pictures a day or moment that springs shut on everyone at once.Luk 21:35
In the New Testament it is always figurative for moral and spiritual capture, above all "the snare of the devil" that holds a person until they are freed.1Ti 3:72Ti 2:26
It names the trap that the craving for wealth springs on the greedy, an inward temptation that suddenly catches and ruins.1Ti 6:9
What scholars say about reshet
The standard lexica (HALOT, BDB, DCH) treat רֶשֶׁת as a single feminine noun "net," with two applications: the fowler's or hunter's net, overwhelmingly used in figurative and poetic contexts for a concealed trap; and the bronze latticework grating of the altar of burnt offering (Exod 27:4-5; 38:4). In the poetic corpus it stands in frequent parallelism with the other terms of the trapping domain, especially פַּח (bird-trap) and מוֹקֵשׁ (lure), and the motif of the trapper caught in his own net (Ps 9:16 [Eng 9:15]; Job 18:8) is a recurring expression of retributive justice. In the prophetic literature the image is transferred to YHWH, who spreads his net over Zedekiah, Egypt, and Israel as an instrument of judgment (Ezek 12:13; 17:20; 32:3; Hos 7:12). The derivation is commonly connected with a root sense of catching or seizing, though the etymology is not decisive for the well-established meaning.