Midvash

אֵלʼêl

denoting motion to or direction towards (whether physical or mental)

Pronunciation: ale · Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) · H413

Meanings

1. of motion to or unto a person or place (Genesis 2:19; Genesis 2:22; Genesis 3:19)

2. Where the limit is actually entered, into (Genesis 6:18; Genesis 7:1; Genesis 19:3)

3. Of direction towards anything

a towards (Genesis 30:40; Genesis 39:7; Exodus 25:20)

b to (Genesis 3:1; Genesis 8:15; Genesis 19:5)

c to wait, to hope (Psalms 27:14; Isaiah 51:5; Deuteronomy 24:15)

4. against, Where the motion or direction implied appears from the context to be of a hostile character (Genesis 4:8; 1 Samuel 24:8; 1 Samuel 22:12)

5. Unto sometimes acquires from the context the sense of in addition to (Leviticus 18:18; Joshua 13:22; Numbers 31:8)

6. Metaphor in regard to, concerning, on account of (1 Samuel 15:35; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Kings 14:5)

7. Of rule or standard, according to (rare) (Joshua 15:13; Joshua 17:4; Joshua 21:3)

8. Expressing presence at a spot, against; at, by (Genesis 24:11; Joshua 11:5; 1 Samuel 5:4)

9. Prefixed to other prepositions it combines with them the idea of motion or direction to (2 Samuel 5:23; 2 Kings 9:18; 2 Kings 9:19)

Same root

Where it appears

Appears 5,514 times in the Bible.

  • Genesis 1:9 Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened.
  • Genesis 2:19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.
  • Genesis 2:22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man.
  • Genesis 3:1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
  • Genesis 3:2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied.
  • Genesis 3:4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman.
See every passage

Source: Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain; markup by unfoldingWord, CC BY (github.com/unfoldingWord/Brown-Driver-Briggs-Enhanced).