פֵּןpên

lest

Pronunciation: pane · Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) · H6435

Meanings

1. with Imperfect (Genesis 3:3; Genesis 11:4; Genesis 19:15)

a. the idiom כִּי אָמַר (אָמַרְתִּי) פֶּןֿ for he (I) said, Lest…, implying always that some precaution has been taken to avert the dreaded contingency (Genesis 26:9; Genesis 31:31; Genesis 38:11)

b. at the beginning of a sentence, with a dissuasive force, (Beware) lest: + Isa 36:18 פֶּןיַֿסִּית אֶתְכֶם חזקיהו (beware) lest Hezekiah deceive you, Deut 29:17 (twice in verse) (followed by יֵשׁ), Jer 51:46; Job 32:13; Job 36:18. (Isaiah 36:18; Deuteronomy 29:17; Jeremiah 51:46)

2. with Perfect, the result feared being conceived as having possibly already taken place (2 Samuel 20:6; 2 Kings 2:16)

Same root

Where it appears

Appears 133 times in the Bible.

  • Genesis 3:3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
  • Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!”
  • Genesis 11:4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”
  • Genesis 19:15 At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!”
  • Genesis 19:17 When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”
  • Genesis 19:19 “You have been so gracious to me and saved my life, and you have shown such great kindness. But I cannot go to the mountains. Disaster would catch up to me there, and I would soon die.
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).