SUBJECT · Complete Bible Study

Lizard

לטאה, Levit. xi, 30. This unified study connects 6 installed resource categories without replacing their source records.

View overview sources
  • Historical Reference: Nave’s Topical Bible — Public domain
  • Historical Reference: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897)
  • Historical Reference: A Biblical and Theological Dictionary
  • Historical Reference: concordance
  • Historical Reference: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible lexical data / BDB-Strong mapping
  • Historical Reference: Installed reference work

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Study overview

Study at a glance

Subject type
Subject
Strong’s
H3911, H8079
Hebrew
לְטָאָה · lᵉṭâʼâh

Strong’s and original-language information

Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Lexicon

לְטָאָה

H3911
Transliteration
lᵉṭâʼâh
Pronunciation
let-aw-aw'
Language
Hebrew
Indexed occurrences
1

Glosses

lizard.

Lexicon definition

a kind of lizard (from its covert habits)

Greek lexical coverage

No safely matched Greek Strong’s entry

G—

The installed lexicons do not contain a sufficiently exact Greek word-level match for this study. UNLEARN leaves this language unassigned instead of displaying an unrelated Strong’s record.

Complete dictionary entries

Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897)

Lizard

Only in Lev. 11:30, as rendering of Hebrew letaah, so called from its "hiding." Supposed to be the Lacerta gecko or fan-foot lizard, from the toes of which poison exudes. (See [359]CHAMELEON.)

Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897) · View data sources

A Biblical and Theological Dictionary

LIZARD

לטאה, Levit. xi, 30. All interpreters agree that the original word here signifies a sort of lizard. Bochart takes it for that kind which is of a reddish colour, lies close to the earth, and is of a venomous nature.

Source: A Biblical and Theological Dictionary · View data sources

Concordance

Strong's Concordance

Lizard

Indexed occurrences: 4

Source: Strong's Concordance · View data sources

All Scripture references3 references

Topical Bible

Sources

Related UNLEARN Content7 items

Topic

LIZARD

Nave’s Topical Bible references for LIZARD.

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Dictionary

Chameleon

A species of lizard which has the faculty of changing the colour of its skin. It is ranked among the unclean animals in Lev. 11:30, where the Hebrew word so translated is coah (R.V., "land crocodile"). In the same verse the Hebrew tanshemeth, rendered in Authorized Version "mole," is in Revised Version "chameleon," which is the correct rendering. This animal is very common in Egypt and in the Holy Land, especially in the Jordan valley.

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Dictionary

Ferret

Lev. 11:30 (R.V., "gecko"), one of the unclean creeping things. It was perhaps the Lacerta gecko which was intended by the Hebrew word (anakah, a cry, "mourning," the creature which groans) here used, i.e., the "fan-footed" lizard, the gecko which makes a mournful wail. The LXX. translate it by a word meaning "shrew-mouse," of which there are three species in Palestine. The Rabbinical writers regard it as the hedgehog. The translation of the Revised Version is to be preferred.

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Dictionary

Lizard

Only in Lev. 11:30, as rendering of Hebrew letaah, so called from its "hiding." Supposed to be the Lacerta gecko or fan-foot lizard, from the toes of which poison exudes. (See [359]CHAMELEON.)

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Dictionary

Mole

Heb. tinshameth (Lev. 11:30), probably signifies some species of lizard (rendered in R.V., "chameleon"). In Lev. 11:18, Deut. 14:16, it is rendered, in Authorized Version, "swan" (R.V., "horned owl"). The Heb. holed (Lev. 11:29), rendered "weasel," was probably the mole-rat. The true mole (Talpa Europoea) is not found in Palestine. The mole-rat (Spalax typhlus) "is twice the size of our mole, with no external eyes, and with only faint traces within of the rudimentary organ; no apparent ears, but, like the mole, with great internal organs of hearing; a strong, bare snout, and with large gnawing teeth; its colour a pale slate; its feet short, and provided with strong nails; its tail only rudimentary." In Isa. 2:20, this word is the rendering of two words _haphar peroth_, which are rendered by Gesenius "into the digging of rats", i.e., rats' holes. But these two Hebrew words ought probably to be combined into one (lahporperoth) and translated "to the moles", i.e., the rat-moles. This animal "lives in underground communities, making large subterranean chambers for its young and for storehouses, with many runs connected with them, and is decidedly partial to the loose debris among ruins and stone-heaps, where it can form its chambers with least trouble."

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Dictionary

Snail

(1.) Heb. homit, among the unclean creeping things (Lev. 11:30). This was probably the sand-lizard, of which there are many species in the wilderness of Judea and the Sinai peninsula. (2.) Heb. shablul (Ps. 58:8), the snail or slug proper. Tristram explains the allusions of this passage by a reference to the heat and drought by which the moisture of the snail is evaporated. "We find," he says, "in all parts of the Holy Land myriads of snail-shells in fissures still adhering by the calcareous exudation round their orifice to the surface of the rock, but the animal of which is utterly shrivelled and wasted, 'melted away.'"

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Dictionary

Tortoise

(Heb. tsabh). Ranked among the unclean animals (Lev. 11:29). Land tortoises are common in Syria. The LXX. renders the word by "land crocodile." The word, however, more probably denotes a lizard, called by the modern Arabs dhabb.

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