Left
שְׂמָאלִיStrong’s H8042semali (se-ma-li)
Appears in 9 verses of the Old Testament
In short
Semali is the Hebrew word usually translated “left” and “north”. It appears in 9 verses of the Old Testament.
“And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand:”
Meaning
- Left, left side, on the left
How it's translated
- left 5
- north 3
- the north 1
Word-by-word English from the STEPBible tagged text.
Where it's used most
- Leviticus 4
- 2 Chronicles 2
- 1 Kings 1
- 2 Kings 1
- Ezekiel 1
5 books in all.
Explore in Scripture
- Leviticus 14:16And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the LORD:
- Leviticus 14:26And the priest shall pour of the oil into the palm of his own left hand:
- Leviticus 14:27And the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the LORD:
- 1 Kings 7:21And he set up the pillars in the porch of the temple: and he set up the right pillar, and called the name thereof Jachin: and he set up the left pillar, and called the name thereof Boaz.
- 2 Kings 11:11And the guard stood, every man with his weapons in his hand, round about the king, from the right corner of the temple to the left corner of the temple, along by the altar and the temple.
- 2 Chronicles 3:17And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz.
Hebrew dictionary
שְׂמָאלִי semali · left
left, left side, on the left
From STEPBible’s Hebrew lexicon (based on Brown-Driver-Briggs).
Webster's 1828 Dictionary
How the English word “left” was understood when the King James Version was still the common Bible of English readers.
LEFT, adjective
[Latin lavus; Gr. probably from the root of leave, Gr. and properly weak, deficient. Applied to the hand or arm, it denotes the weak arm, as opposed to the right, the strong or dextrous. Hence the ancient idea of sinister, unfortunate, attached to the left arm or side.]
- Denoting the part opposed to the right of the body; as the left hand, arm or side.
- The left bank of a river, is that which is on the left hand of a person whose face is towards the mouth of the river.
Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Verse references are checked against the KJV. Read the full entry.
Verses are from the King James Version. Word meanings come from the original Hebrew, not from any one translation.