Bĕlîyaʿal appears in expressions describing wicked people or a wicked thought, but the selected passages require attention to who applies or rejects the description. First Samuel 2:12 calls Eli's sons wicked and follows that assessment with their contemptuous treatment of offerings.
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Full entry for בְּלִיַּעַל (H1100) · Open the biblical lexicon
Bĕlîyaʿal appears in expressions describing wicked people or a wicked thought, but the selected passages require attention to who applies or rejects the description. First Samuel 2:12 calls Eli's sons wicked and follows that assessment with their contemptuous treatment of offerings.
The BSB source-word alignment has 27 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the wicked (3), A worthless (2), of chaos (2), scoundrels (2), [You are] worthless (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Deuteronomy 13:13. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Samuel (6), 2 Samuel (4), 1 Kings (3), Proverbs (3).
Bĕlîyaʿal appears in expressions describing wicked people or a wicked thought, but the selected passages require attention to who applies or rejects the description. First Samuel 2:12 calls Eli's sons wicked and follows that assessment with their contemptuous treatment of offerings. Deuteronomy 15:9 warns against a thought that uses the approaching year of release to withhold help from a poor brother. The moral judgment concerns specific disloyal conduct or intention rather than a person's financial usefulness.
Hannah expressly asks not to be regarded as a wicked woman when Eli mistakes her silent, anguished prayer for drunkenness. Her denial is a direct use of the word, not evidence that the accusation was true. First Kings 21 places scoundrels within a scheme of false testimony against Naboth. Teaching must distinguish narrated wrongdoing, a rejected accusation and planned abuse of testimony. Neither the noun nor its later name form permits teachers to declare distressed people worthless or infer demonic identity from an Old Testament expression.
The selected contexts assess exploitative priests, warn against withholding aid, reject a mistaken accusation against Hannah and expose malicious witnesses. The moral description must remain attached to its stated speaker, conduct and truth status.
Now the sons of Eli were wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord
The narrator calls Eli's sons wicked and describes their disregard for the Lord and coercive handling of offerings. Their religious position does not overturn the stated moral assessment.
Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
The forbidden thought calculates how the approaching release might justify withholding aid. The warning addresses the prospective lender's conduct rather than blaming the poor brother who asks for help.
Do not take your servant for a wicked woman, for all this time I have been praying out of the depth of my anguish and grief.”
Hannah rejects the description after Eli misreads her anguished silent prayer. The presence of the word records her denial, so it cannot be cited as God's verdict against her.
But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them testify, ‘You have cursed both God and the king!’ Then take him out and stone him to death.”
The letters require scoundrels to accuse Naboth falsely within a deadly scheme. The witnesses' designation must not be transferred to their victim or taken as proof of the accusation.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Worthlessness escalates to cosmic evil; denotes persons/forces fundamentally opposed to God's order and covenant
Worthlessness escalates to cosmic evil; denotes persons/forces fundamentally opposed to God's order and covenant
without profit, worthlessness; by extension, destruction, wickedness BDB: worthlessness Usage: Belial, evil, naughty, ungodly (men), wicked.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 27 lexical occurrence verses.
בְּלִיַּעַל is built from these roots:
The term describes someone whose actions undermine moral order and community trust.Proverbs 6:12-19
Greek words that correspond to or develop the meaning of this Hebrew word in the New Testament.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Hannah's conversation with Eli demonstrates why counting a moral word is not enough to understand a passage. The priest has mistaken her silent prayer, and she asks him not to regard her as wicked. A teacher who treats her use of the word as a divine accusation would reproduce the misunderstanding the conversation corrects. By contrast, the next chapter's narrator describes Eli's sons and their coercive contempt for offerings. The same lexical identity appears with different truth conditions and warrants different explanations.
Deuteronomy exposes a calculated refusal of help, while Naboth's story reveals a scheme that uses testimony and a public religious occasion to destroy an innocent man. These contexts give moral judgment substance without granting a reader permission to assign the label to contemporary people by intuition. Second Corinthians 6:15 uses Belial in a contrast with Christ; that later name form must be interpreted in Paul's argument rather than retroactively turning Hannah's denial into a statement about demonic possession.
1Sam.1.16
Expressions with this noun may describe wicked persons or thoughts, while its occurrence in Hannah's speech is a rejected description. Lexical presence cannot establish whether an accusation is true, and the later proper-name form must not govern every earlier construction.
Second Corinthians 6:14-18 contrasts Christ and Belial within an argument about incompatible loyalties and God's dwelling with His people. The name form is a separately read canonical witness, not permission to interpret every Old Testament wickedness expression as demonic identity or to dehumanize the people being described.