A tablet is a surface or board, and the passage tells readers whether it carries writing, belongs to construction or functions as a comparison. At Sinai the Lord gives Moses stone tablets bearing His law and commandments.
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Full entry for לוּחַ (H3871) · Open the biblical lexicon
A tablet is a surface or board, and the passage tells readers whether it carries writing, belongs to construction or functions as a comparison. At Sinai the Lord gives Moses stone tablets bearing His law and commandments.
The BSB source-word alignment has 43 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include tablets (21), the tablets (12), the tablet (2), with boards (2), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 24:12. Its strongest book concentrations include Exodus (17), Deuteronomy (16), 1 Kings (2), Proverbs (2).
A tablet is a surface or board, and the passage tells readers whether it carries writing, belongs to construction or functions as a comparison. At Sinai the Lord gives Moses stone tablets bearing His law and commandments. Habakkuk receives an instruction to write the vision clearly on tablets, while Proverbs speaks of writing loving devotion and faithfulness on the tablet of the heart.
The stone object, the prophet's written message and the inward metaphor have related pictures of inscription without becoming identical events. A tablet does not make every message divine or turn a private impression into revelation. Nor does the heart comparison remove the concrete responsibilities named in the teaching. Attend to who writes, what is written and why the surface matters, keeping the Lord's stated words distinct from whatever a reader might choose to record.
Sinai's stone tablets bear the Lord's specified instruction, Habakkuk's tablets carry the commanded vision, and Proverbs uses the heart as a surface for treasured teaching. Construction boards also belong to the lexical range rather than to a universal revelation symbol.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here, so that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
The Lord calls Moses to the mountain to receive stone tablets with the law and commandments He has written for instruction; the authority belongs to the stated giver and message.
Then the Lord answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it.
The Lord answers the waiting prophet by directing clear inscription of the vision on tablets; the next verse specifies the vision's appointed time rather than a reader's chosen schedule.
Never let loving devotion or faithfulness leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.
The tablet of the heart appears in an instruction to retain loving devotion and faithfulness, with binding around the neck and writing inwardly as the proverb's concrete comparisons.
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. Polished surface receptive to inscription; primarily denotes stone tablets bearing divine law or covenant terms.
Polished surface receptive to inscription; primarily denotes stone tablets bearing divine law or covenant terms.
probably meaning to glisten; a tablet (as polished), of stone, wood or metal BDB: tablet Usage: board, plate, table.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
לוּחַ is a primitive root - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Proverbs does not ask the learner merely to possess a record somewhere else. Loving devotion and faithfulness are to remain with the learner, bound near and written on the heart. The inward surface is a comparison for retained teaching, whose actual content must stay visible. Sinai's stone tablets are different: the Lord gives Moses the specified law, and Exodus identifies their divine inscription.
Habakkuk likewise receives a particular commanded vision, not permission to assign divine authority to any words placed on a tablet. The noun also occurs for boards in construction, so inscription is not an inseparable theological meaning in every occurrence. A faithful reading follows the passage from surface to stated purpose. It honors the Lord's named instruction and the proverb's inward summons while refusing to convert ordinary writing, an attractive object or a private impression into an authenticated divine message.
Prov.3.3
The licensed Hebrew range includes a tablet, board or plate. Stone is supplied in the Sinai account, while Exodus 27:8 uses boards for construction and Proverbs states a heart metaphor. A proposed connection with glistening remains a comparator's etymological suggestion rather than the basis of a spiritual meaning.
Second Corinthians 3:1-5 explicitly contrasts tablets of stone with tablets of human hearts in Paul's account of a letter from Christ and the Spirit's work. That stated argument can be studied alongside the earlier inscriptions without turning every wooden board into a covenant symbol or making the Hebrew noun alone settle the whole covenant discussion.