Sense: subordinate (title) ⇔ servant
n. — a title of humility for someone in a position of lower authority or stature; whether in a relationship between two people or between a person and God.
Let the girl to whom I shall say, ‘Please offer your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant [עֶ֫בֶד] Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
Genesis 24:14 (NRSV)
A look at the Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible shows that the way we refer to ourselves and other people is important. In Genesis 24:14, the Hebrew reads more like, “for your servant, for Isaac.” Why not just say “Isaac”? Why overspecify by also saying “your servant”? As the definition in the Bible Sense Lexicon explains, “servant” is a title of humility. Titles of humility are important in the context of prayer. How might we know this? We can take a look at just how many times this sense occurs in the BSL in the book of Psalms, as illustrated on the right. This serves to reiterate the point that humility is a very important aspect of biblical prayer.
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.
Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.