🔼The name Lidbir: Summary
- Meaning
- For The Word, Onto The Pasture
- Etymology
- From (1) the particle ל (le), to or towards, and (2) the verb דבר (dabar), to pronounce or formalize.
🔼The name Lidbir in the Bible
Lidbir is a town that may or may not have something to do with Lo-Debar, which means No Word or No Pasture. It only occurs in Joshua 13:26, and the way it is spelled here it means For The Word, or For The Pasture.
The letter ל (lamed) may also be due to the structure of the sentence and the town's name is plainly Debir. But whichever way translators choose to take this, it should be remembered that in Hebrew it's all the same and means both.
🔼Etymology of the name Lidbir
If the town is really called Lidbir, then the L-part comes from the common particle ל (le):
ל
The particle ל (le) means to or onto and may describe a physical or mental motion toward or a behavioral effort, an evolutionary one or express determination or purpose. The name of this letter, lamed, describes a cattle prod or goad.
The rest of the name Lidbir comes from the huge root דבר (dabar), generally meaning word:
דבר
The verb דבר (dabar) means to formalize: to deliberately establish and pronounce something's name or definition. This causes the thing to become "real" in the mind of whoever understands this word, name or definition, and this in turn explains why all of creation was spoken into being, and Man in turn "named" all the animals by their name and finally his Wife by hers (Genesis 2:19-23). This principle sits at the base of nominal reasoning and thus human awareness and ultimately Information Technology.
Noun דבר (dabar) means word. It also means "thing" since the naming of a thing causes the experienced reality of the thing. All thus created "things" together form the whole of experienceable reality, which in turn is called the Word of God.
Noun דבר (deber) describes any deadly pestilence, which is a "word" that breaks unstable compounds apart. In nature this occurs via the Weak Nuclear Force. The ability of unstable compounds to break apart sits at the heart of all progress and thus all reality.
The rare noun דבר (dober), refers to a pasture; probably a well-defined fenced-in field upon which sheep graze. Figuratively this word obviously refers to some specific Holy Book from which a community feeds (the books of the Bible originated as separate works, with their separate adherers). Noun דברה (dibra) means matter or issue, and the similar noun דבורה (deborah) describes the bee (this probably because bees make honey, and "milk and honey" denote essential sustenance). The noun דביר (debir) was a nickname for the Holy of Holies and means "place of the word".
The noun מדבר (midbar) literally means "place of wording" and is used once to mean mouth and 270 times to mean wilderness, and because a wilderness is a place without cultivation, any cultivation needs to spring up in a wilderness. And anybody serious about the quest for true insight needs to leave the culture (or religion) of his heritage behind and spend a stint in the uncharted wild. All major players in the Bible did so.
🔼Lidbir meaning
The name Lidbir means For The Word, or To The Pasture.