gilul · idols

What it means

gilul (גִּלּוּל) is a Hebrew word of the Bible that means “idols”.

A scornful word that calls them logs or worthless things.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. False gods, said with contempt: "dung-gods".

From Brown-Driver-Briggs (1906)

Word study

Idols. BDB relates it to a word meaning ‘log, round thing’; the Bible uses it with contempt for the images of other gods. Ezekiel uses it almost forty times.

• Idols that defile Ezekiel 20:7Ezekiel 36:18Ezekiel 36:25
• Taking idols into the heart Ezekiel 14:3Ezekiel 14:4
• The kings who followed or removed the idols 1 Kings 21:262 Kings 21:112 Kings 23:24
• The warning of the Law Leviticus 26:30Deuteronomy 29:17

Historical and cultural background

Leviticus 26:30 announces that YHWH will put the people’s corpses “on the corpses of your idols”. Asa and Josiah removed the idols from Judah (1 Kings 15:12; 2 Kings 23:24).

How we translate it

Always “idols” (48 times) for גִּלּוּלִים. Carved images and cast images have other names in Hebrew.

Where it appears

• Leviticus×1
• Deuteronomy×1
• 1 Kings×2
• 2 Kings×4
• Jeremiah×1
• Ezekiel×39

• Leviticus 26:30

  And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and put your corpses on the corpses of your idols, and my soul will loathe you.

• Deuteronomy 29:17

  and you saw their detestable things and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were with them.

• 1 Kings 15:12

  He drove the sacred prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.

• 1 Kings 21:26

  He acted very abominably in going after idols, according to all that the Amorite had done, whom YHWH dispossessed from before the sons of Israel.

• 2 Kings 17:12

  They served the idols, of which YHWH had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.”

• 2 Kings 21:11

  “Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these abominations, he has done more evil than all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also sin with his idols,

• 2 Kings 21:21

  He walked in all the way in which his father walked, and served the idols that his father served, and bowed down to them.

• 2 Kings 23:24

  Moreover, those who call up the dead and the spiritists, the teraphim, the idols, and all the detestable things that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah purged, in order to confirm the words of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of YHWH.

• Jeremiah 50:2

  Declare among the nations and proclaim, and lift up a banner; proclaim, do not conceal it; say, “Babylon is captured, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her idols are put to shame, her idols are dismayed.”

• Ezekiel 6:4

  And your altars will be desolate, and your incense altars will be broken, and I will cast down your slain before your idols.

• Ezekiel 6:5

  And I will lay the corpses of the sons of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars.

• Ezekiel 6:6

  In all your dwelling places the cities will be laid waste, and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars will be laid waste and be guilty, and your idols will be broken and cease, and your incense altars will be cut down, and your works wiped out.

• Ezekiel 6:9

  And those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, when I was broken with their heart that prostitutes itself, which turned away from me, and with their eyes that prostitute themselves after their idols; and they will loathe themselves for the evils that they did in all their abominations.

• Ezekiel 6:13

  And you will know that I am YHWH, when their slain are among their idols, around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, and under every leafy tree, and under every dense oak, the place where they gave a pleasing aroma to all their idols.

• Ezekiel 8:10

  And I went in and looked, and look, every form of creeping thing and of detestable beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel, carved on the wall all around, all around.

• Ezekiel 14:3

  “Son of man, these men have taken up their idols into their heart, and the stumbling block of their iniquity they have put before their face. Should I let myself be consulted at all by them?

• Ezekiel 14:4

  Therefore speak to them and say to them, ‘Thus says Adonai YHWH: Any man of the house of Israel who takes up his idols into his heart and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and comes to the prophet, I, YHWH, will answer him in it according to the multitude of his idols,

• Ezekiel 14:5

  in order to seize the house of Israel by their heart, because they have turned away from me, all of them, through their idols.’

• Ezekiel 14:6

  Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says Adonai YHWH: Turn back, and turn away from your idols, and from all your abominations turn away your faces.

• Ezekiel 14:7

  For any man of the house of Israel, or of the resident aliens who reside in Israel, who separates himself from following me and takes up his idols into his heart and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and comes to the prophet to consult me for himself, I, YHWH, will answer him myself.

• Ezekiel 16:36

  Thus says Adonai YHWH: Because your copper was poured out and your nakedness was uncovered in your prostitutions with your lovers, and with all the idols of your abominations, and because of the blood of your sons that you gave to them,

• Ezekiel 18:6

  he does not eat on the mountains, and does not lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and does not defile his neighbor’s wife, and does not approach a woman in her menstruation;

• Ezekiel 18:12

  oppresses the poor and the needy, commits robberies, does not restore the pledge, and lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination,

• Ezekiel 18:15

  he does not eat on the mountains, and does not lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife,

• Ezekiel 20:7

  And I said to them, Each of you, cast away the detestable things of his eyes, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am YHWH your Elohim.

• Ezekiel 20:8

  But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me; they did not each cast away the detestable things of their eyes, nor forsake the idols of Egypt. And I said that I would pour out my fury on them to spend my anger on them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

• Ezekiel 20:16

  because my rules they rejected, and in my statutes they did not walk, and my Sabbaths they profaned; for after their idols their heart went.

• Ezekiel 20:18

  And I said to their sons in the wilderness, In the statutes of your fathers do not walk, and their rules do not keep, and with their idols do not defile yourselves.

• Ezekiel 20:24

  because my rules they had not done, and my statutes they had rejected, and my Sabbaths they had profaned, and after the idols of their fathers were their eyes.

• Ezekiel 20:31

  And in presenting your gifts, in making your sons pass through the fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I let myself be consulted by you, house of Israel? As I live, declares Adonai YHWH, I will surely not let myself be consulted by you.

• Ezekiel 20:39

  And you, house of Israel, thus says Adonai YHWH: Go, serve, each his idols; but afterward you will surely listen to me, and my holy name you will no longer profane with your gifts and with your idols.

• Ezekiel 22:3

  and say: ‘Thus says Adonai YHWH: A city that sheds blood in her midst, so that her time may come, and that makes idols against herself to become unclean!

• Ezekiel 22:4

  By your blood that you have shed you have become guilty, and by your idols that you have made you have become unclean; and you have brought near your days and you have come to your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the lands.

• Ezekiel 23:7

  And she bestowed her prostitutions on them, the choicest of the sons of Assyria, all of them; and with all for whom she was infatuated, with all their idols, she defiled herself.

• Ezekiel 23:30

  These things will be done to you for your prostituting yourself after the nations, because you defiled yourself with their idols.

• Ezekiel 23:37

  For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands; and with their idols they have committed adultery; and even their sons whom they had borne to me they have made them pass to them as food.

• Ezekiel 23:39

  And when they slaughtered their sons for their idols, they came into my sanctuary on that day to profane it; and look, thus they have done in the midst of my house.

• Ezekiel 23:49

  And they will put your infamy on you, and the sins of your idols you will bear; and you will know that I am Adonai YHWH.”

• Ezekiel 30:13

  Thus says Adonai YHWH: I will make the idols perish, and I will put an end to the idols from Memphis; and there will no longer be a chief from the land of Egypt, and I will put fear in the land of Egypt.

• Ezekiel 33:25

  Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says Adonai YHWH: You eat with the blood, and you lift your eyes to your idols, and you shed blood; and will you possess the land?

And 8 more times.