the Third Week of Advent
free while helping to build churches and support pastors in Uganda.
Click here to learn more!
Bible Dictionaries
Secret
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Sôd (סוֹד, Strong's #5475), “secret or confidential plan(s); secret or confidential talk; secret; council; gathering; circle.” This noun occurs 21 times in biblical Hebrew.
Sôd means, first, “confidential talk”: “Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked …” (Ps. 64:2). In Prov. 15:22 the word refers to plans which one makes on one’s own and before they are shared by others: “Without counsel [self-made] purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counselors they [succeed].” Sometimes the word signifies simply a talk about something that should be kept confidential: “Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself; and discover not a secret to another” (Prov. 25:9).
Second, the word represents a group of intimates with whom one shares confidential matters: “O my soul, come not thou into their [Simeon’s and Levi’s] secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united …” (Gen. 49:6—the first occurrence of the word). Jer. 6:11 speaks of the “assembly [informal but still sharing confidential matters] of young men together.” To “have sweet counsel” is to be in a group where everyone both shares and rejoices in what is being discussed and/or done (Ps. 55:14).
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Secret'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/s/secret.html. 1940.
