A virgin (from her privacy); sometimes (by continuation) a bride ; also (figuratively) a city or state
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The Hebrew noun bĕtûlāh commonly identifies a virgin or maiden, sometimes emphasizing that a woman has not had sexual relations, sometimes functioning more broadly for a young unmarried woman, and often appearing figuratively in titles such as Virgin Israel, Virgin Daughter of Zion, or Virgin Daughter of Babylon. The immediate passage must decide which sense is active.
Reader summary
Full entry for בְּתוּלָה (H1330) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun bĕtûlāh commonly identifies a virgin or maiden, sometimes emphasizing that a woman has not had sexual relations, sometimes functioning more broadly for a young unmarried woman, and often appearing figuratively in titles such as Virgin Israel, Virgin Daughter of Zion, or Virgin Daughter of Babylon. The immediate passage must decide which.
The BSB source-word alignment has 50 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a virgin (8), O Virgin (5), virgin (5), The Virgin (4), and maidens (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 24:16. Its strongest book concentrations include Jeremiah (8), Lamentations (7), Isaiah (5), Deuteronomy (4).
The Hebrew noun bĕtûlāh commonly identifies a virgin or maiden, sometimes emphasizing that a woman has not had sexual relations, sometimes functioning more broadly for a young unmarried woman, and often appearing figuratively in titles such as Virgin Israel, Virgin Daughter of Zion, or Virgin Daughter of Babylon. The immediate passage must decide which sense is active.
Genesis explicitly explains Rebekah’s sexual status. Psalms can list maidens alongside young men, old, and young. Prophets personify cities and peoples, using feminine social imagery for communal grief, judgment, restoration, or pride. Lamentations names virgins among victims of wartime sexual violence; that suffering does not make them culpable or less worthy.
Virginity may matter within biblical sexual ethics and particular covenant settings, but the noun is not a scale of human value, a guarantee of holiness, or a label that authorizes shame toward married people, repentant sinners, or victims of abuse.
Bĕtûlāh moves between literal virgin or maiden language and poetic personification of communities, appearing in courtship, worship, lament, judgment, restoration, and descriptions of sexual violence.
Now the girl was very beautiful, a virgin who had not had relations with any man. She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up again.
The narrative identifies Rebekah as a girl and explicitly explains virginity by stating that she had not had relations with a man.
Young men and maidens, old and young together.
Maidens join young men, old people, and children in the psalm’s comprehensive summons for all creation to praise the Lord.
Again I will build you, and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. Again you will take up your tambourines and go out in joyful dancing.
Virgin Israel is a corporate personification whom the Lord promises to rebuild and restore to joyful communal life after sorrow.
Women have been ravished in Zion, virgins in the cities of Judah.
The lament names women and virgins as victims of wartime sexual violence, requiring grief and truthful witness rather than transferred blame.
“I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin?
Job’s covenant with his eyes concerns his own desiring gaze and responsibility, not an accusation against the virgin he might view.
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. Virgin connoting protected sanctity and exclusivity; transfers metaphorically to cities representing vulnerable, untouched territories.
Virgin connoting protected sanctity and exclusivity; transfers metaphorically to cities representing vulnerable, untouched territories.
a virgin (from her privacy); sometimes (by continuation) a bride; also (figuratively) a city or state BDB: virgin Usage: maid, virgin.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 50 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Bĕtûlāh is a contextual term, not a complete purity system. Genesis 24 makes a literal sexual-status claim and explains it. Psalm 148 uses maidens as one group among the many summoned to praise. Jeremiah addresses Israel as a virgin in a corporate poem of restoration, and Lamentations uses the ordinary group designation while grieving women violated in war. Those uses cannot be collapsed.
The prophetic title does not turn a city into a biological individual, and a victim’s experience of sexual violence does not transfer the violator’s guilt or erase her personhood. Biblical sexual holiness matters, but it is grounded in God’s commands, grace, and covenant faithfulness rather than in a word used to rank bodies. Faithful preaching should call all people to chastity and repentance while refusing humiliation, voyeurism, invasive speculation, or the idea that a person’s worth can be lost through another’s violence.
Gen.24.16
Bĕtûlāh can refer to a virgin, maiden, or young woman and frequently appears in construct titles personifying a community. Some passages specify sexual history, while others use age-group or poetic civic language, so the noun alone cannot settle the referent.
The New Testament continues to teach sexual holiness and can use virgin or bridal imagery for unmarried people and the church’s devotion to Christ. Those Greek passages have their own wording and contexts. They should not be made into a worth hierarchy, and corporate bridal imagery must not erase individual singleness, marriage, repentance, suffering, or victimization.