Flour (as chipped off)
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
The Hebrew noun sōlet names fine flour or finely milled meal prepared for bread, offerings, and household or royal provision. Abraham calls for it when welcoming visitors, Israel brings it in grain and other offerings, and the bread set before the LORD is baked from it.
Reader summary
Full entry for סֹלֶת (H5560) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Hebrew noun sōlet names fine flour or finely milled meal prepared for bread, offerings, and household or royal provision. Abraham calls for it when welcoming visitors, Israel brings it in grain and other offerings, and the bread set before the LORD is baked from it.
The BSB source-word alignment has 53 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include of fine flour (26), fine flour (15), the fine flour (3), as well as the fine flour (1), flour (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 18:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Numbers (27), Leviticus (14), 2 Kings (3), Ezekiel (3).
The Hebrew noun sōlet names fine flour or finely milled meal prepared for bread, offerings, and household or royal provision. Abraham calls for it when welcoming visitors, Israel brings it in grain and other offerings, and the bread set before the Lord is baked from it. Leviticus also allows fine flour as the offering of a person who cannot afford birds, showing that a costly animal is not the only path provided in that case.
In a besieged city, the restored availability and price of fine flour mark relief from famine. Ezekiel can then expose the betrayal of turning flour God supplied into food set before idols. The noun describes a valuable prepared staple, but it does not make refined food spiritually superior, promise luxury to faithful people, or erase the labor of growing, milling, measuring, baking, and distributing it.
Responsible teaching follows each setting, honors the difference between hospitality and commanded worship, and treats food provision with gratitude, economic honesty, and care for people whose access is limited.
Sōlet is fine flour prepared for hospitality, sacrifice, sacred bread, and ordinary provision. Its passages connect cultivated food with welcome and worship while also revealing poverty accommodations, famine relief, and the misuse of divine gifts.
So Abraham hurried into the tent and said to Sarah, “Quick! Prepare three seahs of fine flour, knead it, and bake some bread.”
Abraham's urgent hospitality includes Sarah's labor in preparing a generous amount of fine flour for the visitors.
“When anyone brings a grain offering to the Lord, his offering must consist of fine flour. He is to pour olive oil on it, put frankincense on it,
Fine flour forms the material basis of the grain offering, where cultivated produce is presented according to the Lord's instruction.
But if he cannot afford two turtledoves or two young pigeons, he may bring a tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a sin offering. He must not put olive oil or frankincense on it, because it is a sin offering.
The law provides a measured flour offering for someone unable to afford birds, preserving access while keeping this sin offering distinct from an ordinary grain offering.
You are also to take fine flour and bake twelve loaves, using two-tenths of an ephah for each loaf,
Measured fine flour becomes the twelve loaves regularly arranged before the Lord, joining agricultural provision to Israel's ordered sanctuary service.
Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. It was then that a seah of fine flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, according to the word of the Lord.
After severe siege hunger, the restored market price of fine flour verifies the prophetic announcement of sudden relief.
And you set before them as a pleasing aroma the food I had given you—the fine flour, oil, and honey that I had fed you. That is what happened, declares the Lord God.
Jerusalem redirects the flour, oil, and honey God had provided toward idols, turning received nourishment into covenant betrayal.
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. Fine flour refined through grinding process, emphasizing purity and preparation for sacred offerings and baking
Fine flour refined through grinding process, emphasizing purity and preparation for sacred offerings and baking
flour (as chipped off) BDB: fine flour Usage: (fine) flour, meal.
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 1 selected witness from 53 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Sōlet reminds readers that biblical worship often receives ordinary cultivated material into carefully ordered service. Flour must be grown, harvested, milled, measured, and baked. Genesis 18 places that work inside generous hospitality, with Sarah preparing bread at Abraham's urgent request. Leviticus gives fine flour defined roles in grain offerings and sacred loaves, yet it also adapts the required sin offering for a worshiper who cannot afford birds.
That provision guards against confusing economic capacity with access to mercy. Second Kings makes the price of fine flour a public sign that a devastating siege has broken, while Ezekiel condemns Jerusalem for giving to idols the very food God supplied. Together these texts resist romantic abundance. Food is gift, labor, worship material, and a measure of communal conditions.
Faithful application values those who produce and prepare it, refuses to shame people with limited means, and recognizes hunger as a serious pastoral concern. The noun cannot promise wealth or dictate Christian ritual, but it can train communities to receive provision gratefully, offer without coercion, welcome others generously, and reject the redirection of God's gifts toward idolatrous loyalties.
Lev.2.1
Sōlet is a feminine Hebrew noun consistently rendered fine flour in the governed BSB witnesses. Its forms may carry articles, prepositions, or possessive endings, but the lexical identity remains prepared flour of valued quality. The passages supply its function; the noun itself does not distinguish hospitality bread from an offering or royal ration.
Fine flour belongs chiefly to Israel's hospitality, offering, and sanctuary world. The New Testament continues concern for shared meals, provision for the poor, generous hospitality, and worship offered through Christ, but H5560 does not turn every bread text into a grain-offering reference. Jesus calls Himself the bread of life and the church breaks bread together, yet those claims must be interpreted from their own Greek wording and contexts.
A responsible canonical connection honors God's provision, the dignity of material labor, access for people of limited means, and the redirection of gifts toward faithful worship and neighbor care.