Dictionaries :: Spot; Spotted

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Spot; Spotted:

spot, spot'-ed (mum; spilos): The Hebrew word is used to denote a blemish which mars the perfection of the face, as in So 4:7; Job 11:15. It is translated "blemish" in Le 24:19 f, where it means an injury the result of violence, and is rendered "blot" in Pr 9:7, where it signifies "shame" or "disgrace." The "spotted" cattle of Ge 30:32-39 are animals of variegated color (Tala'; compare Eze 16:16, "decked with divers colors"; Jos 9:5, "patched"). For chabharburah in Jer 13:23, see LEOPARD. Spilos is used in the figurative sense of a stain of sin in 2Pe 3:14, and similarly along with rhutis ("a wrinkle") in Eph 5:27. The "garment spotted (verb, spiloomai) by the flesh" of Jude 1:23 is, as Calvin has para-phrased it, anything that in any way savors of sin or temptation. The "spots" of Jude 1:12 the King James Version are spilades, "hidden (sunken) rocks" which are betrayed by the surf beating over them (as in Homer Od. iii.298), and are so rendered in the Revised Version (British and American). "Spot" in Le 13 is referred to under FRECKLED SPOT; LEPROSY; TETTER.

"Without spot" in Nu 19:2, etc., is tamim, a usual word for "perfect" (so the Revised Version margin); aspilos (the negative form of spilos) occurs in 1Ti 6:14; 1Pe 1:19; 2Pe 3:14, with Jas 1:27 ("unspotted"). For the King James Version Heb 9:14 see BLEMISH.

Written by Alexander Macalister