חִתִּית
chit.tit (H2851)
terror
AI Word Study
# חִתִּית (chittit): Terror in Biblical Hebrew The Hebrew word *chittit* denotes terror—a state of intense fear or dread. With eight occurrences across the biblical text, this term appears with sufficient frequency to establish its semantic range, though it remains a relatively specialized vocabulary item. The word functions as a noun referring to the emotional or psychological experience of profound alarm, distinguishing it from more general terms for fear or anxiety. The limited frequency of *chittit* suggests it was reserved for contexts requiring particular emphasis on the intensity or suddenness of fear. Rather than describing everyday worry or caution, this term gravitates toward moments of acute panic or overwhelming dread. Its relatively rare appearance in Scripture indicates that biblical writers selected it deliberately when they needed to convey the most extreme versions of human fear responses, making it functionally a marked or emphatic choice within the broader vocabulary of fear-related terminology. Without access to the specific biblical passages where *chittit* appears, the full contextual range cannot be detailed here; however, the noun form and its definition as "terror" establish that it belongs to a semantic field concerned with the psychological impact of threatening or overwhelming circumstances on human consciousness and behavior.
AI synthesis uses only provided lexicon data -- never training knowledge.
They will take up a lamentation over you, and tell you, “How you are destroyed, who were inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, who was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all who lived there!”
whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit, and her company is around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who caused terror in the land of the living.
“There is Elam and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised into the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit.
They have set her a bed among the slain with all her multitude. Her graves are around her; all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for their terror was caused in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit. He is put among those who are slain.
“There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude. Their graves are around them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the living.
They will not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who have gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones; for they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
“There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down with the slain. They are put to shame in the terror which they caused by their might. They lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.
“For I have put his terror in the land of the living. He will be laid among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude,” says the Lord Yahweh.