This noun denotes a wood, forest, or thicket—places dense with trees that can be felled for timber or serve as domains of danger and mystery. Joshua 17 describes the hill country as 'forest' to be cleared; 2 Samuel 18 sets Absalom's defeat in 'the forest of Ephraim.' Forests in ancient Israel were both resource (timber for building) and threat (wild beasts, ambush sites). Jeremiah 10:3 speaks of cutting 'wood from the forest' for idol-carving. The term appears in geographical names and carries associations with wilderness, danger, and the boundary between civilization and untamed nature.