Senses
1. lest, so that not — Conjunction פֶּן introducing a negative purpose or apprehension clause: 'lest, for fear that, so that not' (Gen 3:3, 11:4, 19:15, 32:12; Deut 4:9, 8:11). One of the most common purpose-negation particles in Biblical Hebrew. The waw-prefixed variant וּפֶן (eng: and-lest, spa: y-no-sea-que, swa: na-usije) is a conjunctive discourse connector attaching the clause to prior material and carries identical semantic content. Multilingual evidence is uniform: eng: lest, spa: no-sea-que, hin: कहीं, arb: لِئَلَّا, kor: 혹시, swa: isije. 133×
AR["لَعَلَّ","لِئَلَّا","لِئَلَّا-","لِئَلّا"]·ben["পাছে","পাছে-"]·DE["damit-nicht","damit-nicht-","dass-nicht-"]·EN["lest","lest-"]·FR["de-peur-que","de-peur-que-"]·heb["פן","פן-","פן־"]·HI["ऐस-न-हो-कि-","कही̃","कहीं","कहीं-"]·ID["jangan-sampai","jangan-sampai-","supaya-jangan","supaya-tidak","supaya-tidak-"]·IT["affinché-non","affinché-non-"]·jav["supados-boten","supados-boten-","supados-mboten","supados-mboten-","supados-sampun","supados-sampun-"]·KO["-하지-않도록-","알도록-","혹시","혹시-","혹시라도"]·PT["Para-que-não-","para-que-não","para-que-não-","que-não"]·RU["дабы-не-","чтобы-не","чтобы-не-"]·ES["no-sea-que","no-sea-que-"]·SW["Wasije-","asije","asije-","karibu","kitendeka","kusikika","kwa","labda","msije-","tusije-","usije","wasije-"]·TR["belki","belki-","yoksa","yoksa-"]·urd["ایسا-نہ-ہو-کہ","مبادا","کہیں"]
BDB / Lexicon Reference
פֶּן־133 (always with Makkeph except Gn 38:23; 44:34 Dt 7:25; 32:27 [not Gi], Is 27:3 Pr 25:8: Mandelkern Conc. s. v.) conj. (averting, or deprecating), lest (origin dub.: Thes Kö ii. 334 from פָּנָה, proposes subst. cstr. in accus. for the aversion of; but פָנָה is intrans.: NöM. 474 cps. the enclitic particle פּוֹן in 𝔗, then, ἄν, ‘etwa,’ thinking that a part. with the meaning ‘es möchte…