בֻּנִּי
Bunni
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Bunni’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H1138 appears — 3 distinct verses across 1 book. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
Nehemiah 3 verses
- Nehemiah 9:4 בֻּנִּ֥י n Proper Then stood up on the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, [and] Chenani, and cried with a loud voice to Yahweh their God.
- Nehemiah 10:15 בֻּנִּ֥י n Proper Bunni, Azgad, Bebai,
- Nehemiah 11:15 בּוּנִּֽי n Proper Of the Levites: Shemaiah the son of Hasshub, the son of Azrikam, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Bunni;
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
בני (Bunnîy) is a Hebrew name most often rendered “Bunni.” The Hebrew Bible uses it only 3 verses. Nehemiah dominates its distribution — 3 of 3 verses. Scripture first uses it in Nehemiah 9:4. For the data behind this summary, explore 3-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1138 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,179
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,179 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 3 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Nehemiah 3 verses 100%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 3 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 100%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Bunni 3×
- American Standard Version: Bunni 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Bunni 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Bunni 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1138 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1138 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1138 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1138 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in the full BDB
What do BDB’s symbols mean?
BDB uses these scholarly abbreviations:
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 𝔊 | the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation, LXX) |
| 𝔙 | the Vulgate (the Latin translation) |
| 𝔖 | the Syriac version (the Peshitta) |
| 𝔗 | the Targum (the Aramaic translation) |
| ψ | the Psalms |
| √ | root (the underlying root or stem) |
| ‖ | parallel passage (a synonymous or contrasted parallel) |
| † | the dagger: every passage where the word occurs is cited |
The 4 senses and sub-senses the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency), with BDB’s own verbatim wording and sub-sense lettering. Shown in Hebrew script with BDB’s own scholarly abbreviations. The condensed entry is in the Lexicon Entry tab. See also the Forms in the corpus table below.
- 1. Levites,
- a. Ne 9:4, but read perhaps בִּנּוּי cf. BeRy & vid. 10:10; 12:8 Ezr 8:33; e.g. Nehemiah 9:4
- b. בּוּנִּי (בֶּן) Ne 11:15, but read perhaps מִן בְּנֵי etc. cf. BeRy e.g. Nehemiah 11:15
- 2. a chief of people Ne 10:16, perhaps repetit. of בָּנִי v 15 cf. BeRy. e.g. Nehemiah 10:16
Senses from the full Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (Brown, Driver, Briggs; Oxford 1906 — public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). Full attribution on Sources.
Word origin
Derived from בנה (bânâh) (H1129) — to build.
Jastrow Dictionary
A second Hebrew/Aramaic lexicon for comparison, covering Aramaic and post-biblical (Talmudic, Targumic, Midrashic) usage that the biblical-Hebrew BDB does not. Matched by lemma rather than by Strong’s number, so a lemma may carry more than one Jastrow headword (shown separately below), and the entries cover usage well beyond the Bible.
בני
- [to combine,] to build. Sabb. XII, 1 הַבּוֹנֶה he who builds (on the Sabbath). Ib.] 102ᵇ משום בונה (isguilty) because it is one of the labors classified under ‘building’; a. fr.—Metaph. to educate, train. Ber. 64ᵃ (ref. to Is. LIV, 93) א"ת בָּנַיִךְ אלא בוֹנַיִּךְ read not banayikh (thy children), but bonayikh (thy builders, trainers); v. בַּנָּאִים.—Ex. R. s. 23 (play on b’noth, Cant. I, 5) בּוֹנוֹת וכ׳ the authorities directing the building of Jerusalem; v. Pi.—Ḥull. 78ᵇ זה בנה אב, v. אָב, a. בִּנְיָן. [Tosef. Par. VII (VI), 4 בְּנָאוֹ ed. Zuck., v. כָּנַן.] e.g. Isaiah 54:93
- 1. to be built up. Y. B. Bath. III, 14ᵇ, a. fr. לְהִיבָּנוֹת, לִיבָּנוֹת.
- 2. (denom. of בֵּן) to get children. Gen. R. s. 71.
- (denom. of בֵּן) to be adopted, naturalized. Pesik. R. s. 43 נִתְבַּנּוּ בישראל they became full Israelitish citizens.
- to lay out, plan a city, determine its limits. Ex. R. l. c. the Great Sanedrin held sessions ומְבַנָּים אותה (not אותם) and determined the limits of Jerusalem; v. Snh. I, 5.—Part. Pu. מְבוּנֶּה cultivated; built (of human stature), well-proportioned. Keth. 112ᵃ; Sot. 34ᵇ היתה מְבוּנָּה על וכ׳ it (Hebron, in spite of the rocky nature of its soil) was seven times better cultivated than Zoan (one measure of its land yielding as much as did seven measures of the soil of Zoan). Ib. 42ᵇ (play on benayim, I Sam. XVII, 4) מב׳ מכל מום his build was without blemish. e.g. 1 Samuel 17:4
בְּנֵי
- ch. = h. בָּנָה. Targ. Deut. XXV, 9 (Y. יִבְנֶה); a. fr.—Part. בָּנֵי. Targ. Gen. IV, 17.—M. Kat. 10ᵇ מִיבְנֵי to erect; a. e.
- as h. Nif.
- 1. a. 2). Targ. I Kings III, 2; a. fr.—Targ. Gen. XVI, 2; a. e.—Y. Ber. II, 5ᵃ מִתְבַּנְיֵי will be rebuilt; a. e.
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow; London, Luzac, 1903) — Public Domain. Digitized via Sefaria. Digitized via Sefaria. Full attribution on Sources.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms H1138 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| בֻּנִּ֥י | Noun, Proper | Nehemiah 9:4 | 2 |
| בּוּנִּֽי | Noun, Proper | Nehemiah 11:15 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1138, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- אבן ʼeben H68 stone
- בית bayith H1004 house
- בן bên H1121 son
- בנא bᵉnâʼ H1124 to build
- בניה binyâh H1140 building
- בנין binyân H1146 building
- בת bath H1323 daughter
- מבנה mibneh H4011 building
- תבן teben H8401 stubble
- תבנית tabnîyth H8403 pattern
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- בנוי Binnûwy H1131 Binnui
- בני Bânîy H1137 Bani
- בניה Bᵉnâyâh H1141 Benaiah
- יבנאל Yabnᵉʼêl H2995 Jabneel
- יבנה Yabneh H2996 Jabneh
- יבניה Yibnᵉyâh H2997 Ibneiah
- יבניה Yibnîyâh H2998 Ibnijah
- מבני Mᵉbunnay H4012 Mebunnai
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 20 — not the complete family. 8 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Bunni). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(my understanding).
+ One of the Levites in the time of Nehemiah. (Nehemiah 9:4) + Another Levite, but of earlier date than the preceding. (Nehemiah 11:15)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
building me
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
