בְּרִיחַ
bar
‘bar’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
22 distinct verses where H1280 appears in the Construct state, across 12 books. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Exodus 4 verses
- Exodus 35:11 בְּרִיחָ֕/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms the tent, its outer covering, its roof, its clasps, its boards, its bars, its pillars, and its sockets;
- Exodus 36:31 בְּרִיחֵ֖י n c mp cs He made bars of acacia wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tent,
- Exodus 39:33 בריח/ו בְּרִיחָ֖י/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms They brought the tent to Moses, the tent, with all its furniture, its clasps, its boards, it bars, its pillars, its sockets,
- Exodus 40:18 בְּרִיחָ֑י/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Moses raised up the tent, and laid its sockets, and set up the boards of it, and put in the bars of it, and raised up its pillars.
Numbers 2 verses
- Numbers 3:36 וּ/בְרִיחָ֖י/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The appointed charge of the sons of Merari shall be the tabernacle's boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets, all its instruments, all its service,
- Numbers 4:31 וּ/בְרִיחָ֖י/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms This is the charge of their burden, according to all their service in the Tent of Meeting: the tabernacle's boards, its bars, its pillars, its sockets,
1 Kings 1 verse
Nehemiah 5 verses
- Nehemiah 3:3 וּ/בְרִיחָֽי/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The fish gate did the sons of Hassenaah build; they laid the beams of it, and set up the doors of it, the bolts of it, and the bars of it.
- Nehemiah 3:6 וּ/בְרִיחָֽי/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The old gate repaired Joiada the son of Paseah and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah; they laid the beams of it, and set up the doors of it, and the bolts of it, and the bars of it.
- Nehemiah 3:13 וּ/בְרִיחָ֑י/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The valley gate repaired Hanun, and the inhabitants of Zanoah; they built it, and set up the doors of it, the bolts of it, and the bars of it, and one thousand cubits of the wall to the dung gate.
- Nehemiah 3:14 וּ/בְרִיחָֽי/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The dung gate repaired Malchijah the son of Rechab, the ruler of the district of Beth Haccherem; he built it, and set up the doors of it, the bolts of it, and the bars of it.
- Nehemiah 3:15 וּ/בְרִיחָ֑י/ו conj + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms The spring gate repaired Shallun the son of Colhozeh, the ruler of the district of Mizpah; he built it, and covered it, and set up the doors of it, the bolts of it, and the bars of it, and the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden, even to the stairs that go down from the city of David.
Psalms 2 verses
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 15:5 בְּרִיחֶ֕/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs My heart cries out for Moab; her nobles [flee] to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah: for by the ascent of Luhith with weeping they go up; for in the way of Horonaim they raise up a cry of destruction.
- Isaiah 45:2 וּ/בְרִיחֵ֥י conj + n c mp cs I will go before you, and make the rough places smooth; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron;
Jeremiah 1 verse
Lamentations 1 verse
Amos 1 verse
Jonah 1 verse
Nahum 1 verse
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.
At its core, בריח (bᵉrîyach) means “bar.” Scripture first uses it in Exodus 26:26. It appears 37 verses across 18 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. The word gravitates to Exodus (30%), then Nehemiah and Numbers. Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. Dig into 37-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1280 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 →
- 37
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 37 distinct verses.
- 18 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 18 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #864
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 864 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 37 occurrences in the concordance →
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 37 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 14 verses · 38%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 12 verses · 32%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 30%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Bars 29×, Thereof and the bars 5×, Bar 4×
- American Standard Version†: Bars 28×, Bolts thereof 5×, Bar 3×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Bars 18×, Crossbars 11×, Crossbar 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Bars 17×, Crossbars 8×, Bar 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1280 across 41† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1280 across 41† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1280 across 36† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1280 across 42† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
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 3 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.
בריח I m. son of Shemaiah 1 Ch 3
בריח II bar (cf. Assyrian burûḫu, spear-shaft, spear, COTGloss)
- 1.
- a. . bar, of wood, joining boards of tabern. Ex 26:26, 27(×2) 28, 29(×2) 35:11; 36:31, 32(×2), 33, 34(×2); 40:18 Nu 3:36; 4:31 (all P). e.g. Exodus 26:26
- b. bar(s) of city-gates Dt 3:5; Ju 16:3; 1 S 23:7; 2 Ch 8:5; 14:6; id. of gates of Jerusalem La 2:9; also (‖ מנעולים) Ne 3:3, 6, 13, 14, 15 cf. ψ 147:13; cf. Am 1:5 Na 3:13; Je 49:31; Ez 38:11 Je 51:30; bars of city-gates, ב׳ נחשׁת 1 K 4:13, ב׳ ברזל Is 45:2 (of Babylon, broken bef. Cyrus); בְּרִיחֶ֑הָ Is 15:5 read prob. c. 𝔗 Di al. בָּר׳ v. בָּרִיחַ; yet cf. Che’s crit. n. e.g. Deuteronomy 3:5
- 2. fig. ב׳ בַּרְזֶל of distress, etc. ψ 107:16; of fortress, ב׳ אַרְמוֹן in simile Pr 18:19; fig. ב׳ of earth (pictured as house out of which Jonah is shut) Jon 2:7. (Older usage sg. of bar of door or gate, i.e. the great bar across the gate; so Dt 3:5; Ju 16:3; Am 1:5; 1 S 23:7; 1 K 4:13; Je 49:31; Pr 18:19; Jb 38:10; 2 Ch 8:5; Ez 38:11 Later pl. Is 45:2 La 2:9 2 Ch 14:6; Ne 3:3, 6, 13, 14, 15; ψ 147:13, but also Na 3:13.) e.g. Psalms 107:16
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
I. n.pr.m. son of Shemaiah 1 Ch 3:22.
II. n.m. bar (cf. Assyrian burûḫu, spear-shaft, spear, COTGloss)—בְּרִיחַ Dt 3:5 + 11 times (cstr. Am 1:5 etc.); בְּרִיחוֹ Ex 35:11; 39:33 Kt (Qr both ־חָיו needless); pl. בְּרִיחִם Ex 26:26 + 8 times, בְּרִיחִים 2 Ch 14:6, בְּרִיחֵי Ex 36:31 + 3 times, בְּרִיחָ֑יִךְ Na 3:13, בְּרִיחָיו Ex 40:18 + 7 times (+ Qr Ex 35:11; 39:33), בְּרִיחֶיהָ Je 51:30 La 2:9, בְּרִחֶיהָ Jon 2:7, בְּרִיחֶ֑הָ Is 15:5 but cf. infr.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from ברח (bârach) (H1272) — to flee.
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.
בָּרִיחַ
- bolt.—Pl. בְּרִיחִים, בְּרִיחִין. Ex. R. s. 52; Yalk. ib. 417.
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 32 distinct written forms H1280 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1280, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 28 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 37 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
- Exodus 26:26
- Numbers 3:36
- Deuteronomy 3:5
- Judges 16:3
- 1 Samuel 23:7
- 1 Kings 4:13
- 2 Chronicles 8:5
- Job 38:10
- Proverbs 18:19
- Isaiah 15:5
- Jeremiah 51:30
- Lamentations 2:9
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
