בָּשַׁל
to boil
also: cook, bake, roast, ripen fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Piel verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘boil’
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms 20 distinct
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 3 times (11%)
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Piel, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Pual, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (7%)
- Verb, Piel, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (4%)
+12 more forms (12 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 28 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1310 appears — 24 distinct verses across 14 books. 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.
Genesis 1 verse
Exodus 5 verses
- Exodus 12:9 מְבֻשָּׁ֖ל Pual ptcp.pass ms Don't eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire; with its head, its legs and its inner parts.
- Exodus 16:23 תְּבַשְּׁלוּ֙ בַּשֵּׁ֔לוּ Piel impf 2mp Piel impv 2mp He said to them, "This is that which Yahweh has spoken, 'Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to Yahweh. Bake that which you want to bake, and boil that which you want to boil; and all that remains over lay up for yourselves to be kept until the morning."
- Exodus 23:19 תְבַשֵּׁ֥ל Piel impf 2ms The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of Yahweh your God. "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
- Exodus 29:31 וּ/בִשַּׁלְתָּ֥ conj + Piel wpf 2ms "You shall take the ram of consecration, and boil its flesh in a holy place.
- Exodus 34:26 תְבַשֵּׁ֥ל Piel impf 2ms You shall bring the first of the first fruits of your ground to the house of Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."
Leviticus 2 verses
- Leviticus 6:28 תְּבֻשַּׁל בֻּשָּׁ֔לָה Pual impf 3fs Pual pf 3fs But the earthen vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken; and if it is boiled in a brazen vessel, it shall be scoured, and rinsed in water.
- Leviticus 8:31 בַּשְּׁל֣וּ Piel impv 2mp Moses said to Aaron and to his sons, "Boil the flesh at the door of the Tent of Meeting, and there eat it and the bread that is in the basket of consecration, as I commanded, saying, 'Aaron and his sons shall eat it.'
Numbers 1 verse
Deuteronomy 2 verses
- Deuteronomy 14:21 תְבַשֵּׁ֥ל Piel impf 2ms You shall not eat of anything that dies of itself: you may give it to the foreigner living among you who is within your gates, that he may eat it; or you may sell it to a foreigner: for you are a holy people to Yahweh your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
- Deuteronomy 16:7 וּ/בִשַּׁלְתָּ֙ conj + Piel wpf 2ms You shall roast and eat it in the place which Yahweh your God shall choose: and you shall turn in the morning, and go to your tents.
1 Samuel 2 verses
- 1 Samuel 2:13 כְּ/בַשֵּׁ֣ל prep + Piel inf.cs The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was boiling, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand;
- 1 Samuel 2:15 מְבֻשָּׁ֖ל Pual ptcp.pass ms Yes, before they burnt the fat, the priest's servant came, and said to the man who sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have boiled flesh of you, but raw.
2 Samuel 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Kings 2 verses
- 2 Kings 4:38 וּ/בַשֵּׁ֥ל conj + Piel impv 2ms Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a dearth in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, Set on the great pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.
- 2 Kings 6:29 וַ/נְּבַשֵּׁ֥ל conj + Piel wimpf 1cp So we boiled my son, and ate him: and I said to her on the next day, Give your son, that we may eat him; and she has hid her son.
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Lamentations 1 verse
Ezekiel 3 verses
- Ezekiel 24:5 בָּשְׁל֥וּ Qal pf 3cp Take the choice of the flock, and also a pile [of wood] for the bones under [the caldron]; make it boil well; yes, let the bones of it be boiled in the midst of it.
- Ezekiel 46:20 יְבַשְּׁלוּ Piel impf 3mp He said to me, This is the place where the priests shall boil the trespass-offering and the sin-offering, [and] where they shall bake the meal-offering; that they not bring them forth into the outer court, to sanctify the people.
- Ezekiel 46:24 הַֽ/מְבַשְּׁלִ֔ים יְבַשְּׁלוּ ptcl def.art + Piel ptcp.act mp Piel impf 3mp Then said he to me, These are the boiling-houses, where the ministers of the house shall boil the sacrifice of the people.
Joel 1 verse
Zechariah 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.
The Hebrew verb בשל centers on the idea of “to boil.” As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 4 stems (Qal, Piel, and more). It appears 24 verses across 14 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. Debuting at Genesis 40:10, it then recurs through the corpus. It shares a root with בשל and מבשלה. Dig into 24-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1310 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 →
- 24
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 24 distinct verses.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,190
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,190 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 24 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 24 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 11 verses · 46%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 11 verses · 46%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 8%
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: Seethe 3×, Thou shalt not seethe 3×, Boil 2×
- American Standard Version: Boil 4×, Boiled 3×, Thou shalt not boil 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Cook 5×, Boil 4×, Boiled 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Boil 9×, Boiled 2×, Is boiled 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1310 across 28 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H1310 across 28 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H1310 across 27 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1310 across 33 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel).
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 6 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.
Qal
- Pf. בָּשַׁל Jo 4:13, בָּֽשְׁלוּ Ez 24:5;—boil, cook (intr.) Ez 24:5; grow ripe (of קציר) Jo 4:13;— e.g. Joel 4:13
Piel
- Pf. 3 ms. sf. בִּשְּׁלָם 1 K 19:21; וּבִשַּׁלְתָּ֫ Ex 29:31; Dt 16:7, בִּשְּׁלוּ La 4:10 + 2 times, וּבִשְּׁלוּ consec. Zc 14:21; Impf. 3 fs. וַתְּבַשֵּׁל 2 S 13:8; 2 ms. תְּבַשֵּׁל Ex 23:19 + 2 times, יְבַשְּׁלוּ Ez 46:20, 24, וַיְבַשְּׁלוּ 2 Ch 35:13, תְּבַשְּׁלוּ Ex 16:23, וַנְּבַשֵּׁל 2 K 6:29; Imv. בַּשֵּׁל 2 K 4:38, בַּשְּׁלוּ Lv 8:31, בַּשֵּׁ֑לוּ Ex 16:23; Inf. בַּשֵּׁל 1 S 2:13; Pt. מְבַשְּׁלִים Ez 46:24;— e.g. 1 Kings 19:21
- 1. boil (tr.) obj. om. Nu 11:8, בָּשָׂר 1 S 2:13; גְּדִי Ex 23:19; 34:26; Dt 14:21; נזיד 2 K 4:38; of offerings, obj. הקדשׁים 2 Ch 35:13; obj. אשׁם Ez 46:20, זבח Ez 46:24 (no obj.) v 24, cf. Zc 14:21 (no obj.); Ex 16:23(×2) opp. אפה bake. e.g. Numbers 11:8
- 2. cook (general), obj. בשׂר 1 K 19:21 Ex 29:31; Lv 8:31 (both P); obj. בֵּן 2 K 6:29 cf. יֶלֶד La 4:10; hence also of הפסח Dt 16:7 (cf. Di; ‖ Ex 12:8, 9 has צְלִי אֵשׁ opp. מְבֻשָּׁל בַּמַּיִם) 2 Ch 35:13 (בָּאֵשׁ), cakes (הלבבות) 2 S 13:8. e.g. 1 Kings 19:21
Pual
- Pf. 3 fs. בֻּשָּׁ֑לָה Lv 6:21; Impf. 3 fs. תְּבֻשַּׁל־ Lv 6:21; Pt. מְבֻשָּׁל Ex 12:9; 1 S 2:15;—be boiled, sodden, במים Ex 12:9 cf. Lv 6:21(×2) (all P) 1 S 2:15. e.g. Leviticus 6:21
Hiphil
- Pf. הִבְשִׁילוּ ripened, brought to ripeness Gn 40:10 (grape-clusters). e.g. Genesis 40:10
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
vb. boil, seethe (intr.), grow ripe (Aramaic בְּשַׁל, ܒܫܶܠ ripen, Nas. ܒܫܰܠ boil, NSyr. ܒܵܫܸܠ be boiled, cooked, cf. Assyrian bašâlu (bašlu, cooked) ZimBP 76)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
בָּשַׁל
- to ripen, boil, be done (through natural or artificial heat). Y. Snh. VIII, beg. 26ᵃ ב׳ הזרע וכ׳ when the seed boils inside (maturity of genital organs), the pot outside becomes dark (genitals are covered with hair).
- to mature, cook, roast. Snh. 95ᵇ לבַשֵּׁל פירות to make the fruits ripen. Ḥull. 98ᵇ; a. fr.—Pes. 112ᵃ לא תְבַשֵּׁל וכ׳ cook not in a pot which thy neighbor has used before thee (i.e. marry not a divorced woman).—Part. Pu. מְבוּשָּׁל. Ned. VI, 1 הנודר מן המב׳ וכ׳ he who vows abstinence from anything boiled, is permitted to partake of roasts &c. Ib. 49ᵃ באתרא … קרו מב׳ in R. J.’s place they call roast likewise m’bushshal (cmp. II Chr. XXXV, 13); a. fr. e.g. 2 Chronicles 35:13
- , Nithpa. נִתְבַּשֵּׁל to be boiled, done, ripe. Ter. X, 11. Ḥull. VII, 4; a. fr.—Ib. 98ᵇ top, v. בָּשֵׁל.—Sot. 11ᵃ; Ex. R. s. 1 בקדרה שבשלו וכ׳ in the pot they boiled in, they were boiled, (they were done by as they did by others).
בְּשַׁל
- as preced. Kal. Targ. O. Gen. XL, 10 ed. Berl. בְּשִׁילוּ (ed. בַּשִּׁילוּ, Pa.); Y. בָּשְׁלוּ; ib. IX, 20.—Part. pass. בָּשִׁיל, בְּשִׁילָא. Targ. O. Num. VI, 19; a. e.—Ab. Zar. 38ᵃ אי לא הוה הפיך בה הוה ב׳ וכ׳ Ms. M. (ed. less corr.) if he (the gentile) had not turned it, it would have been done in two hours.
- as preced. Pi. Targ. I Kings XIX, 21; a. fr.; v. supra.—Ab. Zar. 38ᵃ לבַשּׁוּלֵי מנא to bake (in the furnace) the earthen vessel, contrad. to לשרורי to glaze, finish. Ḥull. 110ᵃ ריבעא … בעי לב׳ how much milk is required to boil a quarter of a litra of meat?
- as preced. Hithpa. Targ. Y. Deut. XXVI, 2; a. e.—Targ. I Sam. II, 13 כמִיבְּשַׁל (Var. כמְבַשֵּׁל).—Ab. Zar. 29ᵇ אִיבְּשִׁיל.
בָּשֵׁל
- preced.) ripe, boiled, done. זרוע בשלה the boiled shoulder due to the priest (Num. VI, 19). Ḥull. 98ᵃ bot. both derive it מז׳ ב׳ from the process prescribed for the priest’s gift &c. Ib. 98ᵇ top אין ב׳ אלא שלמה when it says, ‘the shoulder boiled’ it means entire (not carved). Ib. אין ב׳ אלא שנתבשל וכ׳ when it says, ‘He shall take &c. from the ram’ it means that it must be boiled joined to (or jointly with) the body of the ram. Tanḥ. Vayera 5 Abraham בלעה בשילה swallowed the fig ripe, i.e. spoke deliberately, opp. פגה; Gen. R. s. 49 אמר בישולה (corr. acc.). e.g. Numbers 6:19
שַׁל
- v. שַׁלְוָה) carelessness, negligence. Sot. 35ᵃ (expl. II Sam. VII, 7) על עיסקי שַׁלּוֹ for his careless handling (of the Ark); Num. R. s. 420; Yalk. Sam. 142; Num. R. s. 2112 על השל מפני ששגגת וכ׳ ‘for the carelessness’, because an involuntary act of a scholar counts as a wilful act. e.g. 2 Samuel 7:7
שַׁל ²
- , v. שַׁלְצִיּוֹן
שֶׁל
- , v. שֶׁ־) belonging to, of. Ab. II, 2 בנו של ר׳ וכ׳ the son of &c. Ib. 12 יהי ממון … כשֶׁלְּךָ let thy neighbor’s property be as dear to thee as thine own. Ib. V, 10 האומר שֶׁלִּי שלי ושֶׁלְּךָ שֶׁלָּךְ he who says, what is mine is mine, and what is thine is thine. B. Mets. I, 1 זה אומר כולה שלי וכ׳ one says, it belongs entirely to me &c. Ib. 30ᵃ שהיתה מלאכה שֶׁלּוֹ … משל חבירו when his own work is more valuable than that required for his neighbor, i.e. when by helping his neighbor he would lose more than he could save for his neighbor. Gen. R. s. 49 אמרו לו מה נאמר … שאכלנו מִשֶּׁלּוֹ they (the strangers entertained by Araham) said to him, what shall we say? Said he, say, blessed be the God of the world of whose belongings we have partaken; a. v. fr.—Kidd. 57ᵇ שחוט שלי בשלי וכ׳ (not לי) slaughter what is owing to me (the sacrifice) on what belongs to me (on Temple grounds), and what is for thee, on thy own ground.
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 24 distinct written forms H1310 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 H1310, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 22 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 24 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
- Genesis 40:10
- Exodus 12:9
- Leviticus 8:31
- Numbers 11:8
- Deuteronomy 14:21
- 1 Samuel 2:13
- 2 Samuel 13:8
- 1 Kings 19:21
- 2 Kings 4:38
- 2 Chronicles 35:13
- Lamentations 4:10
- Ezekiel 24:5
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.
