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גִּבְעָה

hill

‘hill’ is one of 5 main senses fuller range ↓

H1389 Strong's Hebrew
gibʻâh Transliteration
/ghib-aw'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 71 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

גבעה (gibʻâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “hill.” It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. It turns up in 71 verses across 25 books, a moderately common footprint. It first appears in Genesis 49:26. From the same root come גבע, מגבעה and גבעון. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
hill
Modern gloss
hill
Strong's 1890 agrees
Strong's 1890 and current BDB scholarship align on this entry's primary sense — a good signal that the gloss above is unambiguous and stable. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H1389 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 →

71
distinct verses
The word appears in 71 distinct verses.
25 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 49:26
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 49:26.
Zephaniah 1:10
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Zephaniah 1:10.
#558
by frequency
Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 558 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 71 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 6 · 8%
  • Historical 17 · 24%
  • Wisdom 9 · 13%
  • Prophets 39 · 55%

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 71 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 55 verses · 77%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 10 verses · 14%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 6 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).

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: Hill 26×, Hills 26×, All the hills 3×
  • American Standard Version: Hills 26×, Hill 24×, Above the hills 2×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Hills 37×, Hill 21×, Gibeah 3×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Hills 32×, Hill 16×, Hill of 6×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H1389 across 69 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Hill” 26×
  • “Hills” 26×
  • “All the hills” 3×
  • “Little hills” 3×
  • “Above the hills” 2×

Plus 9 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 H1389 across 69 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Hills” 26×
  • “Hill” 24×
  • “Above the hills” 2×
  • “All the hills” 2×
  • “Him” 2×

Plus 13 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 H1389 across 69 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Hills” 37×
  • “Hill” 21×
  • “Gibeah” 3×

Plus 8 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 2 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H1389 across 72 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Hills” 32×
  • “Hill” 16×
  • “Hill of” 6×
  • “High hills” 3×
  • “The” 3×
  • “Above the hills” 2×
  • “Gibeah of” 2×
  • “Was on the hill” 2×

Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


7 senses and sub-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 7 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.

גבעה I hill

  • 1. in ordinary prose, hill, lower than mountain Ex 17:9, 10 (E) 2 S 2:25; it may be n.pr. in 1 S 7:1; 10:10 2 S 6:3, 4 v. also sub ii. גִּבְעָה. e.g. Exodus 17:9
  • 2. especially as place of illicit worship עַל כָּל־ג׳ גְּבֹהָה ותחת כל עץ רענן 1 K 14:23 2 K 17:10 Je 2:20; cf. Dt 12:2 2 K 16:4 2 Ch 28:4 (these two + במות); also Ho 4:13 Je 13:27; 17:2 Ez 6:13 (v. supr.). e.g. 1 Kings 14:23
  • 3. very commonly ‖ הר in poet. & proph. Dt 33:15 ψ 72:3; 114:4, 6; 148:9 Ct 2:8; 4:6 Is 2:2, 14; 30:17, 25; 31:4; 40:4, 12; 41:15; 42:15; 54:10; 55:12; 65:7 Je 3:23; 4:24; 16:16; 50:7 Ez 6:3; 34:6; 35:8; 36:4, 6 Ho 4:13; 10:8 Jo 4:18 Am 9:13 Mi 4:1; 6:1 Na 1:5 Hb 3:6; rarely in prose Dt 12:2; sometimes as rejoicing ψ 65:13, majestic (poet.) ג׳ עולם Gn 49:26 Dt 33:15 Hb 3:6 (‘everlasting hills’); cf. also Jb 15:7; high Pr 8:25 (with adj. high, cf. supr.) Je 49:16. e.g. Deuteronomy 33:15
  • 4. hills with special names, some nearly or quite = n.pr.loc., which see under the respective words: ג׳ הַמּוֹרֶה Ju 7:1 teacher’s hill, in valley of Jezreel; ג׳ הָעֲרָלוֹת Jos 5:3 hill of the fore-skins; ג׳ הָאֱלֹהִים 1 S 10:5 (a designation of Gibeah); ג׳ הַחֲכִילָה 1 S 23:19; 26:1, 3; ג׳ אַמָּה 2 S 2:24; ג׳ הַלְּבוֹנָה Ct 4:6 (i.e. hill where frankincense is grown); ג׳ גָּרֵ֑ב Je 31:39; ג׳ יְרוּשָׁלַם Is 10:32 cf. 31:4 (where ‖ הַר־צִיּוֹן), Ez 34:26 (v. supr.) & הַגְּבָעוֹת Zp 1:10 hills on which Jerusalem stands. e.g. Judges 7:1

גבעה II loc. (hill)

  • 1. a city of Judah Jos 15:57 (perhaps one of two villages called Gabaa, Gabatha in Onom. v. LagOnom. 246, 128; 2nd ed. 255, 160). e.g. Joshua 15:57
  • 2. city of Benj. Ju 19:14, 16 + 20 times Ju, 1 S 10:26; 14:2; 22:6; 26:1 2 S 23:29 = 1 Ch 11:31; also Ho 5:8; 9:9; 10:9(×2) (cf. Ju 19:12 ff.) 2 Ch 13:2; perhaps also 1 S 7:1; 10:10 2 S 6:3, 4 read also (for גבע) 1 S 13:16 Ju 20:10, 33; = גִּבְעַת Jos 18:28; called also גִּבְעַת בִּנְיָמִין 1 S 13:2, 15; 14:16, & גִּבְעַת שָׁאוּל 1 S 11:4; 15:34 Is 10:29; 2 S 21:6 read prob. גִּבְעוֹן, 𝔊 We Dr. e.g. Judges 19:14
  • 3. a city of Ephraim, called גִּבְעַת פִּֽינְחָס Jos 24:33. e.g. Joshua 24:33

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.f. hill—abs. גִּבְעָה 2 S 2:25 + 13 times + Ez 6:13 (del. Co q.v.) 1 S 7:1 2 S 6:3, 4 (cf. Dr); cstr. גִּבְעַת Jos 5:3 + 8 times + 1 S 10:5 (cf. Dr); sf. גִּבְעָתִי Ez 34:26 (but del. Co), גִּבְעָתָהּ Is 31:4; pl. abs. גְּבָעוֹת Dt 12:2 + 35 times; cstr. גִּבְעוֹת Dt 33:15 Hb 3:6, גִּבְעֹת Gn 49:26; sf. גִּבְעוֹתֶיךָ Ez 35:8;—hill, height, elevation, both high and low, cf. ψ 148:9 ההרים וכל גבעות, 65:13;—

II. n.pr.loc. (hill)—ג׳ Jos 15:57 +; (הַ)גִּבְעָ֫תָה Ju 20:4 + 5 times; גִּבְעַת Jos 18:28; cstr. גִּבְעַת 1 S 11:4 + 9 times; abs. always c. art. except Jos 15:57; 18:28 Ju 19:12; 20:31 1 S 10:26 2 Ch 13:2;—

— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.

Derived from גבע (Gebaʻ) (H1387) — Geba.

Part of speech: Noun Feminine TWOT: 309a


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.

גִּבְעָה

  • 1. hill. Lev. R. s. 10 כמין ג׳ like a hill (the bullock between the two rams). Cant. R. to IV, 6 עשה ערלותיהן ג׳ he piled up their preputia; Gen. R. s. 47 העמידן גִבְעַת ערלות; a. e.—Pl. גְּבָעוֹת. Ḥag. 15ᵃ ברא הרים ברא ג׳ He created mountains, and (corresponding to them) hills. Taan. 8ᵇ (ref. to Job XXXVII, 13) אם לשבט בהרים וג׳ if He sends rain as a scourge, He sends it on mountains and hills. Ab. Zar. 17ᵃ הרים וג׳ ye mountains and hills! Sot. 5ᵃ; a. fr. e.g. Job 37:13
  • 2. pr. n. pl. Gibeah. Gitt. 6ᵇ עסיק בפלגש ג׳ studying the case of the woman murdered in Gibeah (Jud. XIX sq.). Pesik. R. s. 11 בפלגש בג׳ in the war about the woman of G.; a. e.—Shebu. 35ᵇ שמות האמורין בג׳ Rashi (ed. בגִבְעַת בִּנְיָמִין) the names (Adonai, El &c.) used in the chapter about Gibeah (Jud. XX).

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 48 distinct written forms H1389 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
גִּבְעָ֣ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 34:6 4
הַ/גְּבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Amos 9:13 4
גִּבְעַ֖ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Isaiah 10:32 3
גִּבְעַ֣ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 10:5 3
בְּ/גִבְעַ֣ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 26:1 2
בְּ/גִבְעַת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 1 Samuel 23:19 2
בַּ/גִּבְעָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 1 Samuel 7:1 2
גְבָע֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Job 15:7 2
גְּ֝בָע֗וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Psalms 114:4 2
גְּבָע֥וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Jeremiah 17:2 2
גִּבְעָ֨ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 6:13 2
הַ/גְּבָע֑וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 2 Chronicles 28:4 2
הַ/גִּבְעָֽה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 17:10 2
וְ/הַ/גְּבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 54:10 2
וְ/לַ/גְּבָע֜וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Ezekiel 6:3 2
וּ/גְבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 40:12 2
מִ/גְּבָע֑וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 2:2 2
בַּ/גִּבְעָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 Samuel 6:4 1
גְּבָע֑וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Psalms 148:9 1
גְּבָעוֹת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Jeremiah 13:27 1
גִּבְע֣וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Habakkuk 3:6 1
גִּבְע֥וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Deuteronomy 33:15 1
גִּבְעָ֑ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 49:16 1
גִּבְעָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 16:16 1
גִּבְעָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 2 Samuel 2:25 1
גִּבְעָ֞ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 2:20 1
גִּבְעָה֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 50:6 1
גִּבְעָתִ֖/י Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Ezekiel 34:26 1
גִּבְעָתָֽ/הּ Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Isaiah 31:4 1
גִּבְעֹ֣ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Genesis 49:26 1
גִּבְעוֹתֶ֤י/ךָ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct Ezekiel 35:8 1
הַ/גְּבָע֔וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Deuteronomy 12:2 1
הַ/גְּבָע֥וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 2:14 1
הַ/גְּבָעֽוֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Song of Solomon 2:8 1
הַ/גְּבָעוֹת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Hosea 4:13 1
הַ/גִּבְעָ֔ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 17:9 1
הַ/גִּבְעָ֔תָ/ה Noun, Proper 1 Samuel 10:10 1
וְ/גִבְעָ֖ה Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute Isaiah 40:4 1
וְ/הַ/גְּבָע֗וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 55:12 1
וְ/הַ/גְּבָעוֹת֙ Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Joel 3:18 1
וְ/לַ/גְּבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Hosea 10:8 1
וְ֠/לַ/גְּבָעוֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Ezekiel 36:6 1
וּ/גְבָע֔וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Isaiah 42:15 1
וּ/מִ/גְּבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Numbers 23:9 1
וּ֝/גְבָע֗וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Psalms 72:3 1
מִ/גְּבָע֖וֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Jeremiah 3:23 1
מִ/גִּבְעַ֥ת Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct Judges 7:1 1
מֵ/הַ/גְּבָעֽוֹת Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute Zephaniah 1:10 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1389, 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

Derived from this word

Proper names from this root

People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 5 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 68 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 71 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

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.

Reading settings

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