גְּבַר
man
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
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- 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.
Grammatical forms
- Particle, Definite Article 14 times (67%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute 5 times (24%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 times (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 21 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1400 appears — 20 distinct verses across 2 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.
Ezra 4 verses
- Ezra 4:21 גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Make you now a decree to cause these men to cease, and that this city not be built, until a decree shall be made by me.
- Ezra 5:4 גֻּבְרַיָּ֔/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then we told them after this manner, what the names of the men were who were making this building.
- Ezra 5:10 גֻּבְרַיָּ֖/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art We asked them their names also, to inform you that we might write the names of the men who were at the head of them.
- Ezra 6:8 לְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֥/א prep + n c mp det + ptcl def.art Moreover I make a decree what you shall do to these elders of the Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the River, expenses be given with all diligence to these men, that they be not hindered.
Daniel 16 verses
- Daniel 2:25 גְּבַר֙ n c ms Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus to him, I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judah, who will make known to the king the interpretation.
- Daniel 3:8 גֻּבְרִ֣ין n c mp Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews.
- Daniel 3:12 גֻּבְרִ֣ין גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp n c mp det + ptcl def.art There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; these men, O king, have not regarded you: they don't serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.
- Daniel 3:13 גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then Nebuchadnezzar in [his] rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Then they brought these men before the king.
- Daniel 3:20 וּ/לְ/גֻבְרִ֤ין conj + prep + n c mp He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, [and] to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
- Daniel 3:21 גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their [other] garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
- Daniel 3:22 גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Therefore because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
- Daniel 3:23 וְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֤/א conj + n c mp det + ptcl def.art These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
- Daniel 3:24 גֻבְרִ֨ין n c mp Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste: he spoke and said to his counselors, Didn't we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered the king, True, O king.
- Daniel 3:25 גֻּבְרִ֣ין n c mp He answered, Look, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods.
- Daniel 3:27 לְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֣/א ptcl do + n c mp det + ptcl def.art The satraps, the deputies, and the governors, and the king's counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their pants changed, nor had the smell of fire passed on them.
- Daniel 5:11 גְּבַ֜ר n c ms There is a man in your kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and the king Nebuchadnezzar your father, the king, [I say], your father, made him master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers;
- Daniel 6:5 גֻּבְרַיָּ֤/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
- Daniel 6:11 גֻּבְרַיָּ֤/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.
- Daniel 6:15 גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art Then these men assembled together to the king, and said to the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians, that no interdict nor statute which the king establishes may be changed.
- Daniel 6:24 גֻּבְרַיָּ֤/א n c mp det + ptcl def.art The king commanded, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and broke all their bones in pieces, before they came to the bottom of the den.
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.
גבר (gᵉbar) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “man.” Daniel dominates its distribution — 16 of 20 verses. Spanning 20 verses in 2 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Ezra 4:21. Sharing its root, it stands alongside גבר, גבר and גבר. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1400 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 →
- 20
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 20 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,462
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,462 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 20 occurrences in the concordance →
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 20 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 20 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: Men 17×, Certain 2×, Man 2×
- American Standard Version: Men 17×, Certain 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Men 13×, Man 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Men 17×, Certain 3×, Man 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1400 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1400 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H1400 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H1400 across 25 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.
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- a man, a certain (one)
Word origin
Derived from גבר (gᵉbar) (H1399) — man.
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.
גָּבַר
- v. גבב) to be uppermost, prevail; to be strong. Num. R. s. 7 לשון גָּבַר, v. אָנוּשׁ. Sot. IX, 15 גָּבְרוּ בעלי זרוע the violent prevailed. Y. Bets. II, 61ᶜ top; Tosef. Ḥag. II, 11; Bets. 20ᵃ גָּבְרָה יָדָן וכ׳ the Shammaites prevailed over (outnumbered) the Hillelites; a. fr.
- to make strong, strengthen, sustain. Lam. R. to III, 1 גִּבְּרַנִי לעמוד בכולן he made me strong enough to survive all these calamities; ib. 12. Cant. R. to II, 14 מְגַבְּרָן לישראל (ed. Wil. מַגְבִּירָן Hif.) sustains Israel. Ib. III, 7 שהן מְגַבְּרִין את וכ׳ they (the sixty words of the priestly benediction) strengthen Israel. Mekh. B’shall., Amalek, s. 1 וכי … מְגַבְּרוֹת ישראל can Moses’ (uplifted) hands make Israel victorious?; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְגוּבָּר, v. infra.
- 1. same; v. supra.—2)
- to grow strong. Ib. עתידין … לְהַגְבִּיר בד"ת וכ׳ (Moses’ uplifted hands indicated that the Lord remembered that) Israel would in the future be strong in the Law which was to be given through his (Moses’) hands, opp. להמיך; Yalk. Ex. 264.
- , Nithpa. נִתְגַּבֵּר to rise, swell; to grow strong, gather courage; to make one’s self master. Tanḥ. B’resh. 7 המים מִתְגַּבְּרִין the waters of the Nile rose. Num. R. s. 19 ומִתְגַּבֶּרֶת שם and rose there. Ib. מלא מים מְגוּבָּרִין full of high waters. Snh. 96ᵃ לא נ׳ עד וכ׳ had no courage until he came to Dan. R. Hash. III, 8 היו מִתְגַּבְּרִין they were victorious. Ḥag. 16ᵃ, a. e. if one feels שיצרו מתג׳ עליו that his passion threatens to make itself master over him; Kidd. 80ᵇ. Ned. 81ᵃ מפני שהן מתגברין על הצבור because they lord it over the people (Ar. מתגדרין, v. גָּדַר). Num. R. s. 18, v. גָּבַהּ. Yalk. Is. 287 (ref. to Is. XVII, 11) מכה מִתְגַּבֶּרֶת (Lev. R. s. 18 מגרת, corr. acc. or מגברת) an affliction which makes itself the master, v. אָנוּשׁ. Gen. R. s. 76; a. fr. e.g. Isaiah 17:11
גְּבַר I
- Targ. Ps. CIII, 11.—Gitt. 60ᵇ, v. אַלִּים. Pes. 76ᵃ, a. fr. עילאה ג׳ in the case of a contact between warm and cold substances, the upper one prevails (heating or cooling the substance into which it is poured); תתאה ג׳ the lower prevails.
- as preced. Pi. Targ. Am. V, 9. Targ. Zech. X, 6; a. e.—Part. pass. מְגַבַּר growing, swelling. Targ. Is. VIII, 8.
- to make strong, to cause to overpower. Targ. Is. XLI, 25.—Snh. 38ᵃ אַגְבְּרוּ חמרא וכ׳ let the wine get the better of the young men, i.e. give them plenty to drink, that they may become mirthful.
גֶּבֶר
- 1. man, master. Lam. R. to III, 1. Kidd. 80ᵇ (ref. to Lam. III, 39) וכי ג׳ על הטאיו הוא (Rashi) is man master over his sins (sinless)? e.g. Lamentations 3:39
- 2. cock. Yoma I, 8 בקריאת הג׳ at the time of the crowing of the cock; ib. 20ᵇ; Y. Shek. V, 48ᵈ bot.; Y. Succ. V, 55ᶜ disputed meaning: man’s (the cryer’s) crying, or the cock’s crowing, v. כָּרוֹזָא.
- 3. (euphem.) membrum virile. Bekh. VII, 5 (44ᵇ) בעל ג׳ a man with an abnormally large membrum.
גְּבַר II
- ; man. Targ. Gen. II, 24; a. v. fr.—Ber. 63ᵃ באתר דלית ג׳ כ׳ where there is no man, (leader). B. Mets. 97ᵃ (prov.) ג׳ דנשי וכ׳ for a man whom women killed there is no law or judge. Erub. 53ᵇ, v. אוּשְׁפִּיזָא.—Men. 42ᵇ, a. e. חובת ג׳ personal duty, opp. ח׳ טלית the duty resting on the garment (whether or not you wear it).—ההוא גברא a certain man. B. Mets. l. c.; a. v. fr. [Frequ. האי גברא, or ההוא, euphem. for I, or thou; v. ההוא.]—Bekh. 36ᵃ בלא גברא (Rashi גברי) without naming an authority.—Pl. גַּבְרִין, גַּבְרַיָּיא, גַּבְרֵי. Targ. O. Deut. I, 13; a. v. fr.—Lev. R. s. 23 יהוון גַּבְ׳ בכל מילייא (Cant. R. to II, 2 גּוּבְרִין) they shall be strong (trained) in all things. B. Kam. 92ᵇ (prov.) כד הוינן זוטרי לג׳ וכ׳ when we were young, we were esteemed as men, now that we are old &c.; a. v. fr.—Keth. 6ᵃ בלא ג׳, v. supra. Ib. 53ᵇ סימן דגברי ש̇ק̇ ז̇ר̇ף̇ the mnemonical sign for the authorities quoted is &c. (ש̇שת, לק̇יש, אלעז̇ר, ר̇בא, פ̇פא).—Fem. גְּבַרְתָּא, only assumed for argument, v. אַנְתְּרוֹפִי. V. also גּוּבְרָא.
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 12 distinct written forms H1400 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| גֻּבְרַיָּ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 3:12 | 6 |
| גֻּבְרִ֣ין | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 3:8 | 3 |
| גֻּבְרַיָּ֤/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 6:5 | 3 |
| גֻבְרִ֨ין | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 3:24 | 1 |
| גְּבַ֜ר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 5:11 | 1 |
| גְּבַר֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 2:25 | 1 |
| גֻּבְרַיָּ֔/א | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 5:4 | 1 |
| גֻּבְרַיָּ֖/א | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 5:10 | 1 |
| וְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֤/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 3:23 | 1 |
| וּ/לְ/גֻבְרִ֤ין | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute | Daniel 3:20 | 1 |
| לְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֣/א | Particle, Definite Article | Daniel 3:27 | 1 |
| לְ/גֻבְרַיָּ֥/א | Particle, Definite Article | Ezra 6:8 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1400, 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 → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 20 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 20 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.
