גְּדוּלָּה
greatness
‘greatness’ is one of 3 main senses 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
- 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.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H1420 appears in the Book of 1 Chronicles — 3 distinct verses. 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.
1 Chronicles
- 1 Chronicles 17:19 הַ/גְּדוּלָּ֖ה הַ/גְּדֻלּֽוֹת ptcl def.art + n c fs ptcl def.art + n c fp Yahweh, for your servant's sake, and according to your own heart, have you worked all this greatness, to make known all [these] great things.
- 1 Chronicles 17:21 גְּדֻלּ֣וֹת n c fp What one nation in the earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem to himself for a people, to make you a name by great and awesome things, in driving out nations from before your people, whom you redeem out of Egypt?
- 1 Chronicles 29:11 הַ/גְּדֻלָּ֨ה ptcl def.art + n c fs Yours, Yahweh, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, Yahweh, and you are exalted as head above all.
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 noun גדולה centers on the idea of “greatness.” Its earliest occurrence is 2 Samuel 7:21. Spanning 11 verses in 4 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Hebrew Bible. 1 Chronicles dominates its distribution — 3 of 11 verses. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. Dig into 11-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1420 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,001
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,001 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Chronicles 3 verses 27%
- Esther 3 verses 27%
- Psalms 3 verses 27%
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 11 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 82%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 18%
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: Greatness 5×, All these great things 2×
- American Standard Version: Greatness 3×, All this greatness 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Greatness 4×, Great thing 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Greatness 7×, And 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1420 across 12 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1420 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H1420 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1420 across 14 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 2 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.
- a. of Psalmist ψ 71:21, Mordecai Est 6:3; 10:2, king Est 1:4; e.g. Psalms 71:21
- b. of God’s greatness, as an attribute 1 Ch 29:11 ψ 145:3, 6, or of his acts 2 S 7:21 (cf. Dr) v 23 = 1 Ch 17:19(×2), 21. e.g. 1 Chronicles 29:11
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
n.f. greatness—2 S 7:21 + 3 times; גְּדֻלָּה 1 Ch 29:11; cstr. גְּדֻלַּת Est 10:2; sf. גְּדוּלָּתוֹ Est 1:4; גְּדֻלָּתוֹ ψ 145:3; גְּדֻלָּתִי ψ 71:21; גְדֻלָּו֯תְךָ ψ 145:6; pl. intens. גְּדֻלּוֹת 1 Ch 17:19, 21;—chiefly late Heb.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from גדול (gâdôwl) (H1419) — great.
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.
גְּדוּלָּה
- greatness, distinction, dignity, wealth, high position, office. Gitt. 59ᵃ תורה וג׳ במקום א׳ learning and high office combined in one person. Ber. 61ᵃ בג׳ מתחילין מן הגדול וכ׳ for distinction the superior is first mentioned, for degradation the inferior. Erub. 13ᵇ מחזר על הג׳ hunting for office. Ib. 54ᵃ עולה לג׳ will rise to distinction. Y. Ter. V, 43ᶜ top למשחה לג׳ וכ׳ ‘for ointment’ (Num. XVIII, 11) means for installation in office, for unguent, and for lighting. Meg. 31ᵃ גְּדוּלָּתוֹ של הקב"ה Ms. M. (ed. גבורתו) a description of the greatness of the Lord. Ex. R. s. 3 end הלב ששמח בגדוּלַּת אחיו וכ׳ the heart (of Aaron) which rejoiced over a brother’s distinction shall wear the Urim &c.; a. fr. e.g. Numbers 18:11
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 H1420 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| הַ/גְּדוּלָּ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Chronicles 17:19 | 2 |
| גְּֽדֻלָּתִ֗/י | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 71:21 | 1 |
| גְּדֻלּ֣וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Chronicles 17:21 | 1 |
| גְּדֻלַּ֣ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Esther 10:2 | 1 |
| גְּדוּלָּת֑/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Esther 1:4 | 1 |
| הַ/גְּדֻלָּ֨ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Chronicles 29:11 | 1 |
| הַ/גְּדֻלּֽוֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Chronicles 17:19 | 1 |
| הַ/גְּדוּלָּ֤ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Samuel 7:23 | 1 |
| ו/גדולתי/ך | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Psalms 145:6 | 1 |
| וְ֝/לִ/גְדֻלָּת֗/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 145:3 | 1 |
| וּ/גְדוּלָּ֛ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Esther 6:3 | 1 |
| וּ/גְדוּלָּתְ/ךָ֥ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Psalms 145:6 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 10 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
