גֻּלְגֹּ֫לֶת
skull
also: head, poll 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct 6 times (50%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 4 times (33%)
- Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct 2 times (17%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 12 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1538 appears — 12 distinct verses across 5 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.
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 16:16 לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֗לֶת prep det + n c fs This is the thing which Yahweh has commanded: "Gather of it everyone according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall you take it, every man for those who are in his tent."
- Exodus 38:26 לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֔לֶת prep det + n c fs a beka a head, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone who passed over to those who were numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred three thousand five hundred fifty men.
Numbers 5 verses
- Numbers 1:2 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָֽ/ם prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp "Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, every male, one by one;
- Numbers 1:18 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָֽ/ם prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp They assembled all the congregation together on the first day of the second month; and they declared their ancestry by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, one by one.
- Numbers 1:20 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ֔/ם prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp The children of Reuben, Israel's firstborn, their generations, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, one by one, every male from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
- Numbers 1:22 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ֔/ם prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp Of the children of Simeon, their generations, by their families, by their fathers' houses, those who were numbered of it, according to the number of the names, one by one, every male from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go out to war;
- Numbers 3:47 לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֑לֶת prep det + n c fs you shall take five shekels apiece for each one; after the shekel of the sanctuary you shall take them (the shekel is twenty gerahs):
Judges 1 verse
2 Kings 1 verse
1 Chronicles 3 verses
- 1 Chronicles 10:10 גֻּלְגָּלְתּ֥/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms They put his armor in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the house of Dagon.
- 1 Chronicles 23:3 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ/ם֙ prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp The Levites were numbered from thirty years old and upward: and their number by their polls, man by man, was thirty-eight thousand.
- 1 Chronicles 23:24 לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ֔/ם prep + n c fp cs + sfx pers 3mp These were the sons of Levi after their fathers' houses, even the heads of the fathers' [houses] of those of those who were counted, in the number of names by their polls, who did the work for the service of the house of Yahweh, from twenty years old and upward.
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.
“skull” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun גלגלת (gulgôleth). First canonically at Exodus 16:16, it enters the text early. It turns up in 12 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Numbers, which alone accounts for 42% of its uses. Not a single-sense word, it carries 3 senses, among them “head” and “poll”. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1538 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,101
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 12 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Numbers 5 verses 42%
- 1 Chronicles 3 verses 25%
- Exodus 2 verses 17%
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 12 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 7 verses · 58%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 25%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 17%
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: Polls 6×, Every man 2×, Skull 2×
- American Standard Version: Polls 6×, Head 3×, Skull 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: One by one 3×, Skull 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: According to their skulls 4×, Skull 3×, Head 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1538 across 12 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1538 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1538 across 11 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1538 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses 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.
- head, poll, skull
- skull
- head, poll (of census)
Word origin
Derived from גלל (gâlal) (H1556) — to roll.
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.
גּלְגֹּלֶת
- , v. גּוּלְגּוֹלֶת
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 9 distinct written forms H1538 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ֔/ם | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | 1 Chronicles 23:24 | 3 |
| לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָֽ/ם | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | Numbers 1:2 | 2 |
| גֻּלְגָּלְתּ֥/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | 1 Chronicles 10:10 | 1 |
| גֻּלְגָּלְתּֽ/וֹ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Judges 9:53 | 1 |
| הַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֛לֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | 2 Kings 9:35 | 1 |
| לְ/גֻלְגְּלֹתָ/ם֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct | 1 Chronicles 23:3 | 1 |
| לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֑לֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 3:47 | 1 |
| לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֔לֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 38:26 | 1 |
| לַ/גֻּלְגֹּ֗לֶת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 16:16 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1538, 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
- גל gal H1530 wave
- גל gôl H1531 bowl, basin
- גלגל galgal H1534 whirlwind
- גלה gullâh H1543 bowl
- גלול gillûwl H1544 idols
- גליל gâlîyl H1550 circuit
- גלל gâlâl H1557 dung
- גלל gâlâl H1558 on account of
- גלל gᵉlâl H1560 rolling
- מגלה mᵉgillâh H4039 scroll
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 13 — not the complete family. 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 12 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 12 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.
