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דֶּ֫בֶר

pestilence

‘pestilence’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

H1698 Strong's Hebrew
deber Transliteration
/deh'-ber/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 49 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.

At its core, דבר (deber) means “pestilence.” Its English rendering has broadened — “pestilence” classically, “plague” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 48 verses in 14 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its uses concentrate in Jeremiah (35% of all occurrences). Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
murrain
Modern gloss
pestilence
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current BDB scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's H1698 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 →

48
distinct verses
The word appears in 48 distinct verses.
14 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
Exodus 5:3
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Exodus 5:3.
Habakkuk 3:5
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Habakkuk 3:5.
#752
by frequency
Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 752 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 48 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 6 · 13%
  • Historical 8 · 17%
  • Wisdom 3 · 6%
  • Prophets 31 · 65%

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 48 distinct verses.

  • Prophets (Nevi'im) 34 verses · 71%
  • Writings (Ketuvim) 8 verses · 17%
  • Torah (Pentateuch) 6 verses · 13%

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: Pestilence 40×, Be pestilence 2×
  • American Standard Version: Pestilence 40×, Be pestilence 2×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Plague 43×, Plagues 2×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Plague 32×, Pestilence 4×, Plagues 2×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H1698 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Pestilence” 40×
  • “Be pestilence” 2×

Plus 7 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 H1698 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Pestilence” 40×
  • “Be pestilence” 2×

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 H1698 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Plague” 43×
  • “Plagues” 2×

Plus 4 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 H1698 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Plague” 32×
  • “Pestilence” 4×
  • “Plagues” 2×

Plus 4 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.

  • 1. plague, pestilence, in general Ex 5:3; 9:15 Nu 14:12 (J) Lv 26:25 (H) Dt 28:21, 2 S 24:13, 15 (+ v 15 a 𝔊 We Dr) = 1 Ch 21:12, 14, 1 K 8:37 = 2 Ch 6:28, 2 Ch 7:13; 20:9 ψ 91:3, 6 Je 14:12 + 16 times Je, Ez 5:12 + 11 times Ez, Ho 13:14 Am 4:10 Hb 3:5. Read וּבַדָּ֑בֶר, or the like, 1 S 4:8, for MT בַּמִּדְבָּר, We Klo Dr. e.g. Exodus 5:3
  • 2. cattle-plague, murrain Ex 9:3 (J) = ψ 78:50. e.g. Exodus 9:3

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.m. pestilence (cf. Arabic دَبْرٌ, إِدْبَارٌ, departure, death)—Ex 9:3 +; דָּ֑בֶר Hb 3:5; sf. דְּבָרֶיךָ Ho 13:14;—

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

Derived from דבר (dâbar) (H1696) — to speak.

Part of speech: Noun Masculine TWOT: 399b


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.

דָּבַר

  • (b. h.) to join, arrange, lead (the flock); v. next w.
    • (b. h.) to converse, speak. Ber. 31ᵇ, a. fr. דִּבְּרָה תורה כלשון ב"א the Torah speaks according to the language of men, i.e. uses metaphors and phrases adapted to human understanding. Sot. 12ᵇ שעתיד לְדַבֵּר וכ׳ destined to speak to Divinity. Ter. I, 2 חרש שדִּבְּרוּ … מְדַבֵּר wherever the scholars use the word ḥērēsh, they mean one who neither hears nor talks. Mekh. Bo 7, end, a. fr. או אינו מְדַבֵּר אלא ב־ or does perhaps the text speak only of—? [מְדַבֵּר as a noun, v. s. v.].
    • to hold communion, converse. Mekh. Bo, introd. לא נ׳ עמו וכ׳ the Lord did not hold communion with him outside the capital of Egypt. Ib. fr.
    • , same, esp. part. f. מִדַּבֶּרֶת being on terms of intimacy with a man. Keth. I, 8 ראוה מד׳ עם אחד (omit בשוק); expl. ib. 13ᵃ. Ib. VII, 6 מד׳ עם כל אדם she is intimate with everybody. Ib. לכשהיא מד׳ בתוך ביתה וכ׳ when her neighbors can hear her voice in moments of intimacy with her husband.
    • to make submissive, persuade, v. דִּיבּוּר. Macc. 11ᵃ דִבֵּר לחוד יַדְבֵּר לחוד the Piel dibber has one meaning (speaking harshly), and the Hif. yadber another.

דְּבַר

  • 1. to seize, take, lead, drive. Targ. Gen. XIX, 15; a. fr. (h. לקח).—Ib. XXXI, 18; a. fr. (h. נהג).
  • 2. to conduct one’s self (cmp. נָהַג). Erub. 14ᵇ, a. e. פוק חזי מאי עמא ד׳ go out and see how the people conduct themselves (what the religious usage is). Koh. R. to IX, 10, v. כְּלוּם.
    • 1. to lead, drive. Targ. O. Ex. III, 1 ed. Berl. (ed. דְּבַר). Ib. XIV, 21 (ed. דְּבַר, h. text ויולך). Targ. Ez. XVI, 12; a. e.—Keth. 62ᵇ sq. עד כמה קא מְדַבְּרַת אלמנות חיים how long yet wilt thou lead a life of living widowhood (separation from a living husband)?
    • 2. to carry off. Targ. Ezek. XXXIII, 6; a. e.
    • to take, lead. Targ. Is. XIV, 2; a. fr.—Bets. 21ᵇ אַדְבְּרֵיה וכ׳ took him out on a walk; ib. 29ᵃ. Y. Yeb. XIII, 13ᶜ bot. מַדְבְּרוּן לה גבר they introduce to her a suitor.
    • 1. to be seized, taken away. Targ. Prov. XXIV, 11. Targ. Ez. XXXIII, 6. Targ. II Kings II, 9 sq.; a. e.
    • 2. to conduct one’s self. Targ. Gen. XXXIII, 14 אֵידַבַּר ed. Berl. (h. text אתנהלה).

דָּבָר

  • preced.)
  • 1. word, utterance, command (cmp. דִּיבּוּר). B. Bath. 56ᵇ (ref. to Deut. XIX, 15) ד׳ ולא חצי ד׳ a statement (testimony) but not a partial statement. Mekh. Bo, introd. היה הד׳ לאהרן (Tanḥ. ib. 5 דבור) the word of the Lord came to &c.; a. fr.—דְּבַר תורה according to the Biblical law. Erub. 81; a. fr.—Pl. דְּבָרִים, constr. דִּבְרֵי. ד׳ תורה Biblical laws; ד׳ סופרים Rabbinical laws. Ib. Yeb. IX, 3; a. fr.—ד׳ קבלה prophetic exhortations or incidental utterances in other Biblical books than the Pentateuch. Ḥag. 10ᵇ; Nidd. 23ᵃ; a. e.—B. Mets. 49ᵃ; Bekh. 13ᵇ ד׳ יש בהם משום מחוסרי אמנה to word of mouth the rules concerning the faithless are applied, i.e. a verbal agreement is morally binding. B. Mets. 48ᵃ הנושא ונותן בד׳ וכ׳ he who contracts verbally has no legal claim. Ib. ד׳ ואיכא … קאי באבל he who retracts a verbal transaction with which a payment of money was connected, comes under the category of those against whom the words ‘but the scholars declared’ (ib. IV, 2) has been pronounced.—דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים the Book of Chronicles. Lev. R. s. 1. B. Bath. 14ᵇ.—דָּבָר אַחֵר (abbrev. ד"א) another interpretation (is this). Gen. R. s. 1, beg.; a. fr.—2) thing, affair, object, occurrence &c. Sot. 28ᵇ ד׳ שיש בו דעת לישאל an object which has sense to ask, i.e. a rational being, opp. ד׳ שאין וכ׳ dumb creatures &c.—Num. R. s. 11 ד׳ שבינך לבינו that which concerns only thy relation to God; v. בֵּין.—ד׳ שבממון a monetary affair. B. Mets. 94ᵃ; a. fr.—ד׳ הלמד מענינו a thing (law) derived from the context on the very subject. Sifra, introd.; a. fr.—ד׳ אחר (abbr. ד"א) something not to be named, a) idolatry. Men. XIII, 10 ואין צריך לומר לד"א much less priests who have been offering to idols; a. fr.—b) swine. Ber. 43ᵇ (prov.) תלה ליה קורא לד"א וכ׳ hang a palm shoot around the swine and it will follow its habits (of wallowing in the mud). Sabb. 129ᵃ sq.; a. e.—c) leprosy Ib. אי פגע בד"א קשה לד"א if he meets a swine (after blood letting), he is in danger of becoming a leper.—d) unchaste conduct, sexual intercourse, sodomy &c. Ib. 17ᵇ על בנותיהן משום ד"א ועל ד"א משום ד"א they forbade connection with their daughters on account of idolatry, and decreed something else (that a gentile child should be unclean as though afflicted with gonorrhœa) on account of sodomy. Ber. 8ᵇ צנועין בד"א chaste in marital life; a. fr.—Pl. as above.—בעל ד׳ the person to deal with, opponent, party. B. Mets. 14ᵃ לאו ב"ד דידי את I have nothing to do with thee; a. fr.—לא היו ד׳ מעולם there were no such things, I deny it outright. Shebu. 41ᵇ; a. fr.—ד׳ בגב, ד׳ בגו, v. גַּב, גֵּו. e.g. Deuteronomy 19:15

דֶּבֶר

  • , esp. Targ. Ez. XXXIII, 6) death, pestilence. Ab. V, 8. Sabb. 33ᵃ; a. fr.—Esp. the plague of pestilence in Egypt. Ex. R. s. 12. Tanḥ. Vaëra 14; a. fr.

דַּבָּר

  • (דבר) leader.—Pl. דַּבָּרִין. Snh. 8ᵃ ד׳ אחד וכ׳ a generation must have one leader, but not two.

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 35 distinct written forms H1698 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
וּ/בַ/דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 21:9 4
דֶּ֖בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 9:3 3
דֶּ֨בֶר֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Amos 4:10 3
הַ/דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Deuteronomy 28:21 3
בַּ/דֶּ֣בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 5:12 2
דֶּ֣בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 Kings 8:37 2
הַ/דֶּ֣בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 21:7 2
וּ/בַ/דֶּ֖בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 6:11 2
וּ/בַ/דָּֽבֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 32:36 2
בַ/דֶּ֖בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Numbers 14:12 1
בְּ/דֶ֣בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 38:22 1
בְּ/דֶ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 21:6 1
בַּ/דֶּ֖בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 5:3 1
בַּ/דֶּ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 33:27 1
בַּ/דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Exodus 9:15 1
דְבָרֶי/ךָ֜ Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct Hosea 13:14 1
דֶ֨בֶר֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Leviticus 26:25 1
דֶּ֤בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 28:23 1
דֶּ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 14:19 1
דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Habakkuk 3:5 1
וְ/דֶ֣בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 2 Chronicles 20:9 1
וְ/דֶ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 5:17 1
וְ/דֶ֨בֶר֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 Chronicles 21:12 1
וְ/הַ/דֶּ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 7:15 1
וְ/הַ/דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 32:24 1
וָ/דֶ֔בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 14:21 1
וָ/דֶ֖בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 7:15 1
וּ/בַ/דֶּ֔בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 14:12 1
וּ/בַ/דֶּ֜בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 27:8 1
וּ/בַ/דָּ֑בֶר֙ Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 27:13 1
וּ/לְ/דָֽבֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Jeremiah 28:8 1
וּ/מִ/דָּ֑בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Ezekiel 12:16 1
לַ/דֶּ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Psalms 78:50 1
מִ/דֶּ֥בֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct Psalms 91:3 1
מִ֭/דֶּבֶר Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute Psalms 91:6 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1698, 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

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint verse parallels

This word appears in 42 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 48 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

Reading text

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Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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