אוֹ

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

H176 Strong's Hebrew

ʼôw Transliteration

/o/ Pronunciation

Usage in the Hebrew Bible 321 appearances

Definition — BDB

or, rather - implying that the latter choice is preferred - or if, introducing an example to be seen under a particular principle - (in series) either...or, whether...or - if perchance - except, or else - whether, not the least, if, otherwise, also, and, then

Cite this entry

Strong's H176 — או (ʼôw), "or". Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma, https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H176.

Show BibTeX & RIS

BibTeX

@misc{lemma-H176,
  author       = {Lemma},
  title        = {H176 או (ʼôw) — or},
  howpublished = {\url{https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H176}},
  note         = {Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906). Lemma interlinear Bible study tool}
}

RIS

TY  - GEN
AU  - Lemma
TI  - H176 — או (ʼôw), "or"
PB  - Lemma
N1  - Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906)
UR  - https://lemma.gebible.app/w/H176
ER  -

Compare with another word →

Grammar key — what these labels mean

Conjunction: A joining word (e.g. “and,” “but”) linking words or clauses.

Page 1 of 2 — showing verses 1–200 of 218 distinct verses where H176 appears, across 21 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.

Genesis 6 verses

Exodus 25 verses

Leviticus 72 verses

Numbers 30 verses

Deuteronomy 24 verses

Joshua 1 verse

Joshua 7:3 א֚וֹ conj They returned to Joshua, and said to him, Don't let all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and strike Ai; don't make all the people to toil there; for they are but few.

Judges 4 verses

1 Samuel 10 verses

2 Samuel 4 verses

1 Kings 3 verses

2 Kings 4 verses

2 Chronicles 1 verse

2 Chronicles 6:36 א֥וֹ conj If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn't sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to a land far off or near;

Job 12 verses

Proverbs 2 verses

Ecclesiastes 2 verses

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.

“or” is the headline sense of the Hebrew word או (ʼôw). First canonically at Genesis 24:49, it enters the text early. It appears 218 verses across 21 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. More than a third of its appearances fall in Leviticus. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 218-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890

also

Modern gloss

About this word

Strong's H176 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 →

218: distinct verses; The word appears in 218 distinct verses.
21 / 39: OT books; The word appears in 21 of 39 Old Testament books.
Genesis 24:49: first appearance; The earliest occurrence is in Genesis 24:49.
Malachi 2:17: last appearance; The latest occurrence is in Malachi 2:17.
#154: by frequency; Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 154 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 218 occurrences in the concordance →

Most concentrated in

Leviticus 72 verses 33%
Numbers 30 verses 14%
Exodus 25 verses 11%

By section of the Old Testament

Pentateuch 157 · 72%
Historical 27 · 12%
Wisdom 21 · 10%
Prophets 13 · 6%

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 218 distinct verses.

Torah (Pentateuch) 157 verses · 72%
Prophets (Nevi'im) 39 verses · 18%
Writings (Ketuvim) 22 verses · 10%

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: Or 9×, And 2×, Either 2×
American Standard Version: Or 13×
Berean Standard Bible: Or 240×, If 5×, Whether 5×
unfoldingWord Literal Text: Or 306×, Whether 4×, If 3×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H176 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Or” 9×
“And” 2×
“Either” 2×

Plus 7 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.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H176 across 21 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Or” 13×

Plus 8 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 H176 across 265 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Or” 240×
“If” 5×
“Whether” 5×
“And” 4×
“You or” 3×
“Either” 2×

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 56 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H176 across 321 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

“Or” 306×
“Whether” 4×
“If” 3×
“Or if” 3×

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 4 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.

או I (أَوْ, ܐܰܘ, አው ), conj. or (whether aut or vel).

1. Gn 24:49; 31:43 Ex 4:11 Ct 2:9 Lv 13:24 Nu 5:30 + often (especially in laws); sometimes implying a preference, nearly = or rather Gn 24:55 יָמִים אוֹ עָשׂוֹר a few days or ten Ju 18:19 1 S 29:3. Prefixed to the first as well as to the second alternative (rare) either (whether) … or Lv 5:1; 13:48, 51; = or, if not Ez 21:15 (si vera l.) Ke Mal 2:17 Jb 16:3; 22:11. e.g. Genesis 24:49
2. introducing a sentence, especially a particular case under a general principle, or = or if Ex 21:31 אוֹ־בֵן יִגַּח וג׳ or if he gore a son, etc. v 36 Lv 4:23, 28 (v. Di) 5:21, 22; 25:49b; Nu 5:14 2 S 18:13 or if I had dealt falsely against his life, then, etc., Ez 14:17, 19 or if I send, etc. e.g. Exodus 21:31
3. if perchance, 1 S 20:10 if perchance thy father answer thee with something hard, Lv 26:41. e.g. 1 Samuel 20:10
4. once, with the juss. (as in Arabic with the subjunct. v. Dr§ 175 = except: Is 27:5 I would burn them together, אוֹ יַחֲזֵק בְּמָעֻזִּי or else let him take hold (= except he take hold) of my strong-hold, etc.—אַו Pr 31:4 v. sub [אָוָה] on p. 16. e.g. Isaiah 27:5

או II cstr. אוֹ, Kt Pr 31

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. (أَوْ, ܐܰܘ, አው ), conj. or (whether aut or vel).

I. n.m. cstr. אוֹ, Kt Pr 31:4 desire, so Thes MV; but אֵי q.v.

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

Derived from אוה (ʼavvâh) (H185) — desire.

TWOT: 36

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.

או־

1. prefix, esp. for verbal nouns, e.g. 1) prefix, esp. for verbal nouns, e.g. אודיצותא fr. דיץ.
2. או, אוו = εὐ-αὐ, v. אב

אוֹ I

, v. Ges. H. Dict. s. v.) or; או … או either … or. Shebu. 27ᵃ או … לחלק the word אוֹ in the Bible text is necessary as a disjunctif, (one or the other), contrad. from ו־ which is conjunctive (one and the other). Men. 91ᵃ; או לדרשא the word אוֹ intimates something not explicitly stated in the text; a. fr.—Pl. אוֹאִין Shebu. 33ᵇ.—אוֹיִין, אוֹיִים, const. אוֹיֵי the word אוֹ in the biblical passages. Y. ibid. IV, 35ᶜᵈ

אוֹ

Targ. Ex. XXI, 20; a. e. Targ. Prov. VI, 28 Ms. (ed. אי).—Ber. 2ᵇ, v. דילמא; a. v. fr.

אוֹ II

(ὁ) the. Y. R. Hash. I, 57ᵃ bot. (in a Greek sentence), v. אגרפוס.

אוּ

(contr. of אֲהוּ, אֲהִי v. הוּ, הִי)he, that, this (only in Y. Dial). [Y. Ber. II, 5ᵇ top או מקשי, read הוה מ׳; ed. Amst. בעי.] Y. B. Bath. III, 14ᵇ I was jesting באו גברא with that man. Y. Snh. XI, beg. 30ᵃ באו ד(א)מר with him who says—Fem. אִי.—Y. Erub. III, 21ᵇ bot. אי אידא אי אידא it is all the same; v. אִידָא II.

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 16 distinct written forms H176 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
א֣וֹ	Conjunction	Amos 3:12	77
א֥וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 4:16	59
אוֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 17:2	45
אֽוֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 13:6	43
א֖וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 4:32	28
א֤וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 14:21	22
א֚וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 15:12	18
א֛וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 13:3	11
א֧וֹ	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 13:6	5
א֠וֹ	Conjunction	Exodus 21:33	3
א֨וֹ	Conjunction	Judges 21:22	3
אוֹ֩	Conjunction	Deuteronomy 17:5	3
א֕וֹ	Conjunction	Leviticus 5:2	1
א֡וֹ	Conjunction	Numbers 35:18	1
או	Conjunction	Proverbs 31:4	1
אוֹ֮	Conjunction	Leviticus 5:11	1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H176, 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

אוה ʼavvâh H185 desire

Derived from this word

אולי ʼûwlay H194 perhaps

Proper names from this root

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

אואל ʼÛwʼêl H177 Uel

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 217 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 218 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.