דָּלָה
to draw
‘to draw’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Piel, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 5 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H1802 appears — 4 distinct verses across 3 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 2:16 וַ/תִּדְלֶ֗נָה conj + Qal wimpf 3fp Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
- Exodus 2:19 דָּלֹ֤ה דָלָה֙ Qal inf.abs Qal pf 3ms They said, "An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and moreover he drew water for us, and watered the flock."
Psalms 1 verse
Proverbs 1 verse
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.
“to draw” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb דלה (dâlâh). The Hebrew Bible uses it only 4 verses. More than half of its appearances fall in Exodus. First canonically at Exodus 2:16, it enters the text early. Across 2 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Piel). See the sense tree, 4-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1802 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 →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
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 4 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 50%
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†: Drew 2×
- American Standard Version†: Drew 1×, Jehovah for thou hast raised me up 1×, Moreover he drew 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Draw water 1×, Draws them out 1×, Drew water 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Drew 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1802 across 5† 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H1802 across 5† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1802 across 4† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1802 across 6† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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.
דלה I draw (water) (NH id., Aramaic דְּלָא, ܕܠܴܐ Arabic دَلَا pull up bucket
Qal
- Pf. דָּלָה Ex 2:19; Impf. 3 ms. sf. יִדְלֶ֑נָּה Pr 20:5; 3 f. pl. וַתִּדְלֶנָה Ex 2:16; Inf. abs. דָּלֹה Ex 2:19;—draw (water, but no obj. expr.) Ex 2:16, 19(×2); fig. of drawing counsel (עֵצָה) out of heart, c. acc. (sf.) Pr 20:5.—דַּלְיוּ Pr 26:7 is difficult; read perhaps 3 m. pl. דָּלָיוּ intrans., a lame man’s legs hang down (helpless) so Ew Sta§ 413 a; other views in De Now. e.g. Exodus 2:19
Piel
- Pf. 2 ms. sf. דִּלִּיתָ֑נִי ψ 30:2 fig. (cf. Pa. in Syriac) subj. י׳ thou hast drawn me up (out of Shee’ôl cf. v 4). e.g. Psalms 30:2
דלה II door, only Qr דְּלָֽתְךָ (Kt דלתיך) Is 26
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. vb. draw (water) (NH id., Aramaic דְּלָא, ܕܠܴܐ Arabic دَلَا pull up bucket; ii, iv let down; v hang down; cf. دَلْوٌ bucket; Ethiopic ደለወ weigh; Assyrian dalû, draw water, cf. Dl§ 108 C AdlerPAOS Oct. 1888, xcix.; also dilûtu, bucket, Idib., dalâni COTGloss.)—
II. n.f. door, only Qr דְּלָֽתְךָ (Kt דלתיך) Is 26:20 fig., door of chamber in which people (personified) hide (cf. also דֶּלֶת du.).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from דלל (dâlal) (H1809) — to hang.
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.
דָּלָה
- , v. דלי
דלי
- [to be suspended, swing; denom. דֳּלִי; whence]
- 1. to draw water. Gen. R. s. 93; Cant. R. to I, 1. Ex. R. s. 1 אנשים דּוֹלִים וכ׳ men draw the water and women water the flock; a. fr.—Yoma 28ᵇ (play on ד̇מ̇ש̇ק̇, Gen. XV, 2) שדּוֹֹלֶה ומ̇ש̇ק̇ה וכ׳ he (Eliezer) drew and gave to drink of his master’s teachings.—2) to lift up, relieve. Midr. Till. to Ps. I, 3 וכשיִדְלֵנִי וכ׳ and when the Lord shall lift me up out of the depths of suffering. Cant. R. to II, 1. e.g. Genesis 15:2
- 1. to draw water, to irrigate. B. Kam. 51ᵇ המַדְלֶה מים וכ׳ he who draws water (to irrigate his field &c.); ואני אַדְלֶה and I will &c.; a. fr.
- 2. (denom. of דָּלִית) to suspend, to train a plant to an espalier &c. Succ. I, 4 ה׳ עליה וכ׳ if he trained a vine over the festive wreath. Kil. VI, 4; a. fr.—Part. pass. מוּדְלֶה, f. מוּדְלָה. Ib. Midd. III, 8. Y. B. Mets. X, 12ᶜ, v. דָּלִית.—Bab. ib. 91ᵇ במוּדָלוֹת Ms. F. (ed. במודלית) when figs and grapes overhang one another. [Y. Shebi. II, 33ᶜ bot. מודלה, v. מִדְלַעַת.]
- to sprinkle. Part. מְדַלֶּה, pl. מְדַלִּין. M. Kat. 4ᵃ sq., v. דָּלַל.
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 5 distinct written forms H1802 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| דִלִּיתָ֑/נִי | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 30:1 | 1 |
| דָלָה֙ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 2:19 | 1 |
| דָּלֹ֤ה | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Absolute | Exodus 2:19 | 1 |
| וַ/תִּדְלֶ֗נָה | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural | Exodus 2:16 | 1 |
| יִדְלֶֽ/נָּה | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Proverbs 20:5 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1802, 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
Derived from this word
- דלה dallâh H1803 hair
- דלי dᵉlîy H1805 bucket
- דליה dâlîyâh H1808 branch
- דלל dâlal H1809 to hang
- דלת deleth H1817 door
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 9 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 4 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.
