דֶּ֫לֶת
door
‘door’ is one of 3 main senses 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.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
- Dual
- Exactly two — for natural pairs and some measures of time.
2 verses where H1817 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of Job. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Job
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 דלת centers on the idea of “door.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 19:6. It appears 78 verses across 22 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its moderately common vocabulary. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. It clusters with דלה, דלה and דלי under a shared root. Dig into 78-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1817 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 →
- 78
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 78 distinct verses.
- 22 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 22 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #466
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 466 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 78 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Nehemiah 11 verses 14%
- 2 Kings 8 verses 10%
- 2 Chronicles 8 verses 10%
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 78 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 40 verses · 51%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 32 verses · 41%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 6 verses · 8%
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 8 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†: Doors 42×, Door 20×, Gates 10×
- American Standard Version†: Doors 37×, Door 15×, Gates 7×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Doors 39×, Door 22×, Gates 9×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Doors 31×, Doors of 22×, Door 21×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1817 across 88† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 H1817 across 90† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H1817 across 84† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 4 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1817 across 92† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 6 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.
דלת I door, v. sub דלה.
דלת II 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
דלת III [m.] door (Ph. דל) only fig. cstr. דַּל שְׂפָתָ֑י ψ 141
דלת IV door, only Qr דְּלָֽתְךָ (Kt דלתיך) Is 26
דלת V
- 1. door of house (disting. from door-way, cf. 1 K 6:31 פֶּתַח Gn 19:6) Gn 19:9, 10 Ex 21:6 (all JE) Dt 15:17 Jos 2:19 (JE) Ju 11:31; 19:22, 27 1 S 21:14 (דלתות השׁער) 2 K 4:4, 5; 6:32(×2) Is 57:8 Jb 31:32; so fig. of wisdom’s house Pr 8:34 לִשְׁקֹד עַל־דַּלְתֹתַי; partic. doors of house of י׳ 1 S 3:15 (הֵיכַל י׳ v 3); temple 1 K 6:34(×3); 7:50 2 K 18:16 1 Ch 22:3 2 Ch 3:7; 4:22; 28:24; 29:3 Ne 6:10 Mal 1:10; so of Ezek.’s temple, Ez 41:23, 24(×5), 25. e.g. 1 Kings 6:31
- 2. door of room Ju 3:23, 24, 25 2 S 13:17, 18 2 K 4:33; 9:3, 10, especially doors of דביר or ק׳ קדשׁים 1 K 6:31, 32; 7:50 2 Ch 4:22 cf. also Ez 41:23; also of court עֲזָרָה 2 Ch 4:9(×2), and of porch אוּלָם 2 Ch 29:7. e.g. Judges 3:23
- 3. gates of city Dt 3:5 Jos 6:26 (cf. 1 K 16:34) Ju 16:3 1 S 23:7 2 Ch 8:5; 14:6 Ne 3:1, 6, 13, 14, 15; 6:1; 7:1 (ד׳ then generally distinct from שׁער, wh. denotes the whole structure of gate, incl. posts, open space, etc., while ד׳ is swinging door), 7:3; 13:19 (where also sense narrower than ‖ שׁער) Is 45:1 (‖ שׁערים) cf. v 2 and ψ 107:16; Je 49:31 Ez 38:11. e.g. Deuteronomy 3:5
- 4. in other senses (mostly fig.): door (prob. lid) of chest 2 K 12:10; aperture of womb Jb 3:10 (ד׳ בטני); jaws of crocodile Jb 41:6 (ד׳ פניו); lips of man Ec 12:4; doors enclosing and shutting off sea Jb 38:8, 10; doors of heaven through wh. comes rain ψ 78:23 (cf. אֲרֻבֹּת השׁ׳ Gn 7:11); of column of Ms.. (from shape) Je 36:23; fig. of easily accessible woman, Ct 8:9; in simile Pr 26:14; of Jerus. as gate of people Ez 26:2; of Lebanon Zc 11:1. e.g. 2 Kings 12:10
דלת VI low, weak, poor, thin (especially common in Wisd. lit. and poet.)
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. n. door, v. sub דלה.
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.[m.] door (Ph. דל) only fig. cstr. דַּל שְׂפָתָ֑י ψ 141:3.
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.).
I. n.f. (? m. Ne 13:19) door (NH id.; Assyrian daltu(m) StrmAV 1843 SchrCOT Gloss.; Ph. pl. דלהת CISi, 7, 3;—according to BaZMG 1887, 607 from √ ידל, Assyrian edilu, to bolt, bar)—דֶּלֶת (always abs., and c. art. except Ct 8:9 + Ez 41:24 but here Co art.) Gn 19:10 + 18 times; דָּ֑לֶת Gn 19:9 Ju 19:22; sf. דַּלְתּוֹ 2 K 12:10; Du דְּלָתַיִם (cf. Ges§ 93 n) Dt 3:5 + 9 times, דְּלָתָ֑יִם Jb 38:10; cstr. דַּלְתֵי Jos 2:19 + 6 times + Ez 26:2 Co; sf. דְּלָתַי Jb 31:32, דְּלָתֶיךָ Zc 11:1 + Is 26:20 Kt (cf. דָּלָה n.f.), דְּלָתֶיהָ Jos 6:26 1 K 16:34; pl. דְּלָתוֹת Je 36:23 + 10 times; cstr. דַּלְתוֹת Ju 3:23 + 19 times + Ez 26:2 (Co דלתי); sf. דַּלְתֹתַי Pr 8:34, דַּלְתוֹתָיו 2 Ch 3:7; 4:22; דַּלְתֹתָיו Ne 3:1, 3, 6, 13, 14, 15; דַּלְתוֹתֵיהֶם 2 Ch 4:9;
II. adj. low, weak, poor, thin (especially common in Wisd. lit. and poet.)—דַּל Lv 14:21 + 8 times, דָּל֑ Ex 23:3 + 17 times + דָּל֥ ψ 82:3; דַּלִּים Am 2:7 + 17 times; דַּלּוֹת Gn 41:19;—weak, thin, of kine Gn 41:19 (E); of Amnon 2 S 13:4; weak, of family of Saul 2 S 3:1 (opp. חָזֵק) cf. Ju 6:15; reduced, poor (opp. rich) Lv 14:21 (P) Ru 3:10 (opp. עָשִׁיר) Je 5:4 (opp. to הגדולים, v 5) Pr 28:15 Zp 3:12 (עַם עָנִי וָדָל֑); mostly subst., a poor (man), the poor Ex 23:3 (JE); opp. to עָשִׁיר Ex 30:15 (P) Pr 10:15; 22:16; 28:11; opp. הוֹן Pr 19:4; ‖ אביון 1 S 2:8 Jb 5:16 ψ 72:13; 82:4; 113:7 Pr 14:31 Is 14:30; 25:4 Am 4:1; 8:6; cf. also Jb 20:10, 19 Pr 22:9 Je 39:10; reduced, weak, helpless (‖ עני) Jb 34:28 ψ 82:3 (‖ also יתום), Pr 22:22 Is 10:2; 11:4; 26:6 Am 2:7; ‖ אלמנה Jb 31:16; opp. שׁוֹעַ Jb 34:19;—cf. also ψ 41:2 Pr 19:17; 21:13; 28:3, 8; 29:7, 14.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from דלה (dâlâh) (H1802) — to draw.
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.
דֶּלֶת
- door, lid on hinges, shutter. Erub. 101ᵃ, v. אַלְמָנָה.—נעל ד׳ בפני לוין to shut the door to borrowers, to render credit difficult. Snh. 32ᵃ; a. fr.—B. Kam. 80ᵇ ד׳ הננעלת וכ׳ a door once shut is not easily opened, i.e. it requires ardent prayer to regain divine grace after a calamity has set in; a. fr.—Tosef. Kel. B. Mets. VI, 7 של ד׳ on hinges, v. מַסְחֵיט.—Pl. דְּלָתוֹת, constr. דַּלְתוֹת. Sabb. XVII, 1. Lev. R. s. 14 יש ד׳ וכ׳ a woman’s womb has doors (muscles, ref. to Job III, 10); a. fr.—Par. III, 2; Tosef. ib. III (II), 2 על גביהן ד׳ a seat of boards on hinges upon the backs of the oxen; Succ. 21ᵃ.—Yoma 9ᵇ כד׳ vacillating like doors, v. דַּלּוּת. [Y. Kidd. I, 59ᵈ top, v. דְּלַעַת.] e.g. Job 3:10
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 61 distinct written forms H1817 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 1 rarer form follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1817, 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
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 7 — 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 64 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 78 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
- Genesis 19:6
- Exodus 21:6
- Deuteronomy 3:5
- Joshua 2:19
- Judges 3:23
- 1 Samuel 3:15
- 2 Samuel 13:17
- 1 Kings 6:31
- 2 Kings 4:4
- 1 Chronicles 22:3
- 2 Chronicles 3:7
- Job 3:10
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.
