דְּמוּת
likeness
‘likeness’ 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 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
- Singular
- One.
9 verses where H1823 appears in the Construct state in the Book of Ezekiel. 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.
Ezekiel
- Ezekiel 1:5 דְּמ֖וּת דְּמ֥וּת n c fs cs n c fs cs Out of the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. This was their appearance: they had the likeness of a man.
- Ezekiel 1:10 וּ/דְמ֣וּת conj + n c fs cs As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man; and they four had the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle.
- Ezekiel 1:13 וּ/דְמ֨וּת conj + n c fs cs As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches: [the fire] went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.
- Ezekiel 1:26 דְּמ֣וּת דְּמ֣וּת דְּמ֞וּת n c fs cs n c fs cs n c fs Above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and on the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man on it above.
- Ezekiel 1:28 דְּמ֣וּת n c fs cs As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.
- Ezekiel 10:1 דְּמ֣וּת n c fs cs Then I looked, and see, in the expanse that was over the head of the cherubim there appeared above them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.
- Ezekiel 10:21 וּ/דְמוּת֙ conj + n c fs cs Every one had four faces, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.
- Ezekiel 10:22 וּ/דְמ֣וּת conj + n c fs cs As for the likeness of their faces, they were the faces which I saw by the river Chebar, their appearances and themselves; they went every one straight forward.
- Ezekiel 23:15 דְּמ֤וּת n c fs cs girded with girdles on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.
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.
דמות (dᵉmûwth) is a Hebrew word most often rendered “likeness.” Ezekiel dominates its distribution — 13 of 22 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 22 verses — uncommon. Debuting at Genesis 1:26, it then recurs through the corpus. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H1823 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 →
- 22
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 22 distinct verses.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,282
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,282 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 22 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 22 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 16 verses · 73%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 14%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 14%
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: Likeness 11×, Was the likeness 2×
- American Standard Version: Likeness 10×, And 2×, Was the likeness 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Likeness 6×, Form 4×, Looked like 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Likeness 10×, Likeness of 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H1823 across 25 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 H1823 across 25 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H1823 across 23 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H1823 across 25 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
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. likeness, similitude, of external appearance, chiefly in Ezek.: Ez 1:5 (likeness, i.e. something that appeared like) so v 26; 8:2 דְּמוּת כְּמַרְאֵה (אֵשׁ) (cf. Co), 10:1 כְּמַרְאֵה ד׳ כִּסֵּא; cf. also Dn 10:16 כִּדְמוּת בְּנֵי אָדָם i.e. one like the sons of man; similitude, resemblance Ez 1:5, 10, 16, 22, 26; 10:10, 21, 22; דְּמוּת כְּמַרְאֵה אָדָם 1:26; מַרְאֵה ד׳ כְּבוֹד י׳ v 28; also 2 K 16:10 (pattern of altar), 2 Ch 4:3 (images of oxen); of son in likeness of father Gn 5:3 (P); so also of man in likeness of God Gn 1:26 (‖ צֶלֶם), 5:1 (both P); cf. Is 40:18 what ד׳ will ye compare to him (אֵל)? ‖ דִּמָּה q.v. e.g. Ezekiel 1:5
- 2. adverbially, in likeness of, like as Is 13:4 cf. Ez 23:15 & כִּד׳ ψ 58:5.—Ez 1:13 read וּבֵינוֹת v. בֵּין and J P PetersJBL 1892, 40.42. On דְּמוּת אֶחָד Ez 1:16; 10:10 (apparently masc.) cf. Thes & Sm who trans. the likeness of one had they all four; Co reads אהת. e.g. Isaiah 13:4
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.f. likeness, similitude (mostly late) (according to LagBN 12, 147 ff. mispunct. for דִּמְוַת from דִּמְוָה; according to WeProl. 413, Eng. Tr 389 an Aramaic loan-word, but v. Di Gn 5:1, DrJPh. xi. 216 CheOP. 474)—abs. ד׳ Is 40:18 + 3 times; cstr. ד׳ Gn 5:1 + 16 times; sf. דְּמוּתוֹ Gn 5:3; דְּמוּתֵנוּ 1:26;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from דמה (dâmâh) (H1819) — to resemble.
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.
דָּמוּת
- gossip, v. דִּימָה.
דְּמוּת
- resemblance, image, esp. man’s divine image (Gen. I, 26). Yeb. 63ᵇ כאילו ממעט הד׳ as though he diminished the divine image (by neglecting the propagation of man). Num. R. s. 19 מדמין ד׳ גבורה של מעלה וכ׳ they compare the appearance of Divinity to the shape of man; a. fr.—Pl. דְּמוּיוֹת. Pesik. R. s. 33 כמה ד׳ נדמיתי וכ׳ in how many images (visions) did I appear to you!—Yalk. Ex. 422 שני ד׳ אחד וכ׳(!) two embroidered designs, one on each side. e.g. Genesis 1:26
דְּמוּת ²
- Targ. O. Ex. XX, 4 (v. דְּמוּ). Targ. O. Deut. IV, 15 sq.; a. e.—Pesik. Parah, p. 41ᵃ כדְמוּתֵיה אנא וכ׳ whenever I see a vision resembling him &c.; Pesik. R. s. 14 בדמותיה (corr. acc.).
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 17 distinct written forms H1823 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1823, 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 → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 22 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 22 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.
