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הֲוָא

to become

‘to become’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓

H1934 Strong's Hebrew
hâvâʼ Transliteration
/hav-aw'/ Pronunciation
Usage in the Hebrew Bible 71 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.

הוא (hâvâʼ) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to become.” Daniel dominates its distribution — 39 of 54 verses. Spanning 54 verses in 2 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Its lexical range runs to 4 senses. Its English rendering has broadened — “shall be” classically, “he” (Berean Standard Bible) and “i was” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
be
Modern gloss
to become
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 H1934 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 →

54
distinct verses
The word appears in 54 distinct verses.
2 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
Ezra 4:12
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Ezra 4:12.
Daniel 7:23
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Daniel 7:23.
#558
by frequency
Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 558 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).

View all 54 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the Old Testament

  • Pentateuch 0 · 0%
  • Historical 15 · 28%
  • Wisdom 0 · 0%
  • Prophets 39 · 72%

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 54 distinct verses.

  • Writings (Ketuvim) 54 verses · 100%

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: Shall be 7×, I beheld 6×, Was 5×
  • American Standard Version: Shall be 7×, I beheld 6×, Was 5×
  • Berean Standard Bible: He 5×, I 5×, Was 4×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: I was 7×, Will be 7×, Was 6×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders H1934 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Shall be” 7×
  • “I beheld” 6×
  • “Was” 5×
  • “Be” 4×
  • “He would” 4×
  • “I saw” 4×
  • “Be it” 2×
  • “Became” 2×
  • “Shall come to pass” 2×

Plus 30 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 3 further occurrences.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders H1934 across 67 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Shall be” 7×
  • “I beheld” 6×
  • “Was” 5×
  • “Be” 4×
  • “He would” 4×
  • “I saw” 4×
  • “Be it” 2×
  • “Became” 2×
  • “Him” 2×
  • “Shall come to pass” 2×

Plus 29 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 H1934 across 50 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “He” 5×
  • “I” 5×
  • “Was” 4×
  • “Will be” 4×
  • “Be” 3×
  • “Will happen” 3×
  • “Became” 2×
  • “I continued” 2×
  • “Let it be” 2×

Plus 20 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 19 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders H1934 across 75 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “I was” 7×
  • “Will be” 7×
  • “Was” 6×
  • “Be” 5×
  • “Let it be” 5×
  • “He wished” 4×
  • “I kept” 4×
  • “Became” 3×
  • “Let” 3×
  • “Were” 3×
  • “They will” 2×
  • “Will happen” 2×

Plus 24 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


Senses in BDB

The 4 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.

  1. to come to pass, become, be

(Peal)

  1. to come to pass
  2. to come into being, arise, become, come to be
  3. to be

Word origin

הֲוָא, הֲוָה 71 vb. come to pass, become, be

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

Derived from הוא (hâvâʼ) (H1933) — to be.

Part of speech: Verb TWOT: 2692


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.

הוּא

  • (b. h.) he, it; she; it is &c. Snh. III, 3 (24ᵇ) if he has no trade אלא הוא (Y. ed., Erub. 82ᵃ היא) except this (gambling &c.); יש לו אומנות שלא הוא (היא) if he has a trade besides this (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 80).—הוא—הוא, היא—היא it is the same, i.e. there is no difference between the two. Y. Ber. I, 3ᵇ היא היא both are equally precious. Gen. R. s. 9, end הוא מאד הוא אדם the word מאד has the same letters as אדם. Ber. 2ᵇ דילמא ביאת אורו הוא perhaps it is (means) the arrival of his day, v. אוֹר II; a. v. fr.—[Shebi. III, 8 עושה הוא; IV, 5 מכסה הוא, Y. ed. עוֹשֵׂהוּ, מְכַסֵּהוּ; ib. X, 6 מזכה הוא; Ms. M., Gitt. 37ᵃ מְזַכֵּהוּ.]—ולא היא but it is not so (it has a different reason &c.). Ber. 57ᵃ; a. fr.—כל שהוא (כל שהיא) a) whosoever, whatsoever (is). Peah II, 4 כל ש׳ אוכל whatever is eatable &c.; a. fr.—b) whatever it may be, a minimum, v. כָּל. Shebi. X, 6 כל שהוא; Gitt. l. c. כל שֶׁהוּ; a. fr.—ספר היא the Book Hi, name of a Pentateuch scroll in the Temple in which היא occurs nine times (for the archaic הִוא), whereas in others it appears eleven times (v. Ab. d’R. N. ch. XXXIV, ed. Schechter). Sifré Deut. 356; Y. Taan. IV, 68ᵃ bot.—הַהוּא, הַהִיא, mostly in Chald. diction, v. next w.—Pl. הֵם m., הֵן c. Ber. 2ᵇ והלא כהנים … הם טובלים but do not priests bathe &c.?—Meg. 14ᵇ רהמניות הן are compassionate. Ḥull. 127ᵇ הרי הן וכ׳ they are to be treated as if &c.; a. v. fr.—הן … הן are the same. Y. Ab. Zar. II, end, 42ᵃ, v. אִסְטַגְיוֹת.—With prep. מֵהֶם, מֵהֶן, לָהֶם &c.

הוּא ²

  • , ch. same. Targ. Ex. I, 16; a. v. fr.—היא הדא, v. דָּא.—Y. Shebi. VII, 37ᶜ top בהוא אתר (R. S. to Shebi. VII, 3 בההוא אתרא) in the same place.—כל דהו whatsoever, v. preced. Arakh. 2ᵃ נפשות כל דהו human beings of any nature, v. כָּל.—Y. Kil. VI, 31ᵇ top כהיא דאמר וכ׳ (in Babli כי הא) as (that which) R. … said.—Pl. הֵן (perhaps only in Hebr. phrases); הִינוּן, הִינִין. Targ. Y. Ex. I, 10; Ib. 19 (O. אינ׳); a. fr.—With prefix ה: הַהוּא, הַהִיא. Targ. Y. Ex. XXI, 20; a. fr.—In Talmud frequ. used to introduce a case. Pes. 3ᵇ ה׳ ארמאה ד־ it occurred that a gentile &c. Keth. 78ᵇ ה׳ איתתא ד־ the case came up of a woman that &c.; a. v. fr.—ה׳ גברא, ה׳ איתתא frequ. euphemistically for myself, thyself (to avoid ominous speech or curse). Y. Maas. Sh. IV, 55ᵇ bot. אביו דה׳ ג׳ thy father. Ib.ᶜ top חמית ה׳ א׳ I saw; בעלה דה׳ א׳ thy husband; a. v. fr.—With prefix ד־: דהוא, דהיא, contr. דּוּ, דִּי, v. דְּ־ a. דּוּ.—With prefixed prep. בְּהוֹן, בּוֹן, לְהוֹן, לוֹן.

הֲוָא

  • , v. הוי

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 49 distinct written forms H1934 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
הֲוֵ֔ית Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 4:10 3
הֲוָ֣א Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:19 3
לֶהֱוֵ֖א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:28 3
לֶהֱוֵ֣א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Ezra 4:12 3
לֶהֱוֵ֥א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:29 3
לֶהֱוֵ֨א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:20 3
הֲוֵ֗ית Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 7:6 2
הֲוֵ֛ית Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 4:13 2
הֲוֵ֜ית Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 7:7 2
הֲוֵ֡ית Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 7:4 2
הֲוֵית֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular Daniel 4:4 2
הֲוָ֣ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:19 2
הֲוָ֤ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:19 2
הֲוָ֥ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:19 2
לֶהֱוֺ֤ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 6:26 2
תֶּהֱוֵ֥א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 2:40 2
הֱו֛וֹ Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezra 4:22 1
הֲו֖וֹ Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezra 6:6 1
הֲו֛וֹ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 5:19 1
הֲו֨וֹ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 6:4 1
הֲוַ֗יְתָ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:34 1
הֲוַ֨יְתָ֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:31 1
הֲוָ֑ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 7:13 1
הֲוָ֛ת Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 2:35 1
הֲוָ֥א Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 6:14 1
הֲוָ֥ת Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 7:19 1
הֲוָ֨א Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Ezra 5:11 1
הֲוָ֨ה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 5:19 1
הֲוָֽה Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 4:29 1
הֲוָת֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezra 5:5 1
הֲווֹ֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezra 4:20 1
וַ/הֲוָת֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezra 4:24 1
וַ/הֲווֹ֙ Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 2:35 1
לֶֽהֱוֵא Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:41 1
לֶֽהֱוֵא֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Ezra 7:23 1
לֶֽהֶוְיָ֔ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural Daniel 5:17 1
לֶהֱוֵ֨ה Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 4:25 1
לֶהֱוֵֽא Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 2:29 1
לֶהֱוֵא Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular Daniel 3:18 1
לֶהֱוֺ֖ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 6:1 1
לֶהֱוֺ֞ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 6:2 1
לֶהֱוֺ֥ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 2:43 1
לֶהֱוֺ֧ן Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Ezra 6:10 1
לֶהֱוֺן֙ Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural Daniel 2:43 1
תֶּהֱוֵ֔ה Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 2:41 1
תֶּהֱוֵ֣א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 7:23 1
תֶּהֱוֵ֣ה Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 2:42 1
תֶּהֱוֵ֥ה Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Daniel 2:42 1
תֶּהֱוֵ֧א Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular Ezra 6:8 1

Same root — word family

Other BDB entries built from the same root as H1934, 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 53 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 54 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

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

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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