הֲוָא
to become
‘to become’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
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”).
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H1934 appears in the Book of Ezra — 15 distinct verses. 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.
Ezra
- Ezra 4:12 לֶהֱוֵ֣א Qal impf 3ms Be it known to the king, that the Jews who came up from you are come to us to Jerusalem; they are building the rebellious and the bad city, and have finished the walls, and repaired the foundations.
- Ezra 4:13 לֶהֱוֵ֣א Qal impf 3ms Be it known now to the king that if this city is built, and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and in the end it will be hurtful to the kings.
- Ezra 4:20 הֲווֹ֙ Qal pf 3mp There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem, who have ruled over all [the country] beyond the River; and tribute, custom, and toll, was paid to them.
- Ezra 4:22 הֱו֛וֹ Qal impv 2mp Take heed that you not be slack herein: why should damage grow to the hurt of the kings?
- Ezra 4:24 וַ/הֲוָת֙ conj + Qal pf 3fs Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and it ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.
- Ezra 5:5 הֲוָת֙ Qal pf 3fs But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not make them cease, until the matter should come to Darius, and then answer should be returned by letter concerning it.
- Ezra 5:8 לֶהֱוֵ֣א Qal impf 3ms Be it known to the king, that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is built with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls; and this work goes on with diligence and prospers in their hands.
- Ezra 5:11 הֲוָ֨א Qal pf 3ms Thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are building the house that was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.
- Ezra 6:6 הֲו֖וֹ Qal impv 2mp Now therefore, Tattenai, governor beyond the River, Shetharbozenai, and your companions the Apharsachites, who are beyond the River, be you far from there:
- Ezra 6:8 תֶּהֱוֵ֧א Qal impf 3fs Moreover I make a decree what you shall do to these elders of the Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the River, expenses be given with all diligence to these men, that they be not hindered.
- Ezra 6:9 לֶהֱוֵ֨א Qal impf 3ms That which they have need of, both young bulls, and rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings to the God of heaven; [also] wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word of the priests who are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail;
- Ezra 6:10 לֶהֱוֺ֧ן Qal impf 3mp that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savor to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons.
- Ezra 7:23 לֶֽהֱוֵא֙ Qal impf 3ms Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done exactly for the house of the God of heaven; for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons?
- Ezra 7:25 לֶהֱוֺ֤ן Qal impf 3mp You, Ezra, after the wisdom of your God who is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges, who may judge all the people who are beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God; and teach you him who doesn't know them.
- Ezra 7:26 לֶהֱוֵ֨א לֶהֱוֵ֥א Qal impf 3ms Qal impf 3ms Whoever will not do the law of your God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed on him with all diligence, whether it be to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
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
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.
- #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 →
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
- to come to pass, become, be
(Peal)
- to come to pass
- to come into being, arise, become, come to be
- 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.
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.