הָרַג
to kill
also: slay, murder, destroy, murderer 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”). Here: ‘kill’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”). Here: ‘of Qal 1 a’
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
- Qal Passive
- An archaic passive of the Qal, preserved in a few forms.
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Infinitive Absolute
- An unbound verbal noun, often intensifying or standing in for a finite verb.
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
- Cohortative
- A first-person volitional form expressing wish or resolve (“let me / let us write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H2026 appears in the Book of 2 Chronicles — 12 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.
2 Chronicles
- 2 Chronicles 21:4 וַ/יַּהֲרֹ֥ג conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Now when Jehoram was risen up over the kingdom of his father, and had strengthened himself, he killed all his brothers with the sword, and various also of the princes of Israel.
- 2 Chronicles 21:13 הָרָֽגְתָּ Qal pf 2ms but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the prostitute, like as the house of Ahab did, and also have slain your brothers of your father's house, who were better than yourself:
- 2 Chronicles 22:1 הָרַ֣ג Qal pf 3ms The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place; for the band of men who came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.
- 2 Chronicles 22:8 וַ/יַּהַרְגֵֽ/ם conj + Qal wimpf 3ms + sfx pers 3mp It happened, when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, that he found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brothers of Ahaziah, ministering to Ahaziah, and killed them.
- 2 Chronicles 23:17 הָרְג֖וּ Qal pf 3cp All the people went to the house of Baal, and broke it down, and broke his altars and his images in pieces, and killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.
- 2 Chronicles 24:22 וַֽ/יַּהֲרֹ֖ג conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Thus Joash the king didn't remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. When he died, he said, Yahweh look on it, and require it.
- 2 Chronicles 24:25 וַ/יַּֽהַרְגֻ֥/הוּ conj + Qal wimpf 3mp + sfx pers 3ms When they were departed for him (for they left him very sick), his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed, and he died; and they buried him in the city of David, but they didn't bury him in the tombs of the kings.
- 2 Chronicles 25:3 וַֽ/יַּהֲרֹג֙ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Now it happened, when the kingdom was established to him, that he killed his servants who had killed the king his father.
- 2 Chronicles 28:6 וַ/יַּהֲרֹג֩ conj + Qal wimpf 3ms For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed in Judah one hundred twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men; because they had forsaken Yahweh, the God of their fathers.
- 2 Chronicles 28:7 וַֽ/יַּהֲרֹ֞ג conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the ruler of the house, and Elkanah who was next to the king.
- 2 Chronicles 28:9 וַ/תַּֽהַרְגוּ conj + Qal wimpf 2mp But a prophet of Yahweh was there, whose name was Oded: and he went out to meet the host that came to Samaria, and said to them, Behold, because Yahweh, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven.
- 2 Chronicles 36:17 וַ/יַּהֲרֹ֨ג conj + Qal wimpf 3ms Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed: he gave them all into his hand.
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.
At its core, הרג (hârag) means “to kill.” The King James Version usually renders it “slew,” while modern versions prefer “killed” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 158 verses in 27 books, it ranks among the common words of the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Genesis 4:8. Different stems carry different senses — BDB groups them under 3 stems, among them Qal and Niphal. Dig into 158-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2026 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 →
- 158
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 158 distinct verses.
- 27 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 27 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #273
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 273 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 158 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 16 verses 10%
- Judges 14 verses 9%
- 2 Chronicles 12 verses 8%
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 158 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 76 verses · 48%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 45 verses · 28%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 37 verses · 23%
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: Slew 37×, Slay 18×, They slew 9×
- American Standard Version: Slew 30×, Slay 14×, They slew 9×
- Berean Standard Bible: Killed 20×, Kill 13×, They killed 8×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Killed 12×, Kill 10×, He killed 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2026 across 167 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 55 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 H2026 across 165 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 64 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 H2026 across 159 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 62 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 8 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2026 across 182 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 62 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
13 senses and sub-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. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel).
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 13 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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 ms. ה׳ Ju 9:24 + 4 times, הָרָ֑ג 2 S 14:7 + 2 times, וְהָרַג consec. Is 27:1; sf. וַהֲרָגָ֑נִי consec. 1 S 16:2 + 2 times; הֲרָגוֹ Gn 4:25; etc.; Impf. יַהֲרֹג ψ 10:8 + 4 times; יַהֲרָג־ Jb 5:2; וַיַּהֲרֹג Ex 13:15 + 14 times; sf. יַהַרְגֵנִי Gn 4:14; 1 s. אַהֱרוֹג Am 2:3, אֶהֱרֹג Am 9:1; cohort. וְאַהַרְגָה Gn 27:41; sf. וָאֶהֶרְגֵהוּ 2 S 4:10 2 K 10:9; 3 mpl. יַהֲרֹ֑גוּ ψ 94:6 Ez 23:47; וַיַּהַרְגוּ Gn 34:25 + 4 times; sf. יַהַרְגֻנִי Gn 26:7, etc.; Imv. הֲרֹג Ju 8:20; sf. הָרְגֵנִי Nu 11:15; pl. הִרְגוּ Nu 25:5 + 2 times; הֲרֹ֑גוּ Nu 31:17; Inf. abs. הָרֹג Nu 11:15 + 2 times; הָרוֹג Est 9:16; cstr. הֲרֹג Ex 2:15 + 11 times; הֲרוֹג Ec 3:3 Est 7:4; sf. הָרְגֵנִי Ex 2:14; הָרְגֵנוּ Ex 5:21; הֲרָגְךָ 1 S 24:11; הָרְגֶ֑ךָ Gn 27:42 + 2 times; הָרְגוֹ Ex 21:14; Pt. act. הֹרֵג Gn 4:15 + 4 times; הוֹרֵג Ez 21:16; הֹרֱג֑ךָ Ez 28:9; הֹרְגִים Je 4:31 2 K 17:25; pass. הֲרוּגִים Is 10:4 + 2 times; הֲרֻגִים Is 14:19; cstr. הֲרֻגֵי Je 18:21; הֲרוּגָיו Is 27:7; הֲרוּגֶיהָ Is 26:21; הֲרֻגֶיהָ Pr 7:26;— e.g. Judges 9:24
- 1.
- a. kill, slay, implying ruthless violence, especially private violence Gn 4:8, 14, 15, 23, 25; 12:12 (all J), 20:11 (E) 26:7; 27:41, 42; 34:25, 26; 37:20, 26 (all J), 49:6 (poem in J), Ex 2:14(×2), 15 (E), 5:21 (J) 21:14; 23:7 (both JE), Nu 31:19 (P) Ju 9:5, 18, 24(×2), 56; 16:2; 20:5 1 S 16:2; 22:21; 24:11, 12, 18 2 S 3:30; 4:10, 11, 12; 12:9; 14:7; 23:21 1 K 2:5, 32; 18:12, 13, 14; 19:1, 10, 14 2 K 9:31; 10:9 1 Ch 7:21; 11:23 2 Ch 21:4, 13; 22:8; 24:23, 25; 25:3 Ne 4:5; 6:10(×2) Zc 11:5 ψ 10:8; 94:6 (‖ רִצֵּתַ); cf. Ju 8:18, 19, 20, 21; 9:54 1 K 12:27 Is 14:20 2 Ch 22:1 Ne 9:26; so of massacre of Jews planned by Haman Est 3:13; 7:4 (both לְהַשְׁמִיד לַהֲרֹג וּלְאַבֵּד), and of slaughter of Jews’ enemies in defence and revenge Est 8:11 (same combin.) 9:6, 10, 12, 15, 16 cf. v 11 (pt. pass. the slain). e.g. Genesis 4:8
- b. hence of wholesale slaughter after battle Nu 31:7, 8(×2) 17(×2) (all P), Jos 8:24; 10:11 (both JE), 13:22 (P), Ju 7:25(×2); 8:17; 9:45 2 S 10:18 1 K 9:16; 11:24 2 K 8:12 1 Ch 19:18 2 Ch 28:6, 7, 9; 36:17 Ez 26:8, 11, cf. Ju 9:26; pt. pass. the slain Is 10:4; 14:19 cf. Ez 23:10, 47; 37:9, Je 18:21 הֲרֻגֵי מָוֶת (‖ מֻכֵּי־חֶרֶב); further Ho 9:13 Hb 1:17 Je 4:31 Ez 21:16; 28:9; also of slaughter in a revolt 2 K 11:8 = 2 Ch 23:17. e.g. Numbers 31:7
- 2. of God’s slaying in judgment (stern and inscrutable), Gn 20:4 (E), Ex 4:23; 13:15; 22:23 (all JE), Am 2:3; 4:10; 9:1, 4 La 2:4, 21; 3:43 ψ 59:12; 78:31, 34; 135:10; 136:18 cf. Nu 11:15(×2) (JE), 22:23 (J), Is 14:30, 26;21 (pass. the slain, so 27:7), Je 15:3; fig. הֲרַגְתִּים בְּאִמְרֵי־פִ֑י Ho 6:5 (‖ חָצַבְתִּי בַּנְּבִיאִים). e.g. Genesis 20:4
- 3. rarely of judicial killing by men (at God’s command), Ex 32:27 (JE), Lv 20:15, 16 (H), Nu 25:5 (JE), Dt 13:10(×2) cf. Ez 9:6 תַּהַרְגוּ לְמַשְׁחִית. e.g. Exodus 32:27
- 4. of killing beasts, Nu 22:29 (J; Balaam’s ass), Lv 20:15 cf. supr., Is 22:13 (oxen; ‖ שָׁחֹט), הַתַּנִּין אֲשֶׁר בַּיָּ֑ם Is 27:1; also of killing vines, by hail ψ 78:47. e.g. Numbers 22:29
- 5. of killing by beasts: lions 2 K 17:25, viper Jb 20:16. e.g. 2 Kings 17:25
- 6. quite general is עֵת לַהֲרוֹג וְעֵת לִרְפּוֹא Ec 3:3. e.g. Ecclesiastes 3:3
- 7. destroy, ruin לֶאֱוִיל יַהֲרָג־כָּ֑עַשׂ וּפֹתֶה תָּמִית קִנְאָה Jb 5:2; מְשׁוּבַת פְּתָיִם תַּהַרְגֵם וְשַׁלְוַת כְּסִילִים תְּאַבְּדֵם Pr 1:32; also of those ruined by shameless woman Pr 7:26.—Regular construction is c. acc.; obj. sometimes om., as La 2:21; used abs. Ho 9:13 Je 4:31; 15:3 La 3:43 Ez 21:16 Ec 3:3; sq. בְּ slay among, i.e. some of, 2 K 17:25 2 Ch 28:6, 9 ψ 78:31; sq. מִן (part of), + acc., 1 Ch 19:18; sq. dir. obj. c. לְ †2 S 3:30 Jb 5:2 ψ 135:11 = 136:19, 20 (but in last 3 first obj. is acc.). e.g. Job 5:2
Niphal
- Impf.
- 1. pass. of Qal 1 a, יֵהָרֵג La 2:20 shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary? e.g. Lamentations 2:20
- 2. pass. of Qal 1 b, 3 fpl. תֵּהָרַגְנָה Ez 26:6; also Ez 26:15 בֶּחָהרֵגּ הֶרֶג (= בְּהֵהָרֵג), but 𝔊 Co בַּהֲרֹג חֶרֶב. e.g. Ezekiel 26:6
Pual
- Pf. 3 ms. הֹרָ֑ג Is 27:7 be slain (pass. of Qal 1 b); cf. 1 pl. הֹרַגְנוּ ψ 44:23 (‖ נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ כְּעֹאן טִבְחָה). e.g. Isaiah 27:7
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
vb. kill, slay (NH id., ואהרג MI (1 s. Impf. consec.); Arabic هَرَجَ fall into war, conflict, disorder, slaughter; Sab. הרג fight Os4, 1, 17, kill Sab Denkm24, 25)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
הָרַג
- (b. h.) [to cut, v. הֶרֶג,] to kill, put to death. Num. R. s. 21, beg. בא לַהֲרָגְךָ השכם להָרְגֹּו if one comes to kill thee, be the first to kill him; Ber. 58ᵃ; Snh. 72ᵃ להוֹרְגְּךָ … להוֹרְגוֹ. Gitt. 56ᵇ כסבור ה׳ את עצמו he (Titus) thought he had killed himself (euphem. for the Lord); a. v. fr.—Part. pass. הָרוּג. Tosef. Gitt. V (III), 1 הֲרוּגִין שנהרגו לפני מלחמה ובשעת מלחמה (ed. Zuck. בשעת) those executed (by the Roman government) before and during the Vespasian war; Y. Gitt. V, 47ᵇ top [read:] הֲרוּגֵי המלחמה ולפני וכ׳. Y. Ber. I, 3ᵈ, v. בִּיתֵּר. Pes. 50ᵃ; B. Bath. 10ᵇ, a. e. הרוגי מלכות martyrs under the Roman government (R. Akiba and his fellow-martyrs), v. לוּד; a. fr.
- to be killed, executed. Taan. 18ᵇ נֶהֶרְגוּ were put to death (by the Roman government). Gitt. 56ᵃ יֵהָרֵג is to be put to death. Snh. 74ᵃ עבור ואל תֵּהָרֵג transgress or thou wilt be killed; a. fr.
הָרָג
- (preced.) murderer, highway-man, contrad. to חרם the oppressor who does not threaten to kill. Y. B. Mets. IV, end, 9ᵈ.—Pl. הָרָגִין. Ned. III, 4, v. נָדַר.
הֶרֶג
- preced. wds.) execution by decapitation with a sword. Snh. VII, 1; a. fr.
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 139 distinct written forms H2026 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 79 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2026, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 148 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 158 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 4:8
- Exodus 2:14
- Leviticus 20:15
- Numbers 11:15
- Deuteronomy 13:9
- Joshua 8:24
- Judges 7:25
- 1 Samuel 16:2
- 2 Samuel 3:30
- 1 Kings 2:5
- 2 Kings 8:12
- 1 Chronicles 7:21
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.
