זִיף
Ziph
BDB lists 4 entries for ‘Ziph’ 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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H2128 appears in the Book of Joshua — 2 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.
Joshua
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.
“Ziph” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name זיף (Zîyph). First canonically at Joshua 15:24, it enters the text early. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 9 verses — uncommon. More than a third of its appearances fall in 1 Samuel. The sections below give every occurrence and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2128 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,342
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,342 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 9 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Samuel 4 verses 44%
- Joshua 2 verses 22%
- 1 Chronicles 2 verses 22%
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 9 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 67%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 3 verses · 33%
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: Ziph 10×
- American Standard Version: Ziph 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Ziph 9×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Ziph 10×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2128 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2128 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2128 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2128 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 4 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. n.pr.loc.
- a. city S.E. from Hebron, Jos 15:55 1 Ch 2:42 2 Ch 11:8, mod. Tell Zîf; RobBR i. 492, 498 Guérin Judée iii. 159 ff.: מִדְבַּר־ז׳ 1 S 23:14, 15; 26:2(×2); c. ה loc., זִ֫יפָה 1 S 23:24. e.g. Joshua 15:55
- b. city of southern Judah Jos 15:24, site unknown. e.g. Joshua 15:24
- 2. n.pr.m. a son of יְהַלֶּלְאֵל of Judah 1 Ch 4:16, whether related to n.pr.loc. supr. does not appear. 𝔊 Ζαφα, Ζιφ(αι). (1 Ch 2:42 v. supr.) e.g. 1 Chronicles 4:16
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
Derived from זפת (zepheth) (H2203) — pitch.
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.
זִיף I
- , verb, v. זוּף a. יָזַף, יְזַף.
זִיף II
- , pl. זִיפִים, זִיפִין (זוף I; b. h. thick honey. Makhsh. V, 9 דבש הז׳ (R. S. דבש והז׳), expl. Sot. 48ᵇ, v. זוּף I.
זִיף III
- (b. h.) pr. n. pl. Zif, in the territory of Judah.—Denom. זִיפִי, pl. זִיפִים, זִיפִין inhabitants of Zif. Sot. 48ᵇ (expl. דבש זיפים, v. preced.) על שם מקומו the honey of the Ziphites.—Ib. (ref. to Ps. LIV, 2) ע"ש מקומן Zifim means men of Zif (Josh. XV, 24). e.g. Psalms 54:2
זַיִף
- (v. זוּף II), pl. זְיָפִים, זְיָפִין, זְיָי׳,
- 1. bristles. Y. Sabb. VII, 11ᵇ זֵיפֵי חזיר bristles of a swine; Tosef. ib. IX (X), 2 שני זייפין (Var. זֵפִין).
- 2. eye-brows. Bekh. 44ᵃ שתמו זִיפָיו (ed. זיפין, incorr.) one whose eye-brows are gone.
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 8 distinct written forms H2128 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| זִ֑יף | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 2:42 | 2 |
| זִֽיף | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 26:2 | 2 |
| וָ/זִ֥יף | Noun, Proper | Joshua 15:55 | 1 |
| זִ֔יף | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 26:2 | 1 |
| זִ֖יף | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 23:15 | 1 |
| זִ֖יפָ/ה | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 23:24 | 1 |
| זִ֣יף | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 4:16 | 1 |
| זִ֥יף | Noun, Proper | Joshua 15:24 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2128, 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
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 → 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Ziph). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Flowing. (1.) A son of Jehaleleel (1 Chr. 4:16).
(2.) A city in the south of Judah (Josh. 15:24), probably at the pass of Sufah.
(3.) A city in the mountains of Judah (Josh. 15:55), identified with the uninhabited ruins of Tell ez-Zif, about 5 miles south-east of Hebron. Here David hid himself during his wanderings (1 Sam. 23:19; Ps. 54, title).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(battlement), the name of two towns in Judah.
+ In the south, named between Ithnan and Telem. (Joshua 15:24) It does not appear again in the history, nor has any trace of has been met with. + In the highland district, named between Carmel and Juttah. (Joshua 15:55) The place is immortalized by its connection with David. (1 Samuel 23:14,15,24; 26:2) These passages show that at that time it had near it a wilderness (i.e., a waste pasture-ground) and a wood. The latter has disappeared but the former remains. The name of Zif if, found about three miles south of Hebron, attached to a rounded hill of some 100 feet in height, which is called Tell Zif . + Son of Jehaleleel. (1 Chronicles 4:16)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
this mouth or mouthful; falsehood
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
