זַ֫יִת
olive
‘olive’ 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 Absolute-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
- 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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
1 verse where H2132 appears in the Construct state in the Book of Nehemiah. 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.
Nehemiah
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, זית (zayith) means “olive.” Scripture first uses it in Genesis 8:11. It turns up in 36 verses across 21 books, a moderately common footprint. Carrying more than one sense, it rewards its full sense range. It shares a root with זו, זוית and זיו. Dig into 36-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2132 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 →
- 36
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 36 distinct verses.
- 21 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 21 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #947
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 947 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 36 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 4 verses 11%
- Zechariah 4 verses 11%
- Exodus 3 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 36 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 20 verses · 56%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 9 verses · 25%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 19%
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: Olive 11×, Olive tree 7×, Oliveyards 5×
- American Standard Version: Olive 8×, Olive-tree 6×, Oliveyards 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Olive 8×, Olive groves 7×, Olives 7×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Olive 9×, Olive tree 8×, Olive trees 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2132 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H2132 across 37 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 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 H2132 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2132 across 40 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 3 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. olive-tree Ju 9:8, 9 (personif., in Jotham’s fable), Ho 14:7 (sim. of beauty), Jb 15:33 (as casting off its flowers, sim. of wicked man); in 2 S 15:23 ins. הַזּ׳ אֲשֶׁר (before הַמִּדְבָּר, read בַּמּ׳) 𝔊L Dr; also pl. of two olive-trees Zc 4:3, 11; ז׳ רַעֲנָן ψ 52:10 fresh, (thriving) olive-tree (sim. of prosperity), so Je 11:16; עֲלֵה־ז׳ Gn 8:11 (J) olive-branch, spring, cf. Ne 8:15 (here + עֲלֵי עֵץ־שֶׁמֶן, etc.); also pl. שְׁתִלֵי זֵיתִים ψ 128:3 olive-shoots (sim. of children); שִׁבֲּלֵי זֵיתִים Zc 4:12 olive-branches (in Zech.’s vision); זַיִת in representative or coll. sense, = olive-trees, groups of growing olive-trees, as property, source of wealth, olive-yards Ex 23:11 (JE; + כֶּרֶם), Ju 15:5 (+ id.); עֵץ־הַזַּיִת Hg 2:19 (+ הַגֶּפֶן וְהַתְּאֵנָה וְהָרִמּוֹן); also in phr. כִּחֵשׁ מַעֲשֵׂה־זַיִת Hb 3:17 the bearing, yield, of olive-trees (‖ וּשְׁדֵמוֹת לֹא־עָשָׂה אֹכֶל cf. also תְּאֵנָה and גֶּפֶן יְבוּל v a); specif. זֵית שֶׁמֶן, oil-yielding olive-trees Dt 8:8 cf. 2 K 18:32; נֹקֶף ז׳ striking or beating of olive-trees Is 17:6; 24:13 (sim. of desolation at judgment of י׳), cf. כִּי תַחְבֹּט זֵיתְךָ Dt 24:20; rather more often pl.; Am 4:9 (‖ גַּנּוֹת, כְּרָמִים, תְּאֵנִים), 1 S 8:14 (‖ שָׂדוֹת, כְּרָמִים), cf. also Dt 6:11; 28:40a Jos 24:13 2 K 5:26 1 Ch 27:28 Ne 5:11; 9:25. e.g. Judges 9:8
- 2. of fruit of olive-tree, olives: Dt 28:40b (c. שֶׁמֶן); תִּדְרֹךְ זַיִת Mi 6:15 (‖ שֶׁמֶן); also שֶׁמֶן זַיִת olive-oil Ex 27:20; 30:24 (P) Lv 24:2 (P). e.g. Deuteronomy 28:40
- 3. in designations of place: מַעֲלֵה הַזֵּיתִים 2 S 15:30 the ascent of the olive-trees (𝔊 ἐν τῇ ἀναβάσει τῶν ἐλαιῶν = Mount of Olives); הַר־הַזֵּיתִים Zc 14:4(×2) (𝔊 τὸ ὄρος τῶν ἐλαιῶν); the well-known hill E. of Jerus. (NT usually as Zc 14:4 𝔊, e.g. Mk 13:3; cf. also הָהָר 1 K 11:7 Ez 11:33 Ne 8:15; 𝔗 טוּר זֵיתַיָּא 2 K 23:13 cf. 2 S 15:30 Zc 14:4 etc.; 𝔗 Ct 8:5 טוּר מִשְׁחָא, and so Talm etc.) e.g. 2 Samuel 15:30
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.m. ψ 52:10 olive-tree, olive (NH id.; Aramaic ܙܰܝܬܳܐ, זֵיתָא; Ethiopic ዘይት Arabic زَيْتُونٌ olive-tree, olive, زَيْتٌ olive-oil; v. LagM iii. 215 ff. HomAufsätze. u. Abh., 1892, 94, 99 ff.; √ dub.; Thes and most der. from assumed זהה be bright, fresh, luxuriant (v. sub זִו) + ת afformat. which is then treated as radical, cf. Sta§ 187 a; but this not certain, cf. Ol§ 119 b. 142 a; according to LagArmen. Stud. § 1347; ז׳ is Armen. loan-word, v. also LagMl.c.; LagBN 219, Anm.);—abs. ז׳ Gn 8:11, cstr. זֵית Dt 8:8 2 K 18:32; sf. זֵיתְךָ Dt 24:20, זֵיתֶ֑ךָ Ex 23:11 Dt 28:40; pl. זֵיתִים Dt 6:11, etc.;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from זו (Ziv) (H2099) — Zif.
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.
זַיִת
- 1. outflow, run. Men. 86ᵃ שמן זית מִזֵּיתוֹ ‘olive-oil’ (Ex. XXVII, 20) that means of that which flows of itself (before pressing). Ib. (VIII, 4) ז׳ ראשון the first run. e.g. Exodus 27:20
- 2. olive; (sub. עץ) olive tree. Ib. בראש הז׳, v. גִּרְגֵּר; a. v. fr.—כַּזַּ׳ the size of an olive; כחצי ז׳ half the size of &c. Bets. I, 1 זה וזה בכז׳ the legal size for both is that of &c. Zeb. III, 3. Kel. XVII, 8, v. אֵגוֹרִי; a. v. fr.—Pl. זֵיתִים, זֵתִים. Ber. 57ᵃ הרואה ז׳ וכ׳ one who dreams of olives. B. Mets. VIII, 5 המוכר זֵיתָיו וכ׳ he who sells his olive trees for the use of the wood. T’bul Yom III, 6. Ḥall. III, 9 זֵיתֵי מסיק, v. מָסִיק; a. fr.—Tanḥ. ed. Bub. Ki Thetsé 10 כַּזֵּ׳ כַּזֵּ׳ in pieces of olive-sizes; Pesik. Zakh., p. 25ᵇ ז׳ ז׳; Pesik. R. s. 12.—Ukts. III, 6 פריצי ז׳ the proud among the olives; expl. Tosef. ib. III, 6 היוצאין מתחת וכ׳ such as come out uncrushed from under the press; B. Mets. 105ᵃ רשעי ז׳ (yielding very little oil).
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 32 distinct written forms H2132 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 H2132, 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
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 → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 32 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 36 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 8:11
- Exodus 23:11
- Leviticus 24:2
- Deuteronomy 6:11
- Joshua 24:13
- Judges 9:8
- 1 Samuel 8:14
- 2 Samuel 15:30
- 2 Kings 5:26
- 1 Chronicles 27:28
- Job 15:33
- Psalms 128:3
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.
