חַלָּה
cake
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
5 distinct verses where H2471 appears in the Absolute state, across 2 books. 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.
Leviticus 3 verses
- Leviticus 2:4 חַלּ֤וֹת n c fp "'When you offer an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.
- Leviticus 7:12 חַלּ֤וֹת חַלֹּ֖ת n c fp n c fp If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and cakes mixed with oil.
- Leviticus 24:5 חַלּ֑וֹת הַֽ/חַלָּ֥ה n c fp ptcl def.art + n c fs "You shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it: two tenth parts of an ephah shall be in one cake.
Numbers 2 verses
- Numbers 6:15 חַלֹּת֙ n c fp and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and their meal offering, and their drink offerings.
- Numbers 15:20 חַלָּ֖ה n c fs Of the first of your dough you shall offer up a cake for a heave-offering: as the heave-offering of the threshing floor, so shall you heave it.
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.
חלה (challâh) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “cake.” It first appears in Exodus 29:2. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 11 verses — uncommon. Leviticus dominates its distribution — 5 of 11 verses. Sharing its root, it stands alongside חלל, חל and חליל. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2471 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 11 occurrences in the concordance →
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 11 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 10 verses · 91%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 9%
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: Cake 7×, Cakes 6×
- American Standard Version: Cakes 7×, Cake 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Cakes 6×, Cake 4×, Loaf 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 4×, Loaf 3×, Loaves 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2471 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2471 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2471 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 H2471 across 19 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
7 senses and sub-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 7 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. at the sacrif. of David on removal of ark, given to each person as part of peace-offering 2 S 6:19. e.g. 2 Samuel 6:19
- 2. elsewhere only P (H Lv 24:5(×2)): e.g. Leviticus 24:5
- a. of the 12 cakes of the table of the holy place, made of סלת Lv 24:5(×2). e.g. Leviticus 24:5
- b. made of ראשׁית ערסת as an offering of first-fruits Nu 15:20. e.g. Numbers 15:20
- c. of לחם שׁמן, to be burnt with the עוֹלָה Ex 29:23 = Lv 8:26. e.g. Exodus 29:23
- d. of מַצָּה burnt on the altar with c Lv 8:26, but usually to be eaten by participants in the several forms of peace-offering Nu 6:19, and as such mingled with oil Ex 29:2 Lv 2:4 7:12(×2) Nu 6:15. e.g. Leviticus 8:26
- e. ח׳ לחם חמץ to be used by the offerer in connexion with the unleavened cakes of d Lv 7:13. e.g. Leviticus 7:13
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.f. a kind of cake (prob. as perforated, v. Di Lv 2:4)—ח׳ abs. Nu 15:20 Lv 24:5; cstr. חַלַּת Ex 29:23 + 4 times; pl. חַלּוֹת Lv 2:4 + 2 times; חַלֹּת Ex 29:2 + 3 times—used in offerings:
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חלל (châlal) (H2490) — to profane.
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.
חָלָה
- , v. חלי
חַלָּה
- 1. [rolled, rounded] cake.—Pl. חַלּוֹת. Ukts. III, 5 ח׳ חריע (Tosef. Maas. Sh. I, 13 חַלַּת (collect. noun), a. e., v. חֲרִיעַ.—Men. III, 6 שתי ח׳ the two loaves (offered on the Feast of Weeks, Lev. XXIII, 17).—B. Bath. V, 3; Ukts. III, 11 ח׳ דבש honey-combs; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 23:17
- 2. (with ref. to Num. XV, 20, sq.) Ḥallah, the priest’s share of the dough. Sabb. II, 6, v. זָהִיר. Ḥall. I, 1 חייבין בח׳ are subject to the law of Ḥallah.—Ib. II, 7 שעור הח׳ the quantity to be set aside for the priest. Ib. 8 מעיסה שלא הורמה חַלָּתָהּ Ms. M. (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note) from a dough from which the priest’s share has not yet been taken; a. fr.—Pl. as ab. Pesik. Shimu, p. 118ᵃ שתי ח׳ two portions (one for being burnt, and one for the priest); Y. Erub. III, end, 21ᶜ; Cant. R. to I 6; a. e.—Trnsf. ḥallah, the sanctification of creation, man. Gen. R. s. 14, beg.; Yalk. Prov. 962, a. e. (ref. to Prov. XXIX, 4, ואיש תרומות) that is Adam שהיה גמר חַלָּתוֹ וכ׳ who was the final sanctification of the world; Gen. R. s. 17, end.—Ḥallah, name of a treatise of the Mishnah, Tosefta a. Talm. Y., of the Order of Z’raïm. e.g. Numbers 15:20
חלי
- 1. to be lax, to be sick, faint away, grieve. Ex. R. s. 43 (expl. ויחל, Ex. XXXII, 11 ח׳ משה Moses was sick (grieved). Kidd. 71ᵇ, a. e. מדי חוֹלָה Media is sick, v. גּוֹסֵס.—Ber. 28ᵇ כשח׳ וכ׳ when R. … fell sick; a. fr.—V. חוֹלֶה. e.g. Exodus 32:11
- 2. to be smooth (to the taste), sweet.
- 1. to soften, sweeten; to soothe, assuage (by prayer, gifts &c.). Ex. R. l. c. מהו וַיְחַל שהכניס וכ׳ what does vayḥal (Ex. l. c.) mean? He offered &c. (ref. to Ps. XLV, 13). Ib. מהו ויחל עשה את המר וכ׳ he made sweet what was bitter. Ib. חַלֵּי מרירתן וכ׳ sweeten thou the bitterness (sin) of Israel &c.—Ib. מי שיְחַלֶּה וכ׳ one to sweeten the bitterness &c. (by prayer). Yalk. Ex. 392 אביי אמר עד שחִילֵּהוּ להקב"ה בתפילתו (v. infra) Ab. explained vayḥal, until he assuaged (the anger of) the Lord &c. Deut. R. s. 3 הרי בניך מרים חַלֵּה אותן thy children are bitter, sweeten them. Ib. היאך יהא א"ל הוי חל אתה רחמים, read: היאך אהא אומר א"ל הוי אומר חַלֵּה את המרים what shall I say? Said He, Say, sweeten &c.; Yalk. Ex. 392. Lam. R. to I, 2 לא חִלִּינוּ פניך we did not assuage thee by repentance; Ex. R. s. 45 חלִּינוּ מלפני הקב"ה we prayed &c.; a. fr. e.g. Psalms 45:13
- 1. to assuage, soften. Ber. 32ᵃ אביי אמר עד שהֶחֱלֵהוּ להקב"ה בתפלה Ms. M. (v. D. S. a. l.) until he assuaged &c., v. supra. [Ib. שה׳ עליהם וכ׳, read: שהֵחֵל, v. חָלַל.]
- 2. to make sick, wear out. Ib. עמד משה … עד שהחלהו (Ms. M. עד שחלה) Moses stood in prayer … until He wore Him out (by his persistency, v. Rashi a. l. a. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 3).—3) (v. חָלַל a. חִלְחֵל) to permeate, affect. B. Mets. 107ᵇ bile is called maḥlah (v. מַחְלָה) שהיא מַחְלָה וכ׳ (Ms. F. שמְחַלֶּלֶת) for it goes through the entire body [perh. מְחַלָּה, fr. חָלַל].
- to be made sick. Ber. l. c. עמד … עד שה׳ ed. Sonc. a. oth. (v. supra) until He was worn out.
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 11 distinct written forms H2471 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| חַלֹּת֙ | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Numbers 6:15 | 2 |
| וְֽ/חַלַּ֨ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Leviticus 8:26 | 2 |
| חַלּ֤וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Leviticus 2:4 | 2 |
| הַֽ/חַלָּ֥ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Leviticus 24:5 | 1 |
| וְ/חַלֹּ֤ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 29:2 | 1 |
| וַֽ/חַלַּ֨ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Exodus 29:23 | 1 |
| חַלּ֑וֹת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Leviticus 24:5 | 1 |
| חַלַּ֥ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | 2 Samuel 6:19 | 1 |
| חַלַּ֨ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct | Leviticus 8:26 | 1 |
| חַלָּ֖ה | Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Numbers 15:20 | 1 |
| חַלֹּ֖ת | Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Leviticus 7:12 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2471, 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
- חל chôl H2455 profane
- חליל châlîyl H2485 flute
- חלל châlâl H2491 slain
- מחלה mᵉchillâh H4247 hole
- תחלה tᵉchillâh H8462 beginning
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 8 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 11 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.
