חֲלוֹם
dream
‘dream’ is one of 3 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
- 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).
Every verse where H2472 appears in the Book of 1 Samuel — 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.
1 Samuel
- 1 Samuel 28:6 בַּ/חֲלֹמ֛וֹת prep det + n c mp When Saul inquired of Yahweh, Yahweh didn't answer him, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
- 1 Samuel 28:15 בַּ֣/חֲלֹמ֔וֹת prep det + n c mp Samuel said to Saul, Why have you disquieted me, to bring me up? Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answers me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I shall do.
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.
חלום (chălôwm) is a Hebrew noun most often rendered “dream.” It first appears in Genesis 20:3. It turns up in 54 verses across 14 books, a moderately common footprint. It concentrates in Genesis, which alone accounts for 48% of its uses. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. 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 H2472 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.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #607
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 607 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 54 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 54 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 30 verses · 56%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 14 verses · 26%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 10 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: Dream 36×, Dreams 18×, Behold it was a dream 2×
- American Standard Version: Dream 30×, Dreams 16×, And 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Dream 21×, Dreams 16×, I had a dream 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Dream 30×, Dreams 19×, Like a dream 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2472 across 64 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2472 across 64 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 H2472 across 50 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 15 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2472 across 64 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 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. ordinary dream of sleep Jb 7:14; 20:8 ψ 73:20 Ec 5:2, 6 Is 29:7. e.g. Job 7:14
- 2. dreams with prophetic meaning, the lowest grade of prophecy (v. BrMP 6):
- a. dream of Abimelek Gn 20:3, 6, of Jacob 31:10, 11, Laban 31:24, Joseph 37:5, 6, 8, 9(×2), 10, 19, 20; 42:9, Pharaoh and his servants 40:5(×3), 8, 9(×2), 16; 41:7, 8, 11(×2), 12(×2), 15(×2), 17, 22, 25, 26, 32; of a lower order of prophets than Moses Nu 12:6, (all E, not elsewhere in Hex.), Jb 33:15, of Midianite Ju 7:13(×2), 15, desired by Saul 1 S 28:6, 15; of Sol. 1 K 3:5, 15; of old men in latter days Jo 3:1, of Nebuchad. Dn 2:1, 2, 3(×2) Daniel הֵבִין בְּכָל־חָזוֹן וַחֲלֹמוֹת Dn 1:17 had understanding in all visions and dreams. e.g. Genesis 20:3
- b. of false prophets Dt 13:2, 4, 6 Je 23:27, 28(×2), 32; 27:9; 29:8 Zc 10:2. e.g. Deuteronomy 13:2
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. Gn 37:10 dream;—ח׳ abs. Gn 37:5 +, cstr. Gn 20:3, חֲלֹם abs. Gn 20:6, cstr. 31:24; sf. חֲלוֹמִי Gn 40:9, 16, חֲלֹמִי Gn 41:17, 22, חֲלֹמוֹ Gn 40:5 + 5 times; pl. חֲלֹמוֹת Je 23:32 + 10 times etc., + 7 times sf.—dream
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חלם (châlam) (H2492) — to dream.
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.
חָלוּם
- sane, v. חָלַם I.
חֲלוֹם
- v. חָלַם II) dream. Ber. 55ᵃ; a. fr.—Pl. חֲלוֹמוֹת. Ib.ᵇ; a. fr.—Ib. 10ᵇ בעל הח׳ the genius of dream.—[חלומות דהרואה that portion of the chapter Haroëh, in B’rakhoth, treating of dreams: Ber. 55ᵃ to 57ᵇ; often quoted in Ar. a. oth.]
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 H2472 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 H2472, 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
- אחלמה ʼachlâmâh H306 amethyst
- חלם chêlem H2493 dream
- חלמות challâmûwth H2495 purslane
- חלמיש challâmîysh H2496 flint
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. 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 52 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
- Genesis 20:3
- Numbers 12:6
- Deuteronomy 13:1
- Judges 7:13
- 1 Samuel 28:6
- 1 Kings 3:5
- Job 7:14
- Psalms 73:20
- Ecclesiastes 5:3
- Isaiah 29:7
- Jeremiah 23:27
- Daniel 1:17
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.
