אָח
brother
‘brother’ is one of 6 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.
- Particle
- A short function word — article, negation, interrogative, the sign of the direct object, and the like.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
State
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H251 appears in the Book of Exodus — 16 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.
Exodus
- Exodus 1:6 אֶחָ֔י/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms Joseph died, as did all his brothers, and all that generation.
- Exodus 2:11 אֶחָ֔י/ו מֵ/אֶחָֽי/ו n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3ms It happened in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.
- Exodus 4:14 אָחִ֨י/ךָ֙ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses, and he said, "What about Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Also, behold, he comes forth to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
- Exodus 4:18 אַחַ֣/י n c mp cs + sfx pers 1cs Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law, and said to him, "Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in Egypt, and see whether they are still alive." Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace."
- Exodus 7:1 אָחִ֖י/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms Yahweh said to Moses, "Behold, I have made you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.
- Exodus 7:2 אָחִ֨י/ךָ֙ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms You shall speak all that I command you; and Aaron your brother shall speak to Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.
- Exodus 10:23 אָחִ֗י/ו n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms They didn't see one another, neither did anyone rise from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
- Exodus 16:15 אָחִי/ו֙ n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms When the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, "What is it?" For they didn't know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread which Yahweh has given you to eat."
- Exodus 25:20 אָחִ֑י/ו n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.
- Exodus 28:1 אָחִ֜י/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms "Bring Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, near to you from among the children of Israel, that he may minister to me in the priest's office, even Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons.
- Exodus 28:2 אָחִ֑י/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.
- Exodus 28:4 אָחִ֛י/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms These are the garments which they shall make: a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, and his sons, that he may minister to me in the priest's office.
- Exodus 28:41 אָחִ֔י/ךָ n c ms cs + sfx pers 2ms You shall put them on Aaron your brother, and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister to me in the priest's office.
- Exodus 32:27 אָחִ֛י/ו n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms He said to them, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor."
- Exodus 32:29 וּ/בְ/אָחִ֑י/ו conj + prep + n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms Moses said, "Consecrate yourselves today to Yahweh, yes, every man against his son, and against his brother; that he may bestow on you a blessing this day."
- Exodus 37:9 אָחִ֑י/ו n c ms cs + sfx pers 3ms The cherubim spread out their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim were toward the mercy seat.
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.
אח — transliterated ʼâch — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “brother.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “brethren” in the King James Version, “brothers” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 572 verses across 33 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its most common vocabulary. More than a quarter of its appearances fall in Genesis. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H251 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 →
- 572
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 572 distinct verses.
- 33 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 33 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #77
- by frequency
- Top 100 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 77 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 572 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 155 verses 27%
- 1 Chronicles 95 verses 17%
- Deuteronomy 43 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 572 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 251 verses · 44%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 184 verses · 32%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 137 verses · 24%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 5 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Brethren 263×, Brother 199×, Brother's 21×
- American Standard Version†: Brethren 230×, Brother 180×, 's brother 19×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Brothers 221×, Brother 183×, Relatives 33×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Brothers 292×, Brother 224×, Brother of 30×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H251 across 629† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 95 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 H251 across 630† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 122 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 H251 across 614† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 63 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 H251 across 650† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 32 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.
אח I interj. (onomatop.) ah! alas! Ez 6
אח II
- 1. brother, born of same mother (& father) Gn 4:2, 8, 9, 10, 11; 27:6, 11; 44:20; 49:5; cf. 28:2; 29:10(×2) + Ex 4:14 + often; also of half-brother Gn 20:5, 13, 16 (on parentage cf. v 12) 37:2, 4, 5 +, 2 S 13:4, 7, 8 +. e.g. Genesis 4:2
- 2. indef. = relative; Lot, of Abr. Gn 13:8; 14:14, 16; Jacob, of Laban 29:12, 15 (nephew); hence of kinship in wider sense; member of same tribe Nu 16:10; 18:2, 6 2 S 19:13; of same people Ex 2:11(×2); 4:18 Dt 15:12 Ju 14:3 Is 66:20 Ne 5:1, 5, 8 vid. especially Lv 19:17 cf. v 18 (extended to incl. sojourner גֵּר v 34); of Israel & Judah 2 S 19:42; Isr. & Edom Nu 20:14; cf. of Ishmael Gn 16:12; 25:18; of friend 2 S 1:26 1 K 9:13; 20:32, 33; of allies בְּרִית א׳ Am 1:9. e.g. Genesis 13:8
- 3. fig. of resemblance Jb 30:29 אָח הָיִיתִי לְתַנִּים (‖ רֵעַ לִבְנוֹת יַעֲנָה) i.e. by reason of his crying, cf. Di; Pr 18:9 מִתְרַפֶּה בִּמְלַאכְתּוֹ אָח הוּא לְבַעַל מַשְׁחִית. e.g. Job 30:29
- 4. in phr. one … another אִישׁ אָחִיו Gn 9:5 Jo 2:8 Zc 7:10; אָחִיו … אִישׁ Gn 13:11 + 25 times + Ex 32:27 (where also same phr. c. רֵעֵהוּ & קְרֹבוֹ—v. these words—& also אִישׁ, אֶחָד); for development of idiom cf. Dt 15:2 Is 19:2 Je 34:14 (cf. 15) 17 Ez 38:21 Hg 2:22; usually of men; of faces of golden cherubim Ex 25:20; 37:9; of scales of crocodile Jb 41:9. (אָח fire-pot v. sub ii. אחח.) On pr. names compounded with אָח, v. reff. given under אָב supr. e.g. Genesis 9:5
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
III. interj. (onomatop.) ah! alas! Ez 6:11; 21:20. iii. אָח Ez 18:10 (textual error). Ez 18:10 אָח is a vox nihili (dittogr. from foll. אחד: v. Comm.): in 21:10 also dub. (𝔊 εὖ), read אַךְ Ew Hi Sm Toy, חַדָּה Co Berthol, אַתְּ Oort Krae.
IV. n.m. brother (Ph. אח, Arabic أَخٌ (cstr. أَخُو etc.), Sab. אחֿ (sf. אחֿיהו) CISiv, 1, 17 and 24 al., Ethiopic እኅው Assyrian aḫu cf. DlW, Aramaic אַח, ܐܰܚܳܐ; Palm., Nab. sf. אחוהי, אחיה);—abs. אָח Gn 24:29 + (Ez 18:10 del. Co cf. 𝔊 𝔖 𝔙; Ew Sm אַךְ; Dl Ba Ez x defends as = one cf. Assyrian aḫu) never c. art.; cstr. אֲחִי Gn 10:21 +; sf. אָחִי Gn 4:9 +; אָחִיךָ Gn 4:9 +; אָחִיו Gn 4:2 +; אָחִיהוּ Je 34:9 + 3 times etc.; pl. אַחִים Gn 13:8 +; so read Ho 13:15 v. DeCompl. Var. 23 cf. sub אָחוּ; cstr. אֲחֵי Nu 27:10 +; sf. אַחַי Gn 19:7 +; אֶחָ֑י 1 S 20:29 + (but 1 S 30:23 𝔊 We אַחֲרֵי for אֶחָ֑י את); אַחֶיךָ Gn 37:13 +; אֶחָיו Gn 44:14 + etc.
V. n.f. fire-pot, brasier (Arabic وَلَدًا, in Thes, is an error fire-pot is loan-word from Egyptian ʿḫ according to WMMOLZ 3, 51) always c. art. Je 36:22 הַא׳ לְפָנָיו מְבֹעָ֑רֶת the brasier before him was burning; v 23 הָאֵשׁ אֲשֶׁר אֶל־הָא׳; v 23 הָאֵשׁ אֲשֶׁר עַל־הָא׳ (i. אָח, brother v. sub אחה; iii. אָח interj., p. 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 word
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.
אָח I
- brother, kinsman; fellow, equal, fellow-believer &c. Meg. 11ᵃ (play on ăhashverosh, Ahasverus) אָׄחִׄיו ש̇ל ר̇אש̇ וכ׳ a brother (in cruelty) to the chief tyrant (Nebucadn.); a. fr.—Pl. אַחִים, אַחִין. Gen. R. s. 89, beg. (play on āḥu, Gen. XLI, 2) in years of plenty הבריות נעשו א׳ וכ׳ people are brotherly to each other. Gen. R. s. 99 אחים דפחתא וכ׳ brothers to the degraded woman (Dinah), … but not to Joseph; a. fr.—Cant. R. to VIII, 1 שני אחים brother and sister e.g. Genesis 41:2
אַח
- Targ. fr.—Pl. אָחִין. Targ. Gen. XIII, 8; a. e.—אַחֵי Yeb. 65ᵇ.—Y. Yoma VI, 43ᵈ אֲחֵינָן our brothers
אָח II
- interj. interj.
- 1. (b. h.) exclamation of sorrow, Oh! Meg. 11ᵃ (play on ăhashverosh; v. אָח I) א׳ לראשו woe upon his head. Snh. 102ᵇ (play on Ahab אח־אב) א׳ לשמי׳ a subject of grief to the Lord, and father (friend) of idolatry.—2 (= Syr.) exclamation of joy, Ah! Targ. Is. XLIV, 16 (h. הֶאָח).
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 263 distinct written forms H251 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 203 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H251, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- אחאב ʼAchʼâb H256 Ahab
- אחבן ʼAchbân H257 Ahban
- אחוח ʼĂchôwach H265 Ahoah
- אחומי ʼĂchûwmay H267 Ahumai
- אחי ʼĂchîy H277 Ahi
- אחיאם ʼĂchîyʼâm H279 Ahiam
- אחיה ʼĂchîyâh H281 Ahijah
- אחיהוד ʼĂchîyhûwd H282 Ahihud
- אחיו ʼAchyôw H283 Ahio
- אחיחד ʼĂchîychud H284 Ahihud
- אחיטוב ʼĂchîyṭûwb H285 Ahitub
- אחילוד ʼĂchîylûwd H286 Ahilud
- אחימות ʼĂchîymôwth H287 Ahimoth
- אחימלך ʼĂchîymelek H288 Ahimelech
- אחימן ʼĂchîyman H289 Ahiman
- אחימעץ ʼĂchîymaʻats H290 Ahimaaz
- אחין ʼAchyân H291 Ahian
- אחינדב ʼĂchîynâdâb H292 Ahinadab
- אחינעם ʼĂchîynôʻam H293 Ahinoam
- אחיסמך ʼĂchîyçâmâk H294 Ahisamach
- אחיעזר ʼĂchîyʻezer H295 Ahiezer
- אחיקם ʼĂchîyqâm H296 Ahikam
- אחירם ʼĂchîyrâm H297 Ahiram
- אחירע ʼĂchîyraʻ H299 Ahira
+3 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 31 — not the complete family. 27 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 535 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 572 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 4:2
- Exodus 1:6
- Leviticus 7:10
- Numbers 6:7
- Deuteronomy 1:16
- Joshua 1:14
- Judges 1:3
- Ruth 4:3
- 1 Samuel 14:3
- 2 Samuel 1:26
- 1 Kings 1:9
- 2 Kings 7:6
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.
