חָמַס
to wrong
also: do violence to, treat violently, do wrongly fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Qal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘of physical wrong’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Jussive, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2554 appears — 8 distinct verses across 6 books. 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.
Job 2 verses
Proverbs 1 verse
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 13:22 נֶחְמְס֥וּ Niphal pf 3cp If you say in your heart, Why are these things come on me? for the greatness of your iniquity are your skirts uncovered, and your heels suffer violence.
- Jeremiah 22:3 תַּחְמֹ֔סוּ Qal juss 2mp Thus says Yahweh: Execute you justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence, to the foreigner, the fatherless, nor the widow; neither shed innocent blood in this place.
Lamentations 1 verse
Ezekiel 1 verse
Zephaniah 1 verse
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, חמס (châmaç) means “to wrong.” It first appears in Job 15:33. It turns up in 8 verses across 6 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Job (25%), then Jeremiah and Proverbs. As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 2 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). 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 H2554 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 6 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 6 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 50%
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: Against me wrongeth 1×, Do no violence 1×, Have violated 1×
- American Standard Version: Against me wrongeth 1×, Do no violence 1×, Have done violence 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Do violence to 1×, Harms 1×, Has been exposed 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Do violence 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2554 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2554 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2554 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2554 across 9 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.
Senses in the full BDB
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each.
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 5 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.
Qal
- Pf. 3 pl. חָֽמְסוּ Ez 22:26; Zp 3:4; Impf. יַחְמֹס Jb 15:33, וַיַּחְמֹם La 2:6; תַּחְמֹ֑סוּ Jb 21:27; Je 22:3; Pt. חֹמֵס Pr 8:36;—treat violently, wrong;— e.g. Ezekiel 22:26
- 1. of physical wrong: תַּחְ׳ Je 22:3 (‖ תֹּנוּ) of wrong to widows and orphans; וַיַּח׳ כַּגַּן שֻׂכּוֹ La 2:6 and hath done violence to his pavilion as to a garden (‖ שִׁחֵת מֹעֲדוֹ); so, fig., of vine, wrong, i.e. fail to nourish, kill יַח׳ כַּגֶּפֶן בִּסְרוֹ Jb 15:33. e.g. Jeremiah 22:3
- 2. of ethical wrong, obj. תּוֹרָה Zp 3:4; Ez 22:26 (both ‖ חִלֵּל קֹדֶשׁ); cf. מְזִמּוֹת עָלַי תַּחְמֹ֑סוּ Jb 21:27 the devices (wherewith) ye do me violence. e.g. Zephaniah 3:4
- 3. both physical and ethical חֹטְאִי חֹמֵס נַפְשׁוֹ Pr 8:36. e.g. Proverbs 8:36
Niphal
- Pf. 3 pl. נֶחְמְסוּ Je 13:22 thy heels suffer violence (‖ נִגְלוּ שׁוּלַיִךְ). e.g. Jeremiah 13:22
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
vb. treat violenty, wrong (NH id., act violently, treat violently; Aramaic חֲמַס (rare) violently seize; Arabic حَمِسَ is be hard, strict, rigorous)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
חמס
- , Ukts. III, 5, v. חֲמָם
חָמַס
- v. Ges. H. Dict.10 s. v.) [to be heated, passionate,] to insult, do violence, to rob. Y. Ab. Zar. II, 40ᵈ bot. לא סוף … אלא חֲמוֹס וכ׳ finally one does not say to another man, Kill that man, but, Attack &c. Gen. R. s. 45 (ref. to חמסי, ib. XVI, 5) חוֹמְסֵנִי את בדברים וכ׳ thou provokest me to speak harshly, because thou seest &c. Gen. R. s. 65, beg. מלכות … גוזלת וחוֹמֶסֶת the wicked government (Rome) robs and extorts; a. fr.—Lev. R. s. 26 דור ודור וחוֹמְסָיו each generation with its violent men.—Part. pass. חָמוּס. Ib. s. 30 גזול אני ח׳ אני I have been taken by force, by extortion.
- to be ruined (cmp. חָבַל). Lam. R. to II, 6 כגנה שנ׳ מעיינה וכ׳ like a garden the spring of which has been ruined, so that its vegetables fade.
- (of beasts of prey) to seize with fangs, scratch with nails. Gen. R. s. 45 (play on חמסי, v. supra) חִימְּסָה פניו Ar. (ed. בפניו, some ed. חימסא, incorr.) she scratched his face; Y’lamd. to Gen. l. c. (quot. in Ar.) חיטטה אותו וחימסה פניו כנמיה she scratched him and marked his face like a marten; Yalk. ib. 79 (not חומסה).
חֲמַס
- —Denom. חומָסָא.
- to do violence to one’s self, to restrain one’s self. Targ. II Esth. V, 10, v. חֲמַם. [Targ. Y. Gen. VII, 21 אתחמסי, read: אִתְמְסִי or אִתְהַמְסִי, v. מְסִי.]
חָמָס
- preced.) violence, extortion. Y. B. Mets. IV, 9ᶜ bot. (ref. to Gen. VI, 13) מה היה חֲמָסָן what was the nature of their violence? Gen. R. s. 31 (distinction between ח׳ a. גֶּזֶל); a. e.—Pl. חֲמָסִים. Gen. R. s. 65 … שלא גזילות ח׳ that thou wilt not give me to eat what has been obtained by robbery or extortion. Lev. R. s. 2. Koh. R. to III, 9; a. e. e.g. Genesis 6:13
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 H2554 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַ/יַּחְמֹ֤ס | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Lamentations 2:6 | 1 |
| חָמְס֖וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Zephaniah 3:4 | 1 |
| חָמְס֣וּ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Ezekiel 22:26 | 1 |
| חֹמֵ֣ס | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Proverbs 8:36 | 1 |
| יַחְמֹ֣ס | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Job 15:33 | 1 |
| נֶחְמְס֥וּ | Verb, Niphal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Common, Plural | Jeremiah 13:22 | 1 |
| תַּחְמֹ֔סוּ | Verb, Qal, Jussive, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Jeremiah 22:3 | 1 |
| תַּחְמֹֽסוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural | Job 21:27 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2554, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
