חמץ
to be sour
‘to be sour’ is one of 3 main senses 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”).
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself). Here: ‘be soured’
Form
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Participle Passive
- A verbal adjective expressing action received (“written”).
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).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (17%)
- Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (17%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 6 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2556 appears — 6 distinct verses across 4 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.
Exodus 2 verses
- Exodus 12:34 יֶחְמָ֑ץ Qal impf 3ms The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading-troughs being bound up in their clothes on their shoulders.
- Exodus 12:39 חָמֵ֑ץ Qal pf 3ms They baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt; for it wasn't leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt, and couldn't wait, neither had they prepared for themselves any food.
Psalms 2 verses
Isaiah 1 verse
Hosea 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.
The Hebrew verb חמץ centers on the idea of “to be sour.” First canonically at Exodus 12:34, it enters the text early. It turns up in 6 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Exodus (33%), then Psalms and Isaiah. Across 2 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Hithpael). Dig into 6-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2556 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,040
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,040 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 6 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 6 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 33%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 33%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 33%
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 2 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†: Before it was leavened 1×, Cruel man 1×, Dyed 1×
- American Standard Version†: Before it was leavened 1×, Cruel man 1×, Dyed 1×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Crimson-stained 1×, Leaven 1×, Rising 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Developed leaven 1×, Dyed of 1×, Leavened 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2556 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2556 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2556 across 6† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2556 across 7† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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. This entry also uses Hithpael (reflexive or reciprocal).
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 2 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. חָמֵץ Ex 12:39; Impf. יֶחְמָ֑ץ Ex 12:34; Inf. sf. חֻמְצָתוֹ Ho 7:4;—be leavened, of dough (בָּצֵק), Ex 12:34, 39 (E), cf. Ho 7:4. e.g. Exodus 12:39
Hithpael
- be soured, embittered, ψ 73:21 (‖ כִּלְיוֹתַי אֶשְׁתּוֹנָן). e.g. Psalms 73:21
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
I. vb. be sour, leavened (NH id., Pi. Hiph. make sour, leaven; Arabic حَمُضَ be sour; Aramaic חֲמַע be sour, leavened, ܚܡܰܥ, be leavened)—
II. n.m. Ex 13:3 that which is leavened—ח׳ Ex 12:15 + 10 times—forbidden at Passover Ex 12:15 (P), 13:3, 7 (JE), Dt 16:3, in all sacrifices Ex 23:18; 34:25 (both JE); cf. Am 4:5; Lv 2:11; 6:10 (P; appos.); exceptions are לֶחֶם ח׳ of peace-offering Lv 7:13 (P), and the wave-loaves (ח׳ appos.) Lv 23:17 (H).—v. RSSem 203 OTJC 2, 345.
— 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.
חָמַץ
- [to be hot,] to do violence, to wrong. Snh. 35ᵃ (ref. to Is. I, 17) אשרו חָמוּץ ולא חוֹמֵץ right the oppressed, but not the oppressor (listen to the complainant first); Yoma 39ᵇ e.g. Isaiah 1:17
חָמֵץ I
- v. preced.) [to be hot,] to ferment, be sour. Ad. Zar. 68ᵇ מי גרם לה שתֶּחְמַץ וכ׳ what was the cause that it (the dough) became leavened (rose) in one hour?
- to cause leavening. Ib.ᵃ ראויה לחַמֵּץ וכ׳ Ms. M. (ed. לחַמֵּעַ) fit to leaven with it many other doughs. Ib. וחִימְּצוּ; Orl. II, 11 נצטרפו וחִמְּצוּ (Y. ed. הצטרפו וחִימֵּיצוּ) and the two combined produced the required leavening, Ib. 9 וחִמְּצָהּ (Y. ed. וחִימֵּיצָהּ; Ab. Zar. l. c. והֶחְמִיצָהּ) and it made the dough rise. Orl. II 6 כל המְחַמֵּץ whatever is used for producing fermentation; a. fr.—Trnsf. to mature, to continue a case over night, to reserve judgment. Snh. 35ᵃ (ref. to Is. I, 17, v. preced.) אשרו דיין שמְחַמֵּץ את וכ׳ Ms. K. (ed. אשרי, v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 20) praise the judge (in capital cases) who reserves his judgment (over night); Yalk. Is. 257. e.g. Isaiah 1:17
- 1. same. Pes. 40ᵃ מי פירות אינן מַחְמִיצִין juice of fruits produces no leavening (in the ritual sense). Ab. Zar. 68ᵃ כדי להחמיץ (Orl. II, 8 לחַמֵּץ) enough to leaven the dough. Mekh. Bo s. 10 שאור שהוא מַחְמִיץ לאחרים leaven which is used for leavening other doughs; a. fr.—Trnsf. to procrastinate. Ib. s. 9 (play on המַצּוֹת, Ex. XII, 17) כדרך … אין מַחְמִיצִין את המִצְוָה as well as you must not allow the matsah to become sour, so you must not allow the mitsvah (religious act) to become sour by postponement; Yalk. Ex. 201. e.g. Exodus 12:17
- 2. to turn sour, to ferment. Ab. Zar. 68ᵇ ראויה להַחְמִיץ וכ׳ (Ms. M. לחמע) is likely to ferment in two hours. Nidd. IX, 7 מי רגלים שהֶחְמִיצוּ urin which ferments.—Trnsf. to degenerate, become wicked. R. Hash. 3ᵇ קודם שה׳ before he (the Persian King) changed for the worse.
- to become sour (חָמֵץ). Pes. 28ᵇ; 43ᵃ נ׳ מאליו became sour of itself (not through a leavening means).
חֲמַץ
- (preced. wds.)
- 1. to be hot, (of color) red, v. חִימּוּצָא, חִימּוּצָתָא.
- 2. to be sour, salty &c.
- to put to shame. Targ. Prov. X, 1 (h. text תוגת), v. חִימּוּצָא.
- 1. same. Ib. XXV, 8; XXVIII, 7 (Ms. same. Ib. XXV, 8; XXVIII, 7 (Ms. Pa.; h. text הכלים).
- 2. to degenerate. R. Hash. 4ᵃ מנלן דא׳ what evidence have we that he became wicked?, v. preced.
חָמֵץ II
- preced. wds.) leavened bread, anything containing leavened substance (of the five species of grain, v. Ḥall. I, 1, sq.). Pes. I, 1, v. בָּדַק. Ib. II, 2 ח׳ של עכ"ום וכ׳ ḥamets belonging to a gentile over which the Passover passed (which existed during the Passover week). Ib. 3 על חֲמֵצוֹ (trad. pronunc. חֶמְצוֹ as if fr. חֵמֶץ) on ḥ. belonging to him. Y. Shebi. VIII, 38ᵇ bot. חֲמֵיצָן של וכ׳ ḥ. belonging to Samaritans; Y. Ab. Zar. V, 44ᵈ bot. אכל חמצין (read: חֲמֵיצָן) ate their (the Samaritans’) ḥ. (immediately after Passover); a. v. fr.—Pl. חֲמֵצִים, חֲמֵצין salads, v. חוּמְצָן.
חֲמָץ
- (Gr. Ἔμεσα, Ἔμισσα) Ḥămâts, Emesa (mod. Hums) a city of Syria on the Eastern bank of the Orontes. Gen. R. s. 37; Y. Meg. I, 71ᵇ bot. (expl. צמרי, Gen. X, 18).—Y. Kil. IX, 32ᶜ bot.; Y. Keth. XII, 35ᵇ bot. ימא דח׳ the Lake of E. (an artificial bay made under Diocletian); Midr. Till. to Ps. XXIV ימא דחמין (corr. acc.).—Denom. חֲמָצָאֵי, חוֹמְצָאֵי m. pl. inhabitants of Emesa. Targ. Y. Gen. X, 18; Targ. I Chr. I, 16. e.g. Genesis 10:18
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 6 distinct written forms H2556 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וְ/חוֹמֵץ | Verb, Qal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 71:4 | 1 |
| חֲמ֤וּץ | Verb, Qal, Participle Passive, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Isaiah 63:1 | 1 |
| חָמֵ֑ץ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 12:39 | 1 |
| חֻמְצָתֽ/וֹ | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Hosea 7:4 | 1 |
| יִתְחַמֵּ֣ץ | Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Psalms 73:21 | 1 |
| יֶחְמָ֑ץ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Exodus 12:34 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2556, 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
- חמוץ châmôwts H2541 oppressor
- חמיץ châmîyts H2548 seasoned
- חמץ châmêts H2557 leaven
- חמץ chômets H2558 vinegar
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 6 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
