חָנַךְ
to dedicate
‘to dedicate’ 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘train’
Form
- 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”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (40%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (20%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 5 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2596 appears — 4 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.
Deuteronomy 1 verse
1 Kings 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Proverbs 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.
חנך (chânak) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to dedicate.” It is rare — just 4 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. Deuteronomy dominates its distribution — 1 of 4 verses. It first appears in Deuteronomy 20:5. Not a single-sense word: explore 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 H2596 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 →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 25%
- 1 Kings 1 verse 25%
- 2 Chronicles 1 verse 25%
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 4 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 50%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 25%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 25%
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: Dedicated 2×
- American Standard Version: Dedicated 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Dedicated 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: And 2×, Dedicated 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2596 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H2596 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H2596 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H2596 across 8 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 3 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 ms. sf. חֲנָכוֹ Dt 20:5; Impf. 3 ms. sf. יַחְנְכֶנּוּ Dt 20:5, 3 mpl. וַיַּחְנְכוּ 1 K 8:63; 2 Ch 7:5; Imv. חֲנֹךְ Pr 22:6;— e.g. Deuteronomy 20:5
- 1. train, train up a (the) youth (לַנַּעַר) Pr 22:6 (cf. NH חִנּוּךְ). e.g. Proverbs 22:6
- 2. dedicate, of formal opening of a new house Dt 20:5(×2); dedicate, consecrate temple 1 K 8:63 = 2 Ch 7:5 (all sq. acc.) e.g. Deuteronomy 20:5
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
vb. train up, dedicate (cf. Arabic حَنَكَ appar. denom. from حَنَكٌ, rub palate of child with chewed dates, Lane659a, of midwife rub palate of new-born child with oil, etc., before it begins to suck, Dozyii, 332; also make experienced, submissive, etc. (as one does a horse by a rope in its mouth) Lane; v. also WeSkizzen iii, 154; NH חִנֵּךְ accustom; Aramaic חֲנַךְ dedicate, חַנֵּיךְ as NH; Ethiopic ii. ሐነከ perceive, understand (Di108, ሕንካ initiatio is loan-word Id.ib.))—
— 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.
חָנַךְ
- to rub, polish, finish; trnsf. to train; to dedicate.
- to train, initiate (a child); to inaugurate, prepare for office; to dedicate. Y. Yoma I, 38ᵇ top … מה מְחַנְּכִין אותו וכ׳ as the Highpriest’s inauguration lasted seven days (Lev. VIII, 33, sq.), so is the Highpriest prepared for the service of the Day of Atonement seven days. Naz. 29ᵃ כדי לחַנְּכוֹ במצות in order to initiate his son into the performance of religious duties. Yoma VIII, 4; Tosef. ib. V (IV), 2 מְחַנְּכִין וכ׳ you must train them gradually (to fast on the Day of Atonement) a year or two before religious maturity.—M. Kat. I, 6 מח׳ את הכוכין וכ׳ you may finish up the excavated chambers; v. חִינּיּךְ; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 8:33
- , Nithpa. נִתְחַנֵּךְ to be inaugurated, to be dedicated. Yalk. Prov. 964 יצחק ח׳ וכ׳; Pesik. Baḥod., p. 101ᵃ יצחק נתח׳ וכ׳ Isaac was initiated into the covenant on his eighth day. Sifra Vayikra, Ḥoba, ch. III, Par. 3 שיִתְחַנֵּךְ המזבח וכ׳ that the altar must be dedicated by offering frankincense. Zeb. 40ᵇ; a. e.
חֲנַךְ
- Targ. O. Deut. XX, 5; a. e.
- same. Ib. חַנְּכֵיה (ed. Berl. חַנְכֵ׳ Pe.). Targ. Y. I Deut. XXXII, 3, Targ. Y. II, Deut. XXXII, 3 (sanctified his mouth); a. e.
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 4 distinct written forms H2596 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וַֽ/יַּחְנְכוּ֙ | Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | 1 Kings 8:63 | 2 |
| חֲנָכ֔/וֹ | Verb, Qal, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Deuteronomy 20:5 | 1 |
| חֲנֹ֣ךְ | Verb, Qal, Imperative, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular | Proverbs 22:6 | 1 |
| יַחְנְכֶֽ/נּוּ | Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Deuteronomy 20:5 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2596, 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
- חך chêk H2441 mouth
- חניך chânîyk H2593 trained
- חנכה chănukkâh H2598 dedication
- חנק chânaq H2614 to strangle
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 6 — 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 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 4 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.
