חִנָּם
freely
also: for nothing, without cause 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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where H2600 appears in the Book of Lamentations — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Lamentations
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.
חנם (chinnâm) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “freely.” Beyond its headline sense, its full sense range takes in “for nothing” and “without cause”. With 31 verses in 15 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Genesis 29:15. It clusters with חן, חין and חן under a shared root. 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 H2600 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 →
- 31
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 31 distinct verses.
- 15 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 15 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,086
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,086 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 31 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 31 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 17 verses · 55%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 10 verses · 32%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 4 verses · 13%
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†: Without cause 10×, Nought 5×, Without a cause 4×
- American Standard Version†: Without cause 11×, Nought 6×, Without a cause 4×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Without cause 12×, Nothing 3×, Cost me nothing 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Without cause 14×, Nothing 9×, Vain 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2600 across 32† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H2600 across 32† 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2600 across 31† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2600 across 32† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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.
- a. gratis, gratuitously, for nothing, עָבַד חִנָּם to serve for nought Gn 29:15; Jb 1:9, Is 52:3 to be sold (fig.) for nought v 5; Ex 21:2, 11 יָצָא חִנָּם to go out (from slavery) freely, for nothing, Nu 11:5 which we used to eat in Egyptian for nought, Je 22:13; 1 Ch 21:24; in the genitive 2 S 24:24 עלוֹת חִנָּם i.e. burntofferings which cost nothing (in the ‖ 1 Ch 21:24 the constr. is changed). e.g. Genesis 29:15
- b. for no purpose, in vain Pr 1:17; Mal 1:10: once אֶל חִנָּם (cf. אֶל 7) Ez 6:10. e.g. Proverbs 1:17
- c. gratuitously, without cause, undeservedly, especially of groundless hostility or attack 1 S 19:5 לְהָמִית חִנָּם to slay David without cause, 25:31 ψ 35:7(×2); 109:3; 119:161 רְדָפוּנִי חִנָּם, Pr 1:11; 3:30; 23:29; Jb 2:3 לְבַלְּעוֹ ח׳, 9:17; 22:6; Ez 14:23, ψ 35:19 and 69:5 שׂנְאַי חִנָּם my haters without cause, La 3:52 אֹיְבַי חִנָּם; in the genitive 1 K 2:31 דְּמֵי חִנָּם blood shed without cause (cf. 1 S 25:31), Pr 24:28 אַל־תְּהִי עֵד ח׳ בְּרֵעֶ֑ךָ, 26:2 קִלְלַת ח׳ the causeless curse. e.g. 1 Samuel 19:5
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
subst., used chiefly in the accus. as adv. (cf. Assyrian annáma, in vain, DlK 7, Pr 44; from חֵן, with aff. ָם, which is sometimes found in substantives proper, as סֻלָּם, and pr. names, but is more partic. used with substs. applied adverbially, as יוֹמָם, אָמְנָם, דּוּמָם, רֵיקָם: Sta§ 293 BaNB § 216)—lit. out of favour; i.e.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חן (chên) (H2580) — grace.
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.
חִנָּם
- gratuitous act, favor, mostly adv. בח׳, לח׳, על ח׳ gratuitously; for no reason. Ex. R. s. 41 על ח׳ בראתני וכ׳ hast thou created me for no purpose?—B. Kam. 92ᵇ, a. e., v. זַרְזִיר. Ex. R. s. 28, beg. נטלה ח׳ he took it gratuitously. Num. R. s. 1 מה אלו ח׳ וכ׳ as these things (fire, water &c.) are free to all &c.—מַתְּנַת ח׳ an undeserved gift. Num. R. s. 11; a. fr.—שִׂנְאַת ח׳ gratuitous hatred, hostility without cause. Sabb. 32ᵇ; a. fr.
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 12 distinct written forms H2600 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| חִנָּ֑ם | Adverb | Genesis 29:15 | 9 |
| חִנָּֽם | Adverb | Exodus 21:2 | 8 |
| חִ֝נָּ֗ם | Adverb | Proverbs 26:2 | 3 |
| חִנָּ֔ם | Adverb | 1 Samuel 25:31 | 2 |
| חִנָּ֖ם | Adverb | Exodus 21:11 | 2 |
| חִנָּ֣ם | Adverb | Proverbs 24:28 | 2 |
| הַֽ/חִנָּ֔ם | Adverb | Job 1:9 | 1 |
| חִ֫נָּ֥ם | Adverb | Psalms 69:4 | 1 |
| חִ֭נָּם | Adverb | Proverbs 1:17 | 1 |
| חִנָּ֗ם | Adverb | 1 Kings 2:31 | 1 |
| חִנָּ֤ם | Adverb | Ezekiel 14:23 | 1 |
| חִנָּם֙ | Adverb | Ezekiel 6:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2600, 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
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 → 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 29 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 31 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 29:15
- Exodus 21:2
- Numbers 11:5
- 1 Samuel 19:5
- 2 Samuel 24:24
- 1 Kings 2:31
- 1 Chronicles 21:24
- Job 1:9
- Psalms 35:7
- Proverbs 1:11
- Isaiah 52:3
- Jeremiah 22:13
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.
