חֲנַן
to show favour
‘to show favour’ 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 Poal verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Stem
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
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”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Poal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 1 time (50%)
- Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct 1 time (50%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 2 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H2604 appears — 2 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Daniel 2 verses
- Daniel 4:27 בְּ/מִחַ֣ן prep + Qal inf.cs Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if there may be a lengthening of your tranquillity.
- Daniel 6:11 וּ/מִתְחַנַּ֖ן conj + Poal ptcp.act ms Then these men assembled together, and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.
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.
חנן — transliterated chănan — is a Hebrew verb carrying the sense “to show favour.” It occurs a mere 2 verses across Scripture. Its uses cluster heavily in Daniel (100% of all occurrences). Its earliest occurrence is Daniel 4:27. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 2-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2604 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #4,807
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 4,807 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 2 verses 100%
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 2 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 100%
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: Making supplication 1×, Shewing mercy 1×
- American Standard Version: Showing mercy 1×, Supplication 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Imploring 1×, Showing mercy 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Imploring favor 1×, Showing mercy to 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2604 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2604 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2604 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2604 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 1 sense 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.
Hithpaal
- . implore favour
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
[ חֲנַן ] vb. shew favour;
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חנן (chânan) (H2603) — to be gracious.
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.
חנן
- , Y. Peah I, 16ᵇ מה ח׳ קיימין, read, as Y. Snh. X, beg. 27ᶜ, מה נן. [חנן Syr., rare form, v. P. Sm. 250 s. v. אנא.]
חָנַן
- [to cover, surround,] to caress, grace, favor. Sabb. 104ᵃ (in children’s acrostics) זֹן אותך וחָ֗ן אותך sustains and graces thee. Num. R. s. 11 (ref. to Num. VI, 25) יָחוֹן איתך בבנים may He favor thee with (good) children. Ib. (quot. from daily prayers) אתה חוֹנֵן לאדם דעת thou graciously endowest man with knowledge. Ib. עתיד הקב"ה לָחוֹן עליהם the Lord will in due time protect them. Sifré Num. 41 יָחְנְךָ בתלמוד תורה may He grace thee by enabling thee to study the Law. Pesik. Asser, p. 97ᵃ (ref. to מהונך, Prov. III, 9) ממה שחֲנָנְךָ out of what He has endowed thee with; a. fr.—[Midr. Till. to Ps. LXXVIII חָן, v. חָנָה.]—Part. pass. חָניּן, pl. חֲנוּנִים e.g. Numbers 6:25
- 1. graced, endowed. Num. R. l. c. חֲנוּנֵי (ב)דעת endowed with knowledge. Pes. 87ᵃ בני חֲנוּנֶיךָ children of thy favored ones, Abraham &c. (Ms., v. בָּחַן).
- 2. bandaged. Pl. fem. חֲנוּנוֹת. Sabb. V, 4, v. חָנוּן I, 2.
- to be shown favor. Deut. R. s. 7 (ref. to Is. XXVI, 10) אבל אם למד … אינו נ׳ but if he has learned …, he will be shown no favor (will not be forgiven). e.g. Isaiah 26:10
- to bend one’s self, to supplicate (v. תְּחִנָּה). Deut. R. s. 2, beg. מִתְחַנֵּן, v. חָבַט. Ib. התחיל להִתְחַנֵּן (התחיל מתחנן) he began to pray; a. fr.
- = חָנָה) to come to rest, to be collected. Ber. 30ᵇ (adopting the expression in conformity with ואתחנן, Deut. III, 23) until his mind be collected again (for prayer), v. חוּל. e.g. Deuteronomy 3:23
חֲנַן
- ch., pret. חַן same. Targ. O. Gen. XXXIII, 5.—Targ. O. Ex. XXXIII, 19 אֵיחוֹן. Targ. Jud. XXI, 22 חֲנוּנוּן להון ed. Lag. (oth. ed. חנינינון) be gracious to them.—Pes. 110ᵇ (in an incantation) אדחֲנַנִי וחֲנַנְכִי וכ׳ while He graced me and yourselves, I had not come to that (v. Ar. s. v. הר 8, a. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note for var. lect.).
חָנָן
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Hanan, name of several Tannaim and of several Amoraim, esp. H., one of the Justices of Peace in Jerusalem, v. אַדְמוֹן. Keth. XIII, 1. Y. ib. 35ᶜ a. fr.—Ḥ. the Egyptian: Snh. 17ᵇ; a. e.—H. (interch. with הנין). M. Kat. 25ᵇ אסיקו ליה ח׳ וכ׳ (Ms. M. חנין) they gave him the name of H. from his father (Hanin).—Y. Yeb. XI, 12ᵃ top (ed. Krot. חָנוּן). Y. Sot. VII, 21ᵈ bot. חנינן.—Y. Ber. IV, beg. 7ᵃ (ח׳ בר ווא) ח׳ בר אבא; Y. Pes. IV, 31ᵃ חנין; a. oth.—V. Frank. M’bo p. 86ᵃ
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 2 distinct written forms H2604 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בְּ/מִחַ֣ן | Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct | Daniel 4:27 | 1 |
| וּ/מִתְחַנַּ֖ן | Verb, Poal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Daniel 6:11 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2604, 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
- חן chên H2580 grace
- חנה chânâh H2583 to encamp
- חנון channûwn H2587 gracious
- חנות channôwth H2589 to be gracious
- חנינה chănîynâh H2594 compassion
- תחנה tᵉchinnâh H8467 supplication
- תחנון tachănûwn H8469 supplication
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- חנה Channâh H2584 Hannah
- חנון Chânûwn H2586 Hanun
- חניאל Channîyʼêl H2592 Hanniel
- חנן Chânân H2605 Hanan
- חננאל Chănanʼêl H2606 Hananeel
- חנני Chănânîy H2607 Hanani
- חנניה Chănanyâh H2608 Hananiah
- חנתן Channâthôn H2615 Hannathon
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 17 — not the complete family. 8 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 2 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 2 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.
