אָחוֹר
behind
‘behind’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
- Preposition
- A relational word (e.g. “in,” “to,” “from”) governing a noun.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
36 distinct verses where H268 appears in the Absolute state, across 11 books. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Genesis 1 verse
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 1:22 אָח֑וֹר n c ms From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan didn't turn back, The sword of Saul didn't return empty.
- 2 Samuel 10:9 וּ/מֵֽ/אָח֑וֹר conj + prep + n c ms Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians:
1 Chronicles 1 verse
2 Chronicles 1 verse
Job 1 verse
Psalms 12 verses
- Psalms 9:3 אָח֑וֹר n c ms When my enemies turn back, They stumble and perish in your presence.
- Psalms 35:4 אָח֣וֹר n c ms Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded.
- Psalms 40:14 אָ֭חוֹר n c ms Let them be disappointed and confounded together who seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt.
- Psalms 44:10 אָ֭חוֹר n c ms You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take spoil for themselves.
- Psalms 44:18 אָח֣וֹר n c ms Our heart has not turned back, Neither have our steps strayed from your path,
- Psalms 56:9 אָ֭חוֹר n c ms Then my enemies shall turn back in the day that I call. I know this, that God is for me.
- Psalms 70:2 אָ֭חוֹר n c ms Let them be disappointed and confounded who seek my soul. Let those who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.
- Psalms 78:66 אָח֑וֹר n c ms He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.
- Psalms 114:3 לְ/אָחֽוֹר prep + n c ms The sea saw it, and fled. The Jordan was driven back.
- Psalms 114:5 לְ/אָחֽוֹר prep + n c ms What was it, you sea, that you fled? You Jordan, that you turned back?
- Psalms 129:5 אָח֑וֹר n c ms Let them be disappointed and turned backward, All those who hate Zion.
- Psalms 139:5 אָח֣וֹר n c ms You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me.
Proverbs 1 verse
Isaiah 9 verses
- Isaiah 1:4 אָחֽוֹר n c ms Ah sinful nation, A people loaded with iniquity, A seed of evil-doers, Children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.
- Isaiah 9:12 מֵֽ/אָח֔וֹר prep + n c ms the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
- Isaiah 28:13 אָחוֹר֙ n c ms Therefore shall the word of Yahweh be to them precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
- Isaiah 41:23 לְ/אָח֔וֹר prep + n c ms Declare the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods: yes, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and see it together.
- Isaiah 42:17 אָחוֹר֙ n c ms They shall be turned back, they shall be utterly disappointed, who trust in engraved images, who tell molten images, You are our gods.
- Isaiah 42:23 לְ/אָחֽוֹר prep + n c ms Who is there among you who will give ear to this? who will listen and hear for the time to come?
- Isaiah 44:25 אָח֖וֹר n c ms who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;
- Isaiah 50:5 אָח֖וֹר n c ms The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward.
- Isaiah 59:14 אָחוֹר֙ n c ms Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and uprightness can't enter.
Jeremiah 4 verses
- Jeremiah 7:24 לְ/אָח֖וֹר prep + n c ms But they didn't listen nor turn their ear, but walked in [their own] counsels [and] in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.
- Jeremiah 15:6 אָח֣וֹר n c ms You have rejected me, says Yahweh, you are gone backward: therefore have I stretched out my hand against you, and destroyed you; I am weary with repenting.
- Jeremiah 38:22 אָחֽוֹר n c ms behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Your familiar friends have set you on, and have prevailed over you: [now that] your feet are sunk in the mire, they are turned away back.
- Jeremiah 46:5 אָחוֹר֒ n c ms Why have I seen it? they are dismayed and are turned backward; and their mighty ones are beaten down, and have fled apace, and don't look back: terror is on every side, says Yahweh.
Lamentations 3 verses
- Lamentations 1:8 אָחֽוֹר n c ms Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All who honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yes, she sighs, and turns backward.
- Lamentations 1:13 אָח֔וֹר n c ms From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; He has spread a net for my feet, he has turned me back: He has made me desolate and faint all the day.
- Lamentations 2:3 אָח֛וֹר n c ms He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
Ezekiel 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 word אחור centers on the idea of “behind.” The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. It turns up in 41 verses across 13 books, a moderately common footprint. The word gravitates to Psalms (29%), then Isaiah and Jeremiah. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 49:17. Dig into 41-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H268 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 →
- 41
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 41 distinct verses.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #891
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 891 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 41 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 41 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 20 verses · 49%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 18 verses · 44%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 3 verses · 7%
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: Back 14×, Backward 8×, Behind 5×
- American Standard Version: Back 13×, Backward 10×, Behind 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Back 11×, Backward 3×, Behind him 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Back 16×, Backward 10×, Behind 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H268 across 41 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H268 across 41 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H268 across 29 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 12 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H268 across 39 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 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.
- a. as accus., in poetry backwards 23 times (= prose אֲחֹרַנִּית) with vbs. such as נָפַל fall Gn 49:17, נָשׂוֹג be turned 2 S 1:22 (‖ תָּשׁוּב רֵיקָם), שׁוּן ψ 9:4; 56:10 +, נָסוֹג 35:4; 40:15 + (of enemies repulsed), 44:19 Is 50:5 (from obedience to God), נָזוֹר Is 1:4, הֵשִׁיב 44:25 ψ 44:11, הִכָּה 78:66; behind (opp. קֶדֶם) ψ 139:5 Jb 23:8; in the phrase פָּנִים וְאָחוֹר in front and behind †1 Ch 19:10 (altered from מִפָּ׳ וּמֵאָ׳ in 2 S v. infr.) 2 Ch 13:14 Ez 2:10. e.g. Genesis 49:17
- b. בְּאָחוֹר †Pr 29:11, וְחָכָם בְּאָחוֹר יְשַׁבְּחֶנָּה Ges Hi but a wise man stilleth it (רוּחַ anger) backwards (sc. when it would break forth), De in the background, sc. of his heart (‖ כָּל־רוּחוֹ יוֹצִיא כְסִיל). e.g. Proverbs 29:11
- c. לְאָחוֹר (α) as a. †ψ 114:3, 5 Je 7:24; (β) of time, hereafter (cf. לְפָּנִים = before) †Is 41:23; 42:23. e.g. Psalms 114:3
- d. מֵאָחוֹר behind (מן = on the side of) †2 S 10:9 מִפָּנִים וּמֵ׳ in front and behind, Is 9:11 וּפְלִשְׁתִּים מֵאָ׳ and the Philistines behind (= on the West), opp. אֲרָם מִקֶּדֶם. e.g. 2 Samuel 10:9
Plur
- cstr. אֲחֹרֵי hinder part (of the tabernacle Ex 26:12, (of a man or animal)1 K 7:25 (= 2 Ch 4:4) Ez 8:16 (of God) Ex 33:23. e.g. Exodus 26:12
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. (Arabic أُخُرٌ) the hinder side, back part, in the sg., mostly in adverbial phrases:—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אחירע (ʼĂchîyraʻ) (H299) — Ahira.
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.
אָחוֹר
- v. חור a.
- 1. back, hind-part, buttock. Bekh. 8ᵃ; Gen. R. s. 20, beg.—Du. אֲחוֹרַיִים (Ar. אחורים). Pes. 17ᵇ, a. fr. א׳ ותוך the back (outside) and the inside of a vessel.—Y. Yoma V, 42ᶜ top אֲחוֹרָיו לקדש his back turned to the sanctuary.—Y. Pes. VI, 33ᵃ bot., a. fr. מֵאֲחוֹרֵי (prepos.) behind.—אֲחוֹרֵי, לַאֲחוֹרֵי same. Ber. 61ᵃ; a. fr.
- 2. last. Ib. (ref. to Ps. CXXXIX, 5) א׳ למעשה וכ׳ the last of all things created; Lev. R. s. 14 א׳ לכל המעשים. e.g. Psalms 139:5
- 3. farthest back, earliest. Ib. א׳ זה יום ראשון aḥor (Ps. l. c.) means the first day.
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 23 distinct written forms H268 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H268, 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
Derived from this 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 40 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 41 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 49:17
- Exodus 26:12
- 2 Samuel 1:22
- 1 Kings 7:25
- 1 Chronicles 19:10
- 2 Chronicles 4:4
- Job 23:8
- Psalms 9:3
- Proverbs 29:11
- Isaiah 1:4
- Jeremiah 7:24
- Lamentations 1:8
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.
