חָצֵר
court
‘court’ is one of 2 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.
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
- Both
- Attested as both masculine and feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
5 verses where H2691 appears in the Absolute state in the Book of 1 Kings. 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.
1 Kings
- 1 Kings 6:36 הֶ/חָצֵ֣ר ptcl def.art + n c bs He built the inner court with three courses of hewn stone, and a course of cedar beams.
- 1 Kings 7:8 חָצֵ֣ר n c bs His house where he was to dwell, the other court within the porch, was of the like work. He made also a house for Pharaoh's daughter (whom Solomon had taken as wife), like this porch.
- 1 Kings 7:9 הֶ/חָצֵ֥ר ptcl def.art + n c bs All these were of costly stones, even of hewn stone, according to measure, sawed with saws, inside and outside, even from the foundation to the coping, and so on the outside to the great court.
- 1 Kings 7:12 וְ/חָצֵ֨ר וְ/לַ/חֲצַ֧ר conj + n c bs conj + prep + n c bs cs The great court round about had three courses of hewn stone, and a course of cedar beams; like as the inner court of the house of Yahweh, and the porch of the house.
- 1 Kings 8:64 הֶ/חָצֵ֗ר ptcl def.art + n c bs The same day did the king make the middle of the court holy that was before the house of Yahweh; for there he offered the burnt offering, and the meal-offering, and the fat of the peace-offerings, because the brazen altar that was before Yahweh was too little to receive the burnt offering, and the meal-offering, and the fat of the peace-offerings.
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 noun חצר centers on the idea of “court.” Translators differ — “court” in the King James Version, then “courtyard” (Berean Standard Bible), as the renderings breakdown shows. It turns up in 163 verses across 17 books, a common footprint. First canonically at Genesis 25:16, it enters the text early. Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. Dig into 163-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2691 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 →
- 163
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 163 distinct verses.
- 17 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 17 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #245
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 245 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 163 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 163 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 96 verses · 59%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 39 verses · 24%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 28 verses · 17%
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†: Court 112×, Villages 43×, Courts 22×
- American Standard Version†: Court 109×, Villages 41×, Courts 20×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Courtyard 60×, Court 42×, Villages 28×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Courtyard 74×, Villages 43×, The 13×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2691 across 188† 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 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2691 across 187† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 H2691 across 184† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 6 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2691 across 191† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
9 senses and sub-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 9 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.
חצר I
- 1. enclosures (in Egypt), perhaps court-yards, or cattle-yards, distinct from houses and from fields Ex 8:9 (J). e.g. Exodus 8:9
- 2. court of private house 2 S 17:18 (containing well), cf. Ne 8:16; of a palace, חָצֵר הָאַחֶרֶת 1 K 7:8 the other court, immediately surrounding palace, so called in distinct. from (הֶ)ח׳ הַגְּדוֹלָה v 9, 12 the great court, including ח׳ הא׳ and הֶח׳ הַפְּנִימִית of temple (v. 3 b) in one great enclosure (v. StaSalomos Bauten, ZAW 1883, 152f.); 2 K 20:4 (MSS. Qr Vrss The al.; Kt Ke al. הָעִיר), Je 36:20 Est 1:5; 2:11; 4:11; 5:1, 2; 6:4(×2), 5; ח׳ מַטָּרָה court of guard, place of (honourable) confinement Je 32:2 (in king’s house), v 8, 12; 33:1; 37:21(×2); 38:6, 13, 28; 39:14, 15. Especially e.g. 2 Samuel 17:18
- 3.
- a. court of tabernacle חֲצַר הַמִּשְׁכָּן Ex 27:9, cf. v 9, 12, 13 + 24 times Ex (all P; שַׁעַר הֶח׳ gate of the court Ex 35:17; 38:15, 18, 31; 39:40; 40:8, 33); Lv 6:9, 19; Nu 3:26(×2) (פֶּתַח הֶח׳), v 37; 4:26(×2) (פֶּתַח שַׁעַר הֶח׳), v 32; courts of house of י׳ 1 Ch 23:28. e.g. Exodus 27:9
- b. court(s) of Sol.’s temple, inner c. הֶח׳ הַפְּנִימית 1 K 6:36; 7:12 (but on txt. v Stal.c.) Ez 8:16; 10:3 cf. v 4; = upper c. הֶח׳ הָעֶלְיוֹן Je 36:10 (v. Gf), and ח׳ הַכֹּהֲנִים 2 Ch 4:9 (where also הָעֲזָרָה הַגְּדוֹלָה, as often Ezek., also דְּלָתוֹת לָעֲזָרָה); outer court הֶח׳ הַחִיצֹנָה Ez 10:5 = הֶח׳ הַחֲדָשָׁה 2 Ch 20:5; v. further 1 K 8:64 = 2 Ch 7:7, 2 Ch 24:21; 29:16; Je 19:14; 26:2; Ez 8:7; two courts 2 K 21:5 = 2 Ch 33:5, 2 K 23:12; courts Ez 9:7; 1 Ch 28:12; 2 Ch 23:5; Ne 8:1, 6; 13:7; often poet., courts of י׳ Is 1:12; 62:9 (ח׳ קדשׁי) Zc 3:7 ψ 65:5; 84:3, 11; 96:8; 100:4; 116:19; 135:2. e.g. 1 Kings 6:36
- c. courts of Ezek.’s temple Ez 40:14 + 38 times Ez 40–46 (of these read הַשַּׁעַר for החצר 40:19, 32 with 𝔊 Hi Co; and החיצון for החצר 41:15 with 𝔊 Ew Co; cf. 42:6 הַחִיצֹנוֹת for הַחֲצֵרוֹת); s. תִּיכוֹן on p. 1064. e.g. Ezekiel 40:14
חצר II
- a. settlements of Ishmaelites Gn 25:16 (P; ‖טִירוֹת circles of tents); of עַוִּים Dt 2:23; of Kedar Is 42:11 (‖ עָרִים); בָּתֵּי הַחֲצֵרִים אֲשֶׁר אֵין־לָהֶם חֹמָה סָבִיב Lv 25:31 (H), houses of the villages which have no wall about them; מַאֲרַב חֲצֵרִים ψ 10:8 lurking-place(s) of villages (i.e. where oppressor, as a wild beast, watches his opportunity to attack the defenceless). Usually e.g. Genesis 25:16
- b. as dependencies of cities Jos 15:46, with בְּנֹתֶיהָ (v. supr. בַּת 4 p. 123) Jos 15:45, 47(×2) (all JE?); וְכָל־הַח׳ אֲשֶׁר סְבִיבוֹת הֶעָרִים 19:8 (P), also 21:12 (P) = 1 Ch 6:41, Ne 12:29; also Jos 13:23, 28; 15:32 + 23 times Jos (all P), Ne 11:25, 30 (‖ בָּנוֹת v 25, 27 etc.), 12:28. e.g. Joshua 15:46
- c. villages, not contrasted with cities (cf. Is 42:11 supr.) 1 Ch 9:16, 22, 25 (all of Levites). e.g. Isaiah 42:11
- d. ח׳ appar. incl. all settlements outside of Jerusalem הַח׳ בִּשְׂדֹתָם Ne 11:25.—ח׳ in n.pr.loc. v. infr. (and see Bla on Jos 15:20–32). e.g. Nehemiah 11:25
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. n.m. Ez 40:23 and (oftener) f. 1 K 6:36 enclosure, court—abs. ח׳ 1 K 7:8 +, חָצֵרָה Je 36:20; cstr. חֲצַר Ex 27:9 +; sf. חֲצֵרוֹ 2 S 17:18; חֲצֵרוֹת Ex 8:9 + 4 times; cstr. חַצְרֵי Ne 13:7, חַצְרוֹת 2 K 21:5 + 10 times; sf. חֲצֵרָ֑י Is 1:12; Zc 3:7; חֲצֵרֶיךָ ψ 65:5; 84:11; חֲצֵרוֹתָ֑י 1 Ch 28:6; חֲצֵרֹחָיו ψ 100:4, לְחַצְרוֹתָ֑יו ψ 96:8, וּבְחַצְרֹתֵיהֶם Ne 8:16;—
II. n.m. Ne 11:25 settled abode, settlement, village (Lagl.c.)—always pl., abs. חֲצֵרִים Jos 19:8 + 5 times; cstr. חַצְרֵי 1 Ch 9:16; Ne 12:28; sf. חֲצֵרֶיהָ Jos 21:12 + 4 times; חַצְרֵיהֶם 1 Ch 4:33 + 6 times; חַצְרֵיהֶן Jos 13:23 + 24 times; Jos;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חצר (châtsar) (H2690) — to trumpet.
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.
*חֲצַר
- (dial. for חֲצַד) to cut, harvest. Taan. 10ᵃ עתידה בבל דחַצְרָא וכ׳ Ms. M. (v. חֲצַד) Babylonia shall in the future harvest without rain (on account of the canalization introduced). Cmp. חָצִיר.—[מְחַצְּרִין, v. חַצְצַר.]
חֲצַר
- grass, leek, v. חָצִיר, חָצִירָא.
חָצֵר
- c. (b. h.; wds.; cmp. גָּזַר a. גִּזְרָה &c.) court, yard, in gen. private property. B. Mets. 11ᵃ חֲצֵרוֹ של אדם וכ׳ the ground belonging to a person takes possession for him (of what is found there) even without his knowledge. Ib. ח׳ המשתמרת a well-guarded ground (fenced-in). B. Kam. 12ᵃ; Gitt. 21ᵃ, a. e. ח׳ מהלכת a moving ground, e.g. the back of a slave. Erub. VI, 1 הדר עם … בח׳ if one dwells in the same court yard with a gentile. Ib. 3 אנשי ח׳ the residents of dwellings in one court yard; a. v. fr.—ח׳ הצירית Tyrian yard (with a lodge at the entrance). Maasr. III, 5; Nidd. 47ᵇ.—חֲצַר הקבר the excavated ground to which all the caves of a cemetery open. Ohol. XV, 8; Tosef. ib. XV, 7.—חֲ׳ הכירה the rim of the cooking range. Kel. VII, 3; Tosef. Kel. B. Kam. V, 5.—חֲ׳ הכבד (= b. h. יֹתֶרֶת) lobe of the liver. Yoma VIII, 6; a. e.—חֲ׳ מות cemetery, v. supra. Ber. 18ᵇ.—Pl. חֲצֵרוֹת, חֲצֵי׳. Erub. IV, 6. Ib. VI, 8; 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 94 distinct written forms H2691 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.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 34 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2691, 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
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- חצור Châtsôwr H2674 Hazor
- חצר אדר Chătsar ʼAddâr H2692 Hazar-addar
- חצר גדה Chătsar Gaddâh H2693 Hazar-gaddah
- חצר התיכון Chătsar hat-Tîykôwn H2694 Hazar-hatticon
- חצרון Chetsrôwn H2696 Hezron
- חצרות Chătsêrôwth H2698 Hazeroth
- חצרים Chătsêrîym H2699 Hazerim
- חצרמות Chătsarmâveth H2700 Hazarmaveth
- חצר סוסה Chătsar Çûwçâh H2701 Hazar-susah
- חצר סוסים Chătsar Çûwçîym H2702 Hazar-susim
- חצר עינון Chătsar ʻÊynôwn H2703 Hazar-enan
- חצר עינן Chătsar ʻÊynân H2704 Hazar-enan
- חצר שועל Chătsar Shûwʻâl H2705 Hazar-shual
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 17 — not the complete family. 13 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 148 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 163 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 25:16
- Exodus 8:13
- Leviticus 6:16
- Numbers 3:26
- Joshua 13:23
- 2 Samuel 17:18
- 1 Kings 6:36
- 2 Kings 20:4
- 1 Chronicles 4:32
- 2 Chronicles 4:9
- Esther 1:5
- Psalms 65:4
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.
