אָחוֹת
sister
‘sister’ is one of 7 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
- 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
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H269 appears in the Book of Genesis — 23 distinct verses. 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
- Genesis 4:22 וַֽ/אֲח֥וֹת conj + n c fs cs Zillah also gave birth to Tubal Cain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron. Tubal Cain's sister was Naamah.
- Genesis 12:13 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you."
- Genesis 12:19 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now therefore, see your wife, take her, and go your way."
- Genesis 20:2 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
- Genesis 20:5 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Didn't he tell me, 'She is my sister?' She, even she herself said, 'He is my brother.' In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands have I done this."
- Genesis 20:12 אֲחֹתִ֤/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Moreover she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
- Genesis 24:30 אֲחֹת/וֹ֒ אֲחֹת/וֹ֙ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms It happened, when he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, "This is what the man said to me," that he came to the man. Behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring.
- Genesis 24:59 אֲחֹתָ֖/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp They sent away Rebekah, their sister, with her nurse, Abraham's servant, and his men.
- Genesis 24:60 אֲחֹתֵ֕/נוּ n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cp They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, "Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your seed possess the gate of those who hate them."
- Genesis 25:20 אֲח֛וֹת n c fs cs Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Paddan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian, to be his wife.
- Genesis 26:7 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs The men of the place asked him about his wife. He said, "She is my sister," for he was afraid to say, "My wife," lest, he thought, the men of the place might kill me for Rebekah, because she was beautiful to look on.
- Genesis 26:9 אֲחֹ֣תִ/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Abimelech called Isaac, and said, "Behold, surely she is your wife. Why did you say, 'She is my sister?'" Isaac said to him, "Because I said, 'Lest I die because of her.'"
- Genesis 28:9 אֲח֧וֹת n c fs cs Esau went to Ishmael, and took, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife.
- Genesis 29:13 אֲחֹת֗/וֹ n c fs cs + sfx pers 3ms It happened, when Laban heard the news of Jacob, his sister's son, that he ran to meet Jacob, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things.
- Genesis 30:1 בַּ/אֲחֹתָ֑/הּ prep + n c fs cs + sfx pers 3fs When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children, or else I will die."
- Genesis 30:8 אֲחֹתִ֖/י n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cs Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed." She named him Naphtali.
- Genesis 34:13 אֲחֹתָֽ/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father with deceit, and spoke, because he had defiled Dinah their sister,
- Genesis 34:14 אֲחֹתֵ֔/נוּ n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cp and said to them, "We can't do this thing, to give our sister to one who is uncircumcised; for that is a reproach to us.
- Genesis 34:27 אֲחוֹתָֽ/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp Jacob's sons came on the dead, and plundered the city, because they had defiled their sister.
- Genesis 34:31 אֲחוֹתֵֽ/נוּ n c fs cs + sfx pers 1cp They said, "Should he deal with our sister as with a prostitute?"
- Genesis 36:3 אֲח֥וֹת n c fs cs and Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebaioth.
- Genesis 36:22 וַ/אֲח֥וֹת conj + n c fs cs The children of Lotan were Hori and Heman. Lotan's sister was Timna.
- Genesis 46:17 אֲחֹתָ֑/ם n c fs cs + sfx pers 3mp The sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, and Serah their sister. The sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.
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 אחות centers on the idea of “sister.” Its meaning spans more than one sense — see its full sense range. It appears 104 verses across 18 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its common vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 4:22. It clusters with אח, אח and אחוה 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 H269 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 →
- 104
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 104 distinct verses.
- 18 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 18 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #363
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 363 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 104 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 104 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 43 verses · 41%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 40 verses · 38%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 21 verses · 20%
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: Sister 73×, Sisters 10×, Another 5×
- American Standard Version: Sister 65×, Sisters 10×, 's sister 7×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sister 76×, Sisters 9×, Is my sister 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sister 69×, Sister of 19×, Sisters 10×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H269 across 113 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H269 across 113 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H269 across 108 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 6 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H269 across 121 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.
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.
- 1. sister Gn 4:22; 12:13, 19; 20:2, 5, 12 (same father, diff. mother) so Lv 18:11 cf. Ez 22:11; Gn 24:30(×2) +, Ex 2:4, 7; Lv 18:9 (either parent same) so Dt 27:22 Nu 6:7 2 S 13:1, 2, 4 +, Ct 8:8(×2); called upon, in mourning for dead Je 22:18; = near relative Gn 24:59, 60 (or because Laban prominent? so Di); woman of same nationality Nu 25:18 cf. Ho 2:3. e.g. Genesis 4:22
- 2. = beloved Ct 4:9, 10, 12; 5:1, 2 (4 times ‖ כַּלָּה bride; phr. orig. implying that marriage with half-sister—of same father—was allowed? cf. NöZMG 1886, 150, & Gn 20:12). e.g. Song of Solomon 4:9
- 3. symbol. of Judah, Samaria, Sodom & Jerusalem Je 3:7, 8, 10 Ez 16:45, 52,(×2) (del. Co) +, 23:4, 11 +. e.g. Jeremiah 3:7
- 4. fig. of intimate connection אִמִּי וַאֲחֹתִי לָרִמָּה … קָרָאתי Jb 17:14; אֱמֹר לַחָכְמָה אֲחֹתִי אַתְּ Pr 7:4. e.g. Job 17:14
- 5. another, אִשָּׁה אֶל־אֲחֹתָהּ, of curtains of tabern. Ex 26:3(×2), 6, loops v 5, tenons v 17; of wings of living creatures, Ezek.’s vision Ez 1:9, 23; 3:13; not of persons, but vid. רְעוּת. e.g. Exodus 26:3
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
n.f. sister (Ph. אחת, Aramaic אֲחָת, ܚܳܬܳܐ, Arabic أُخْتٌ, Assyrian aḫâtu, DlW Ethiopic እኅት Sab. in n.pr. אחֿתאמהו OsZMG 1865, 273)—abs. אָ׳ 2 S 13:1 + (never with art.); cstr. אֲחוֹת Gn 4:22 +; sf. אֲחֹתִי (אֲחוֹתִי) Gn 12:13 +, etc.; pl. sf. אַחְוֹתַי (Qr אַחְיוֹתַי) Jos 2:13; אֲחוֹתַיִךְ Ez 16:51 (Qr; Kt אחותך) + 2 times (Co all אחיו׳); אַחֲיוֹתֵךְ Ez 16:52 (Co ־תיך); אֲחוֹתֵךְ Ez 16:52 (must be pl., but del. Co); אַחְיֹתָיו Jb 42:11; אֲחוֹתֵיכֶם Ho 2:3; אַחְיֹתֵיהֶם 1 Ch 2:16 Jb 1:4—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אח (ʼâch) (H251) — brother.
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.
אָחוֹת
- , v. אָח I) sister. Yeb. I, 1; a. fr.—Ḥull. 114ᵃ (of animals).—Pl. אַחֲיוֹת. Yeb. III, 1; 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 83 distinct written forms H269 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; 23 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H269, 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.
- אחאב ʼAchʼâb H256 Ahab
- אחבן ʼAchbân H257 Ahban
- אחוח ʼĂchôwach H265 Ahoah
- אחומי ʼĂchûwmay H267 Ahumai
- אחי ʼĂchîy H277 Ahi
- אחיאם ʼĂchîyʼâm H279 Ahiam
- אחיה ʼĂchîyâh H281 Ahijah
- אחיהוד ʼĂchîyhûwd H282 Ahihud
- אחיו ʼAchyôw H283 Ahio
- אחיחד ʼĂchîychud H284 Ahihud
- אחיטוב ʼĂchîyṭûwb H285 Ahitub
- אחילוד ʼĂchîylûwd H286 Ahilud
- אחימות ʼĂchîymôwth H287 Ahimoth
- אחימלך ʼĂchîymelek H288 Ahimelech
- אחימן ʼĂchîyman H289 Ahiman
- אחימעץ ʼĂchîymaʻats H290 Ahimaaz
- אחין ʼAchyân H291 Ahian
- אחינדב ʼĂchîynâdâb H292 Ahinadab
- אחינעם ʼĂchîynôʻam H293 Ahinoam
- אחיסמך ʼĂchîyçâmâk H294 Ahisamach
- אחיעזר ʼĂchîyʻezer H295 Ahiezer
- אחיקם ʼĂchîyqâm H296 Ahikam
- אחירם ʼĂchîyrâm H297 Ahiram
- אחירע ʼĂchîyraʻ H299 Ahira
+3 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 31 — not the complete family. 27 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 104 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 104 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 4:22
- Exodus 2:4
- Leviticus 18:9
- Numbers 6:7
- Deuteronomy 27:22
- Joshua 2:13
- Judges 15:2
- 2 Samuel 13:1
- 1 Kings 11:19
- 2 Kings 11:2
- 1 Chronicles 1:39
- 2 Chronicles 22:11
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.
