חֵת
Heth
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Heth’ 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
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H2845 appears in the Book of Genesis — 11 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 10:15 חֵֽת n Proper Canaan became the father of Sidon (his firstborn), Heth,
- Genesis 23:3 חֵ֖ת n Proper Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spoke to the children of Heth, saying,
- Genesis 23:5 חֵ֛ת n Proper The children of Heth answered Abraham, saying to him,
- Genesis 23:7 חֵֽת n Proper Abraham rose up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.
- Genesis 23:10 חֵ֑ת חֵ֔ת n Proper n Proper Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the children of Heth. Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the children of Heth, even of all who went in at the gate of his city, saying,
- Genesis 23:16 חֵ֑ת n Proper Abraham listened to Ephron. Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the current merchants' standard.
- Genesis 23:18 חֵ֑ת n Proper to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city.
- Genesis 23:20 חֵֽת n Proper The field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure to Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the children of Heth.
- Genesis 25:10 חֵ֑ת n Proper the field which Abraham purchased of the children of Heth. There was Abraham buried, with Sarah his wife.
- Genesis 27:46 חֵ֑ת חֵ֤ת n Proper n Proper Rebekah said to Isaac, "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good will my life do me?"
- Genesis 49:32 חֵֽת n Proper the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of Heth."
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.
At its core, חת (Chêth) means “Heth.” Its uses cluster heavily in Genesis (92% of all occurrences). With 12 verses in 2 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. First canonically at Genesis 10:15, it enters the text early. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2845 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,910
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,910 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 12 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Genesis 11 verses 92%
- 1 Chronicles 1 verse 8%
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 12 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 11 verses · 92%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 1 verse · 8%
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†: Heth 14×
- American Standard Version†: Heth 14×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Hittite 2×, Hittites 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Heth 14×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2845 across 14† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2845 across 14† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2845 across 5† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 9 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2845 across 14† 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 2 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. בְּנֵי־חֵת according to P lived at Mamre (Hebron), and one of them sold Abraham the cave of Machpelah for a sepulchre Gn 23:3, 5, 10(×2), 16, 18, 20; 25:10; 49:32. e.g. Genesis 23:3
- b. בְּנוֹת(־)חֵת only of wives of Esau Gn 27:46(×2) (P; 𝔊 om. v b; ‖ בְּנוֹת הָאָרֶץ = בְּנוֹת כְּנָ֑עַן 28:1). e.g. Genesis 27:46
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.pr.m. appar. represented as ancestor of the Hittites (etym. and meaning unknown; pronounced as from √ ע״ע in Heb. & Assyrian, but not Egyptian; v. חִתִּי infr.)—‘begotten’ by Canaan Gn 10:15 (J) = 1 Ch 1:13; elsewhere only in combin. with בְּנֵי, בְּנוֹת;
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from חתת (châthath) (H2865) — to be dismayed.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms H2845 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| חֵ֑ת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 23:10 | 5 |
| חֵֽת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 10:15 | 5 |
| חֵ֔ת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 23:10 | 1 |
| חֵ֖ת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 23:3 | 1 |
| חֵ֛ת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 23:5 | 1 |
| חֵ֤ת | Noun, Proper | Genesis 27:46 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H2845, 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
- חת chath H2844 terror
- חתה chittâh H2847 terror
- חתית chittîyth H2851 terror
- חתת chăthath H2866 terror
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 → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Heth). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Dread, a descendant of Canaan, and the ancestor of the Hittites (Gen. 10:18; Deut. 7:1), who dwelt in the vicinity of Hebron (Gen. 23:3, 7). The Hittites were a Hamitic race. They are called "the sons of Heth" (Gen. 23:3, 5, 7, 10, 16, 18, 20).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(terror), the forefather of the nation of the Hittites. In the genealogical tables of (Genesis 10:15) and 1Chr 1:13 Heth is a son of Canaan. (Genesis 24:3,4; 28:1,2)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
trembling; fear
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 12 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 12 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.
