אֲחִימֶ֫לֶךְ
Ahimelech
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Ahimelech’ 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 H288 appears in the Book of 1 Chronicles — 3 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.
1 Chronicles
- 1 Chronicles 24:3 וַ/אֲחִימֶ֖לֶךְ conj + n Proper David with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, divided them according to their ordering in their service.
- 1 Chronicles 24:6 וַ/אֲחִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ conj + n Proper Shemaiah the son of Nethanel the scribe, who was of the Levites, wrote them in the presence of the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the priests and of the Levites; one fathers' house being taken for Eleazar, and one taken for Ithamar.
- 1 Chronicles 24:31 וַ/אֲחִימֶ֔לֶךְ conj + n Proper These likewise cast lots even as their brothers the sons of Aaron in the presence of David the king, and Zadok, and Ahimelech, and the heads of the fathers' [houses] of the priests and of the Levites; the fathers' [houses] of the chief even as those of his younger brother.
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.
“Ahimelech” is the headline sense of the Hebrew name אחימלך (ʼĂchîymelek). More than two-thirds of its appearances fall in 1 Samuel. It appears 16 verses across 4 books of the Hebrew Bible, among its uncommon vocabulary. Scripture first uses it in 1 Samuel 21:1. See 16-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H288 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 →
- 16
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 16 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,671
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,671 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 16 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Samuel 11 verses 69%
- 1 Chronicles 3 verses 19%
- 2 Samuel 1 verse 6%
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 16 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 12 verses · 75%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 4 verses · 25%
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: Ahimelech 16×
- American Standard Version: Ahimelech 16×
- Berean Standard Bible: Ahimelech 16×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Ahimelech 16×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H288 across 17 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H288 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H288 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H288 across 16 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.
- 1. priest in Saul’s (Dvd’s) time 1 S 21:2(×2), 3, 9; 22:14, 16 (אֲחִימֶ֑לֶךְ) 1 Ch 24:31 ψ 52:2 (title); son of Ahitub 1 S 22:9, 11, (cf. 12), 20; father of Abiathar 1 S 23:6; 30:7; so also 2 S 8:17 𝔖 Ew We Th Dr; where MT אחימ׳ בן־אביתר; whence id. wrongly 1 Ch 24:6, cf. v 4 (אֲח׳ מִבְּנֵי אִיתָמָר) & 18:16 (where read אֲח׳ for אֲב׳). e.g. 1 Samuel 21:2
- 2. a Hittite 1 S 26:6. e.g. 1 Samuel 26:6
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. (brother of Melek, Ph. חמלך, חמלכת; v. also אחיהו supr.)
— 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.
Forms in the corpus
The 15 distinct written forms H288 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֲחִימֶ֖לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 21:1 | 2 |
| אֲחִימֶ֛לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 22:14 | 2 |
| אֲחִימֶ֑לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 22:16 | 1 |
| אֲחִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 30:7 | 1 |
| אֲחִימֶ֜לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 21:1 | 1 |
| אֲחִימֶ֣לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 26:6 | 1 |
| אֲחִימֶ֨לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 22:11 | 1 |
| אֲחִימֶֽלֶךְ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 52:1 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲחִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 24:31 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲחִימֶ֖לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 24:3 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲחִימֶ֥לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 8:17 | 1 |
| וַ/אֲחִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 24:6 | 1 |
| לַ/אֲחִימֶ֔לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 21:8 | 1 |
| לַ/אֲחִימֶ֣לֶךְ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 21:2 | 1 |
| לַ/אֲחִימֶ֨לֶךְ֙ | Noun, Proper | 1 Samuel 22:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H288, 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
- 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
- אחישחר ʼĂchîyshachar H300 Ahishahar
+2 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 31 — not the complete family. 26 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Ahimelech). 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
Brother of the king, the son of Ahitub and father of Abiathar (1 Sam. 22:20-23). He descended from Eli in the line of Ithamar. In 1 Chr. 18:16 he is called Abimelech, and is probably the same as Ahiah (1 Sam. 14:3, 18). He was the twelfth high priest, and officiated at Nob, where he was visited by David (to whom and his companions he gave five loaves of the showbread) when he fled from Saul (1 Sam. 21:1-9). He was summoned into Saul's presence, and accused, on the information of Doeg the Edomite, of disloyalty because of his kindness to David; whereupon the king commanded that he, with the other priests who stood beside him (86 in all), should be put to death. This sentence was carried into execution by Doeg in the most cruel manner (1 Sam. 22:9-23). Possibly Abiathar had a son also called Ahimelech, or the two names, as some think, may have been accidentally transposed in 2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Chr. 18:16, marg.; 24:3, 6, 31.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(brother of the king).
+ Son of Ahitub, (1 Samuel 22:11,12) and high priest of Nob in the days of Saul. He gave David the shew bread to eat, and the sword of Goliath; and for so doing was put to death, with his whole house, by Saul's order. Abiathar alone escaped. [Abiathar] (B.C. 1085-1060.) + A Hittite. (1 Samuel 26:6)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
my brother is a king; my king's brother
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 16 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 16 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.
