טַל
dew
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
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).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where H2920 appears — 5 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Daniel 5 verses
- Daniel 4:15 וּ/בְ/טַ֤ל conj + prep + n c ms cs Nevertheless leave the stump of its roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals in the grass of the earth:
- Daniel 4:23 וּ/בְ/טַ֧ל conj + prep + n c ms cs Whereas the king saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from the sky, and saying, Hew down the tree, and destroy it; nevertheless leave the stump of the roots of it in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of the sky: and let his portion be with the animals of the field, until seven times pass over him;
- Daniel 4:25 וּ/מִ/טַּ֤ל conj + prep + n c ms cs that you shall be driven from men, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field, and you shall be made to eat grass as oxen, and shall be wet with the dew of the sky, and seven times shall pass over you; until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whoever he will.
- Daniel 4:33 וּ/מִ/טַּ֥ל conj + prep + n c ms cs The same hour was the thing fulfilled on Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and ate grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until his hair was grown like eagles' [feathers], and his nails like birds' [claws].
- Daniel 5:21 וּ/מִ/טַּ֥ל conj + prep + n c ms cs and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals', and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys; he was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky; until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whoever he will.
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.
“dew” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun טל (ṭal). With only 5 verses it sits in the long tail of Hebrew Bible vocabulary. More than three-quarters of its appearances fall in Daniel. First canonically at Daniel 4:15, it enters the text early. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H2920 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,337
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,337 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Daniel 5 verses 100%
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 5 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 5 verses · 100%
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†: Dew 4×
- American Standard Version†: Dew 5×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Dew 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Dew of 5×, And 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H2920 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H2920 across 5† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H2920 across 5† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H2920 across 8† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 1 sense BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- dew
Word origin
n.m. Ju 6:37 night-mist, dew (NH טַל dew; Aramaic ܛܰܠܴܐ, טַלָּא dew; Arabic طَلٌّ light rain, dew; Ethiopic ጠል dew)—ט׳ abs. 1 S 1:21 + 12 times; טָ֑ל Ju 6:13 + 9 times; cstr. טַל Gn 27:28 + 4 times; sf. טַלֶּ֑ךָ Is 26:19, טַלָּם Zc 8:12;—night-mist, taking place of our dew (v. Che Is 18:4 & ψ 110:3; Lane 1862, NeilPal. Explored 129); as coming from the sky and bringing fertility, טַל הַשָּׁמַיִם Gn 27:28 (God gives it, נתן), & v 39 (+ מֵעָ֑ל), cf. Dt 33:28 (heavens distil it, ערף), Hg 1:10 Zc 8:12 (heavens give it, נתן); in Dt 33:13 read perh. מֵעָ֑ל for מִטַּל (v. ‖ Gn 49:25 and Di); clouds distil it (רעף) Pr 3:20; sq. עַל, it descends (ירד) upon the camp Nu 11:9 (JE); it is upon the ground Ju 6:39, 40, cf. 2 S 1:21 (+ מָטָר); upon the fleece Ju 6:37; is wrung out (מוץ) of the fleece v 38; remains through the night (לון) Jb 29:19, cf. שִׁכְבַת הַטּ׳ the lying of dew = the dew lying Ex 16:13, 14 (P; it goes up (עלה) in morning); it is in drops מִי הוֹלִיד אֶגְלֵי טָ֑ל Jb 38:28; covers the head of one out at night Ct 5:2; it comes (היה) by word of prophet 1 K 17:1 (+ מָטָר); sim. of stealthy approach כַּאֲשֶׁר יִפֹּל הַטַּל עַל־הָאֲדָמָה 2 S 17:12; sim. denoting welcome and gentle refreshment, of speech, which distils (נזל) like it Dt 32:2 (poem; ‖ שְׂעִירִים, רְבִיבִים); of fraternal unity כְּטַל חֶרְמוֹן ψ 133:3 (ירד על); of king’s favour Pr 19:12 (על); of י׳’s kindness Ho 14:6; כְּעָב טַל Is 18:4 like a mist-cloud, of י׳’s quiet watching; of Jacob’s influence among nations Mi 5:6 (ט׳ מֵאֵת י׳; ‖ רְבִיבִים); טַל אוֹרֹת טַלָּ֑ךָ Is 26:19 a dew of light is thy dew (v i. אוֹרָה p. 21b supr. and BaudStud. Sem. Rel. ii. 264 f.); as transitory, כַּטַּל מַשְׁכִּים הֹלֵךְ Ho 6:4 like the dew early departing, so 13:3 (both ‖ עֲנַן־בֹּקֶר); fig. of young warriors of king established by י׳, with flashing weapons, like dewdrops טַל יַלְדֻתֶ֑ךָ ψ 110:3.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from טל (ṭal) (H2919) — dew.
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.
טַל
- [hanging drop, cmp. טִלְטוּלַיָּא,] dew. Taan. 3ᵃ בטל וברוחות וכ׳ as to mentioning dew and winds in the prayer &c.—Ib. 3ᵇ טל דברכה a fructifying dew; a. fr.—Pl. טְלָלִים, טְלָלֵין. Ḥag. 12ᵇ עליית ט׳ the upper chamber (store) of dews, v. אֲגָלִים. Lev. R. s. 28 ט׳ קשים injurious dews; a. fr.
טַל ²
- Targ. Is. XVIII, 4. Targ. O. Gen. XXVII, 28; a. fr.—Pl. טַלִּין. Targ. Y. Gen. l. c.; 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 4 distinct written forms H2920 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| וּ/מִ/טַּ֥ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 4:33 | 2 |
| וּ/בְ/טַ֤ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 4:15 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/טַ֧ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 4:23 | 1 |
| וּ/מִ/טַּ֤ל | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Daniel 4:25 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 3 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 5 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.
