יָהּ
Jah
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Jah’ 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 H3050 appears in the Book of Song of Solomon — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Song of Solomon
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.
יה — transliterated Yâhh — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Jah.” Its uses cluster heavily in Psalms (87% of all occurrences). Spanning 46 verses in 4 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Exodus 15:2. See 46-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3050 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 →
- 46
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 46 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #739
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 739 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 46 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 46 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 41 verses · 89%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 7%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 2 verses · 4%
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 3 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†: Lord 25×, Ye the lord 22×
- American Standard Version†: Jehovah 29×, Ye jehovah 21×, Praise ye jehovah 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Lord 22×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Yah 49×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3050 across 49† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3050 across 57† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 H3050 across 24† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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 24 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3050 across 50† 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.
22 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 22 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.
יה I dei contr. from יהוה, first appears in early poems
יה II dei, v. sub הוה p. 219b supr.
יה III † מַעֲשֵׂיָהוּ -יָה, מַעֲשַׂי n. pr.m. (work of י׳
- 1. priest, Je.’s time, מַעֲשֵׂיָה Je 21:1; 29:25; 37:3; perhaps 35:4 (-יָהוּ). e.g. Jeremiah 21:1
- 2. 29:21. מַעֲשֵׂיָהוּ e.g. Jeremiah 29:21
- 3. Levites:
- a. 1 Ch 15:18, 20. e.g. 1 Chronicles 15:18
- b. 2 Ch 23:1. e.g. 2 Chronicles 23:1
- 4. officials:
- a. 26:11. e.g. 2 Chronicles 26:11
- b. 34:8. e.g. 2 Chronicles 34:8
- 5. son of Ahaz 28:7. e.g. 2 Chronicles 28:7
- 6. Levite 1 Ch 6:25 reading מַעֲשֵׂיָה for MT בַּעֲשֵׂיָה q.v., cf. Kit. מַעֲשֵׂיָה of various post-exil. men: e.g. 1 Chronicles 6:25
- 7. Ne 3:23 (Μαδασηλ, A Μαασιου). e.g. Nehemiah 3:23
- 8.
- a. 8:4, 7. e.g. Nehemiah 8:4
- b. 10:26. e.g. Nehemiah 10:26
- c. 11:5. e.g. Nehemiah 11:5
- d. v 7. e.g. Nehemiah 11:7
- e. 12:41. e.g. Nehemiah 12:41
- f. v 42. e.g. Nehemiah 12:42
- 9.
- a. Ezr 10:18. e.g. Ezra 10:18
- b. v 21 (Μασαηλ, Μασειας). e.g. Ezra 10:21
- c. v 22. e.g. Ezra 10:22
- d. v 30. e.g. Ezra 10:30
- 10. מַעֲשַׂי (van d. H. מַעְשַׂי) Μα(α)σαι(α), a priest 1 Ch 9:12. e.g. 1 Chronicles 9:12
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.pr.dei contr. from יהוה, first appears in early poems; Ex 15:2 עָזִּי וְזִמְרָת יָהּ My strength and song is Yah (cited Is 12:2 ψ 118:14), cf. the poetic extract יָד עַל כֵּם יָהּ = hand to the throne of Yah Ex 17:16 (E), the song of Hezekiah Is 38:11 (repeated by dittography), (א)שׁ להבת יה (so read in preference to the MT שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה) = flame of fire from Yah Ct 8:6; ביה יהוה Is 26:4 (יהוה sustained by Aq and the rhythmical movement, unless it be a mistake for שׁמו, cf. ψ 68:5), יה אלהים ψ 68:19. Elsewhere יָהּ is used only in late ψ, especially in the Hallels, in the phrase הַלֲלוּ־יָהּ praise ye Yah ψ 104:35; 105:45; 106:1, 48; 111:1; 112:1; 113:1, 9; 115:18; 116:19; 117:2; 135:1, 3, 21; 146:1, 10; 147:1, 20; 148:1, 14; 149:1, 9; 150:1, 6, cf. also יהלל יה 102:19 יהללו יה 115:17 תהלל יה ψ 150:6 (v. הלל); in var. other phrases ψ 77:12; 89:9; 94:7, 12; 115:18; 118:5, 5, 14, 17, 18, 19; 122:4; 130:3; 135:4.
II. n.pr.dei, v. sub הוה p. 219b supr.
I. † מַעֲשֵׂיָהוּ -יָה, מַעֲשַׂי n. pr.m. (work of י׳; cf. n.pr. מעשיהו on Isr. seal, Cl-Gann, v. Lzb315);—Μα(α)σσαια(ς), etc., 𝔊 B Ezr 10:21 Μασαηλ:—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from יהוה (Yᵉhôvâh) (H3068) — LORD.
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.
יָהּ
- (b. h.) Yah, abbreviation of the Tetragrammaton. Succ. IV, 5 (45ᵃ, missing in Ms. M., v. marginal note to ed.); Tosef. ib. III, 1 לַיָּהּ ולך מזבח unto Yah and unto thee, O altar (do we give praise); Succ. 45ᵇ ליה אנחנו מודים ולך וכ׳ to Yah we offer thanks and thee (altar) we praise. Ib. V, 4 (51ᵇ) אנו ליה וליה עינינו we are Yah’s and to Y. we lift up your eyes. Gen. R. s. 79, end, v. דְיָקִינְתִּין; a. e.
יָהּ II
- (interj.) Oh! exclamation of distress. Gen. R. s. 92 (play on יה, Ps. XCIV, 12). e.g. Psalms 94:12
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 15 distinct written forms H3050 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| יָֽהּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 102:18 | 17 |
| יָ֨הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 106:1 | 9 |
| יָ֑הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 77:11 | 6 |
| יָּ֑הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 94:7 | 4 |
| יָ֔הּ | Noun, Proper | Exodus 15:2 | 3 |
| יָ֗הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 115:18 | 2 |
| בְּ/יָ֣הּ | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 26:4 | 1 |
| בְּ/יָ֥הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 68:4 | 1 |
| יָ֖הּ | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 38:11 | 1 |
| יָ֡הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 146:1 | 1 |
| יָ֣הּ | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 12:2 | 1 |
| יָ֬הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 68:18 | 1 |
| יָ֭הּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 122:4 | 1 |
| יָֽה | Noun, Proper | Song of Solomon 8:6 | 1 |
| יָהּ | Noun, Proper | Psalms 135:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3050, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- הושמע Hôwshâmâʻ H1953 Hoshama
- יהוא Yêhûwʼ H3058 Jehu
- יהואחז Yᵉhôwʼâchâz H3059 Jehoahaz
- יהואש Yᵉhôwʼâsh H3060 Jehoash
- יהוה Yᵉhôvih H3069 LORD
- יהוה יראה Yᵉhôvâh yirʼeh H3070 Jehovah-jireh
- יהוה נסי Yᵉhôvâh niççîy H3071 Jehovah-nissi
- יהוה צדקנו Yᵉhôvâh tsidqênûw H3072 a sacred name symbolically applied to
- יהוה שלום Yᵉhôvâh shâlôwm H3073 Jehovah-shalom
- יהוה שמה Yᵉhôvâh shâmmâh H3074 Jehovahshammah
- יהוזבד Yᵉhôwzâbâd H3075 Jehozabad
- יהוחנן Yᵉhôwchânân H3076 Jehohanan
- יהוידע Yᵉhôwyâdâʻ H3077 Jehoiada
- יהויכין Yᵉhôwyâkîyn H3078 Jehoiachin
- יהויקים Yᵉhôwyâqîym H3079 Jehoiakim
- יהויריב Yᵉhôwyârîyb H3080 Jehoiarib
- יהונדב Yᵉhôwnâdâb H3082 Jehonadab
- יהונתן Yᵉhôwnâthân H3083 Jonathan
- יהועדה Yᵉhôwʻaddâh H3085 Jehoadah
- יהועדין Yᵉhôwʻaddîyn H3086 Jehoaddan
- יהוצדק Yᵉhôwtsâdâq H3087 Jehozadak
- יהורם Yᵉhôwrâm H3088 Jehoram
- יהושבע Yᵉhôwshebaʻ H3089 Jehosheba
- יהושוע Yᵉhôwshûwaʻ H3091 Joshua
- יערשיה Yaʻăreshyâh H3298 Jaresiah
- רמליהו Rᵉmalyâhûw H7425 Remaliah
+11 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 39 — not the complete family. 38 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 (Jah). 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
A contraction for Jehovah (Ps. 68:4).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(Jehovah), the abbreviated form of Jehovah, used only in poetry. It occurs frequently in the Hebrew, but with a single exception, (Psalms 68:4) is rendered "Lord" in the Authorized Version. The identity of Jah and Jehovah is strongly marked in two passages of Isaiah-- (Isaiah 12:2; 26:4) [Jehovah].
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
the everlasting
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 40 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 46 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.
