אֵיךְ
how
‘how’ is one of 3 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
- Particle
- A short function word — article, negation, interrogative, the sign of the direct object, and the like.
Every verse where H349 appears in the Book of Song of Solomon — 2 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.
Song of Solomon
- Song of Solomon 1:7 אֵיכָ֣ה אֵיכָ֖ה ptcl inter ptcl inter Tell me, you whom my soul loves, Where you graze your flock, Where you rest them at noon; For why should I be as one who is veiled Beside the flocks of your companions? Lover
- Song of Solomon 5:3 אֵיכָ֖כָה אֵיכָ֥כָה ptcl inter ptcl inter I have taken off my robe. Indeed, must I put it on? I have washed my feet. Indeed, must I soil them?
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 word איך centers on the idea of “how.” Its earliest occurrence is Genesis 26:9. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 74 verses — moderately common. The lexicon spreads it across several senses; see its full sense range. Sharing its root, it stands alongside אי, אי and איה. Dig into 74-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H349 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 →
- 74
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 74 distinct verses.
- 25 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 25 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #487
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 487 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 74 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 74 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 46 verses · 62%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 17 verses · 23%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 11 verses · 15%
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 4 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†: How 6×
- American Standard Version†: How 5×
- Berean Standard Bible†: How 65×, What 5×, Why 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: How 66×, Where 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H349 across 10† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 H349 across 11† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 H349 across 82† 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H349 across 73† 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.
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.
איך I (Aramaic אֵיךְ, ܐܰܝܟ [pron. âch]) adv.
- 1. interrog. How? Gn 26:9 2 S 1:5, 14 1 K 12:6 Is 20:6 al.; of. with impf. (esp. in 1 ps.) in an expostulation Gn 39:9; 44:8, 34 Jos 9:7 2 S 2:22; 12:18 ψ 137:4, Is 48:11 for how should it be profaned? איך תאמר(ו) how canst or dost thou (do you) say …? Ju 16:15 Is 19:11 Je 2:23 (cf. 8:8 אֵיכָה) 48:14 ψ 11:1; in an indirect sentence 2 K 17:28 Je 36:17 Ru 3:18. e.g. Genesis 26:9
- 2. as an exclam. How! whether of lamentation 2 S 1:19 Je 2:21; 9:18 Mi 2:4 Ec 2:16; or of satisfaction Is 14:4, 12 Je 48:39; 51:41 Ob 5 al.; with intensive force = how gladly! Je 3:19, how terribly! 9:6 (but others render here ‘for how [else] should I do’? etc.), Ho 11:8 acc. to Hi. e.g. 2 Samuel 1:19
איך II (from אַי and כָּה = כֹּה
- 1. interrog. In what manner? τίνι τρόπῳ; (rather more definite than אֵיךְ = πῶς;) Dt 1:12; 7:17; 12:30; 18:21; 32:30 Ju 20:3 (indirect sentence) 2 K 6:15 Je 8:8 ψ 73:11. e.g. Deuteronomy 1:12
- 2. exclam. How! (slightly more emph. than אֵיךְ) Is 1:21 Je 48:17 La 1:1; 2:1; 4:1, 2. e.g. Isaiah 1:21
- 3. Where? (prob. north-Isr.; cf. Aramaic אֵיכָא, ܐܰܝܟܳܐ where? Cf. DrIntr. 178, 421) only 2 K 6:13 (K3 אֵיכֹה) Kt Ct 1:7(×2),—each time in an indirect sentence. e.g. 2 Kings 6:13
איך III (Ct) אֵֽיכָכָ֫ה (Est) (from אַי & כָּ֫כָה thus) How? only Ct 5
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. (Aramaic אֵיךְ, ܐܰܝܟ [pron. âch]) adv.
I. (from אַי and כָּה = כֹּה; cf. As. ekiam) adv.
I. (Ct) אֵֽיכָכָ֫ה (Est) (from אַי & כָּ֫כָה thus) How? only Ct 5:3(×2) Est 8:6(×2).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אי (ʼay) (H335) — where.
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.
אֵיךְ
- as, how. Targ. Prov. XX, 20; a. fr.
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 31 distinct written forms H349 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֵ֚יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Hosea 11:8 | 14 |
| אֵ֣יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Ezekiel 26:17 | 12 |
| אֵיכָ֥ה | Particle, Interrogative | Deuteronomy 1:12 | 5 |
| וְ/אֵ֥יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Ezekiel 33:10 | 4 |
| אֵ֖יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | 2 Kings 17:28 | 3 |
| אֵ֛יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | 2 Samuel 6:9 | 3 |
| אֵ֥יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Ecclesiastes 4:11 | 3 |
| אֵיכָ֤ה | Particle, Interrogative | Jeremiah 8:8 | 3 |
| אֵיכָה֙ | Particle, Interrogative | Deuteronomy 18:21 | 3 |
| וְ/אֵ֖יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | 2 Kings 10:4 | 3 |
| וְ/אֵיךְ֙ | Particle, Interrogative | Exodus 6:12 | 3 |
| אֵ֗יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Jeremiah 36:17 | 2 |
| אֵ֤יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Jeremiah 50:23 | 2 |
| אֵ֭יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Proverbs 5:12 | 2 |
| אֵיכָ֣ה | Particle, Interrogative | Lamentations 1:1 | 2 |
| וְ/אֵ֣יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | 2 Kings 18:24 | 2 |
| וְ/אֵ֨יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Genesis 39:9 | 2 |
| אֵ֞יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Hosea 11:8 | 1 |
| אֵיךְ֙ | Particle, Interrogative | Genesis 44:34 | 1 |
| אֵיכָ֖ה | Particle, Interrogative | Song of Solomon 1:7 | 1 |
| אֵיכָ֖כָה | Particle, Interrogative | Song of Solomon 5:3 | 1 |
| אֵיכָ֞ה | Particle, Interrogative | Deuteronomy 32:30 | 1 |
| אֵיכָ֥כָה | Particle, Interrogative | Song of Solomon 5:3 | 1 |
| אֵיכָ֨ה | Particle, Interrogative | Deuteronomy 12:30 | 1 |
| אֵיכָה֩ | Particle, Interrogative | Lamentations 2:1 | 1 |
| אֵיכָכָ֤ה | Particle, Interrogative | Esther 8:6 | 1 |
| וְ/אֵ֕יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Exodus 6:30 | 1 |
| וְ/אֵ֗יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Genesis 44:8 | 1 |
| וְ/אֵ֛יךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Ecclesiastes 2:16 | 1 |
| וְ/אֵֽיכָכָ֤ה | Particle, Interrogative | Esther 8:6 | 1 |
| וְ֭/אֵיךְ | Particle, Interrogative | Job 21:34 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H349, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 70 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 74 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 26:9
- Exodus 6:12
- Deuteronomy 1:12
- Joshua 9:7
- Judges 16:15
- Ruth 3:18
- 1 Samuel 16:2
- 2 Samuel 1:5
- 1 Kings 12:6
- 2 Kings 6:15
- 2 Chronicles 10:6
- Esther 8:6
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.
