כָּבַס
to wash
‘to wash’ is one of 5 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Piel verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘wash garments’
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”). Here: ‘only’
- Pual
- The passive counterpart of the Piel.
Form
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Sequential Perfect
- A perfect with prefixed waw continuing a preceding imperfect or command (waw-consecutive perfect).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
- Sequential Imperfect
- An imperfect with prefixed waw — the standard past-narrative form (waw-consecutive imperfect).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperative
- A direct command (“write!”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
2 distinct verses where H3526 appears in the Pual stem, across 1 book. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Leviticus 2 verses
- Leviticus 13:58 תְּכַבֵּ֔ס וְ/כֻבַּ֥ס Piel impf 2ms conj + Pual wpf 3ms The garment, either the warp, or the woof, or whatever thing of skin it is, which you shall wash, if the plague has departed from them, then it shall be washed the second time, and it will be clean."
- Leviticus 15:17 וְ/כֻבַּ֥ס conj + Pual wpf 3ms Every garment, and every skin, whereon the semen is, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the evening.
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.
כבס (kâbaç) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “to wash.” It clusters heavily in Leviticus, which alone accounts for 58% of its uses. With 48 verses in 10 books, it is a moderately common word in the Hebrew Bible. Across 4 stems, its meaning turns on the binyan (Qal, Piel). The King James Version usually renders it “shall wash,” while modern versions prefer “must wash” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3526 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 →
- 48
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 48 distinct verses.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #723
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 723 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 48 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 48 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 39 verses · 81%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 7 verses · 15%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 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).
- King James Version: Shall wash 19×, He shall wash 4×, Wash 4×
- American Standard Version: Shall wash 19×, Bathe 7×, He shall wash 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Must wash 19×, Launderer’s 4×, Wash 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Shall wash 19×, He shall wash 9×, And 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3526 across 51 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 H3526 across 58 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 18 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 H3526 across 49 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3526 across 56 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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
Hebrew verbs can shift meaning by stem (binyan): Qal is the basic action, Niphal is often passive or reflexive, Piel often intensifies or makes it factitive, and Hiphil is typically causative. The senses below are grouped under the stem BDB assigns to each. This entry also uses Pual (the passive of Piel) and Hothp (the passive of Hithpael).
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 6 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.
Qal
- Pt. only מְסִלַּת שְׂדֵה כוֹבֵס highway of fuller’s (= treader’s, washer’s) field Is 7:3; 36:2 = 2 K 18:17. e.g. Isaiah 7:3
Piel
- Pf. וְכִּבֶּס consec. Lv 13:6 + 11 times; כִּבֵּס Gn 49:11 2 S 19:25, etc.; Impf. יְכַבֵּס Lv 11:25 + 16 times; 2 ms. sf. תְּכַבְּסֵנִי ψ 51:9, etc.; Imv. sf. כַּבְּסֵנִי 51:4; fs. כַּבְּסִי Je 4:14; Pt. pl. מְכַבְּסִים Mal 3:2;— e.g. Leviticus 13:6
- 1. wash garments (i.e. by treading) Ex 19:10, 14 (E), 2 S 19:25; fig. of Judah Gn 49:11; elsewhere chiefly P: Lv 6:20; 11:25, 28; 13:6, 34; 15:11; Nu 8:9 +; ‖ רָחץ (which = wash person) Lv 14:8, 9; 15:5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 + (כ׳ in Lv 27 times, ‖ ר׳ 15 times; in Nu 8 times, ‖ ר׳ 3 times); Pt. = fuller (cf. Qal), only בֹּרִית מְכ׳ Mal 3:2. e.g. Exodus 19:10
- 2. wash person, only poet. and fig. אִם תְּכַבְּסִי בַּנֶּתֶר Je 2:22; כַּבְּסִי מֵרָעָה לִבֵּךְ 4:14; c. sf. ψ 51:4 (‖ טהר; + מֵעָוֹן); v 9 (‖ חִטֵּא). e.g. Jeremiah 2:22
Pual
- Pf. וְכֻבַּס consec. Lv 13:58; 15:17 be washed, of garment. e.g. Leviticus 13:58
Hothp
- (Ges§ 54, 3) Inf. אַחֲרֵי הֻכַּבֵּס אֶת־הַנֶּגַע Lv 13:55 after the plague is washed out, so v 56. e.g. Leviticus 13:55
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
vb. (tread), wash (NH id.; Ph. כבס as pt.; Assyrian kabâsu, tread, (down), subjugate, kilšu, step, path, DlHWB)—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: a primitive root
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.
כָּבַס
- (b. h.) to press, tread.
- to wash (clothes). M. Kat. III, 1 ואלו מְכַבְּסִין במועד and these are permitted to wash their clothes during the festive week. Taan. 29ᵇ; M. Kat. 18ᵃ, a. e. מותר לְכַבְּסוֹ וכ׳ is permitted to wash it; a. fr.—Pesik. Eth Korb., p. 61ᵇ; Pesik. R. s. 16 (play on כבשים, Num. XXVIII, 3) שהם מְכַבְּסִים וכ׳ for they (as sacrifices) wash (cleanse) the sins of Israel.—Part. pass. מְכוּבָּס, f. מְכוּבֶּסֶת; pl. מְכוּבָּסִין; מְכוּבָּסוֹת. Mikv. X, 4 בגדים שהטבילן מכ׳ garments immersed while still wet from washing. e.g. Numbers 28:3
- to be washed. Cant. R. to I, 5 (play on שלמה) [reads:] מה שַׂלְמָה זו מתלכלכת ומִתְכַּבֶּסֶת וכ׳ as a garment is soiled and washed again &c.; Yalk. ib. 982. Tanḥ. Vayḥi 10 (ref. to Gen. XLIX, 11) אם יטעו בהלכה תהא מתכבסת בתחומו וכ׳ when they err in a decision, it shall be cleansed (atoned for) in his (Judah’s) dominion (the Temple); Gen. R. s. 99 (not מתכסום). e.g. Genesis 49:11
כְּבַס
- , Targ. I Chr. XI, 5, sq., ed. Lag. a. oth., v. כְּבַשׁ
*כֶּבֶס
- , m. (preced.) cleansing material.—Pl. כְּבָסִים. Y’lamd. to Num. XXVIII, 3 quot. in Ar. s. v. כבשים (ref. to כבשים, ib.) אע"פ שכתוב כבשים אנו קורין כ׳ וכ׳ though it is written K’basim (with Sin, sheep), we read K’basim (with Sammekh), for they cleanse Israel’s sins.
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 30 distinct written forms H3526 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that stem’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 47 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 48 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 49:11
- Exodus 19:10
- Leviticus 11:25
- Numbers 8:7
- 2 Samuel 19:24
- 2 Kings 18:17
- Psalms 51:2
- Isaiah 7:3
- Jeremiah 2:22
- Malachi 3:2
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.
