כְּבָר
already
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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where H3528 appears — 8 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.
Ecclesiastes 8 verses
- Ecclesiastes 1:10 כְּבָר֙ adv Is there a thing of which it may be said, "Behold, this is new?" It has been long ago, in the ages which were before us.
- Ecclesiastes 2:12 כְּבָ֖ר adv I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king's successor do? Just that which has been done long ago.
- Ecclesiastes 2:16 בְּ/שֶׁ/כְּבָ֞ר prep + ptcl rel + adv For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory for ever, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!
- Ecclesiastes 3:15 כְּבָ֣ר כְּבָ֣ר adv adv That which is has been long ago, and that which is to be has been long ago: and God seeks again that which is passed away.
- Ecclesiastes 4:2 שֶׁ/כְּבָ֣ר ptcl rel + adv Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.
- Ecclesiastes 6:10 כְּבָר֙ adv Whatever has been, its name was given long ago; and it is known what man is; neither can he contend with him who is mightier than he.
- Ecclesiastes 9:6 כְּבָ֣ר adv Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.
- Ecclesiastes 9:7 כְבָ֔ר adv Go your way--eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
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.
כבר (kᵉbâr) is a Hebrew verb most often rendered “already.” Ecclesiastes dominates its distribution — 8 of 8 verses. The Hebrew Bible uses it across 8 verses — uncommon. It first appears in Ecclesiastes 1:10. Sharing its root, it stands alongside כבר, כביר and כביר. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3528 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 →
- 8
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 8 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,481
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,481 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 8 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ecclesiastes 8 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 8 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 8 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†: Hath been already 2×
- American Standard Version†: Hath been long ago 2×, Long ago 2×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Has already 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Already 9×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3528 across 9† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 H3528 across 9† 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 H3528 across 9† 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3528 across 11† 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.
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 0 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.
כבר I (late) already (freq. in Mish. and NH
כבר II fl. Kĕbār, a river (or perhaps a canal) of Babylonia, not at present identified, by wh. the exiles, among whom Ez. ministered, were settled
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. adv. (late) already (freq. in Mish. and NH; 𝔗 כבר (rare) Syriac ܟܒܰܪ usually perhaps, occas. already (Mt 11:21 Heb 1:1); Mand. כבאר already, NöM. p. 202. Der. uncertain, connexion with √ כבר being dub.)—already, Ec 1:10 כְּבָר הָיָה it hath already been, 2:12, 16; 3:15(×2); 4:2; 6:10; 9:6, 7.
II. n.pr.fl. Kĕbār, a river (or perhaps a canal) of Babylonia, not at present identified, by wh. the exiles, among whom Ez. ministered, were settled; always in the phr. נְהַר כְּבָר Ez 1:1, 3; 3:15, 23; 10:15, 20, 22; 43:3 (cf. Sm Ez 1:1 DelPar. 47f., 184).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כבר (kâbar) (H3527) — to multiply.
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.
כְּבָר I
- (b. h.) pr. n., נְהַר כ׳ river (or channel) K’bar (Chebar) in Babylonia. Gen. R. s. 16 הוא פרת הוא נ׳ כ׳ Euphrates and K. are the same. Ib. כ׳ בפני עצמו וכ׳ K. and Euphrates are different rivers. Ib. כ׳ שמימיו כלין it is called K’bar (v. next w.), because its waters give out; שפירותיו גסין ואינן יורדין בכברה because its fruits are large and go not into the basket; (Yalk. Gen. 22 שמימיו קַלִּין).
כְּבָר II
- (b. h.; = זמן כבר; כבר to be thick, strong, round) a long time since; long ago, already; once. Sabb. 51ᵃ, a. e. כ׳ הורה זקן it has already been decided by an authority. Ber. 63ᵃ bot. כ׳ בנית וכ׳ you have once built and can no more tear down, (having once praised me, you cannot now censure me). Y. Sabb. XIV, 14ᶜ bot. וכ׳ חלה וכ׳ and once when he was taken sick, and &c. Num. R. s. 3, end כ׳ נקדתי עליהם have I not put does upon them (to mark that the words are spurious)? [Ib. כ׳ אמחוק וכ׳, read: אוֹמַר I shall say, I will erase &c.]—Y. Gitt. VII, end, 49ᵃ מִכְּ׳ (retroactively) at once; a. fr.
כְּבַר I
- Targ. Koh. I, 10. Targ. Jer. XXXVIII, 9 כ׳ מית he would have been dead by this time; a. fr.—B. Bath. 167ᵃ, a. e. כ׳ קדמוך רבנן our rabbis have long preceded thee (have warned us before this); a. fr.
כָּבַר
- (denom. of כְּבָרָה) to sift. Gen. R. s. 4 אדם כּוֹבֵר בכברה … if one sifts wheat or straw in a sieve. Ohol. XVIII, 2 וכוֹבְרוֹ בשתי כברות and sifts it twice. Maasr. I, 6 הקיטניות משיִכְבּוֹר peas are subject to tithes from the time he sifts them. Ruth R., end וכ׳ את הצבר וכ׳ (not וכבד) and sifted one pile. Y. Ab. Zar. IV, 44ᵇ top … טוחנין כוללין, read כּוֹבְרִין; a. fr.—Part. pass. כָּבוּר. Y. Maasr. I, 49ᵃ bot. מן הכ׳ וכ׳ from the portion which has been sifted in behalf of that which has not.
- to be sifted. Tosef. Ter. X, 15 שדרכו לִיכָּבֵר (not לוכבד) which it is customary to sift.
כְּבַר II
- , Pa. כַּבֵּיר (denom. of כַּבָּרִיתָא) to fumigate with sulphur, to bleach. Ber. 27ᵇ לכַבָּרוּיֵי סלי to fumigate baskets. B. Kam. 93ᵇ דכַבְּרֵיה כברויי when he (in addition) bleached the wool with sulphur.
*כְּבַר III
- to be heavy, to grieve; Af. אַכְבִּיר to irritate, grieve, v. כְּבַד.
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 6 distinct written forms H3528 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| כְּבָ֣ר | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 3:15 | 3 |
| כְּבָר֙ | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 1:10 | 2 |
| בְּ/שֶׁ/כְּבָ֞ר | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 2:16 | 1 |
| כְבָ֔ר | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 9:7 | 1 |
| כְּבָ֖ר | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 2:12 | 1 |
| שֶׁ/כְּבָ֣ר | Adverb | Ecclesiastes 4:2 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3528, 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
- כביר kᵉbîyr H3523 net
- כביר kabbîyr H3524 mighty
- כברה kᵉbârâh H3531 sieve
- מכביר makbîyr H4342 abundance
- מכבר makbêr H4345 lattice
- מכבר makbâr H4346 netted cloth
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 10 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 8 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 8 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.
