כֵּהֶה
dim
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
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem.
Form
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
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”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute 5 times (56%)
- Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute 2 times (22%)
- Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 2 times (22%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 9 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3544 appears — 9 distinct verses across 3 books. 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 6 verses
- Leviticus 13:6 כֵּהָ֣ה Piel pf 3ms The priest shall examine him again on the seventh day; and, behold, if the plague has faded, and the plague hasn't spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is a scab. He shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
- Leviticus 13:21 כֵהָ֑ה adj Adjective fs But if the priest examines it, and, behold, there are no white hairs in it, and it isn't deeper than the skin, but is dim, then the priest shall isolate him seven days.
- Leviticus 13:26 כֵהָ֑ה adj Adjective fs But if the priest examines it, and, behold, there is no white hair in the bright spot, and it isn't lower than the skin, but is faded; then the priest shall isolate him seven days.
- Leviticus 13:28 כֵהָ֔ה adj Adjective fs If the bright spot stays in its place, and hasn't spread in the skin, but is faded, it is the swelling from the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him clean; for it is the scar from the burn.
- Leviticus 13:39 כֵּה֣וֹת adj Adjective fp then the priest shall examine them; and, behold, if the bright spots on the skin of their body are a dull white, it is a harmless rash, it has broken out in the skin; he is clean.
- Leviticus 13:56 כֵּהָ֣ה Piel pf 3ms If the priest looks, and, behold, the plague has faded after it is washed, then he shall tear it out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof:
1 Samuel 1 verse
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 42:3 כֵהָ֖ה adj Adjective fs A bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth.
- Isaiah 61:3 כֵּהָ֑ה adj Adjective fs to appoint to those who mourn in Zion, to give to them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Yahweh, that he may be glorified.
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.
כהה (kêheh) is a Hebrew adjective most often rendered “dim.” It clusters heavily in Leviticus, which alone accounts for 67% of its uses. With 9 verses in 3 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Leviticus 13:6. It clusters with כהה and כהה under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3544 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 →
- 9
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 9 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 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 9 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 9 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 6 verses · 67%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 3 verses · 33%
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: Be somewhat dark 5×
- American Standard Version: Be dim 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Has faded 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Has faded 3×, Is faded 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3544 across 9 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 H3544 across 9 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 H3544 across 7 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3544 across 9 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.
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.
- dim, dull, colourless, be dark, faint
Word origin
adj.dim, dull, faint; only f. כֵּהָה Lv 13:6 + 6 times; pl. כֵּהוֹת Lv 13:39 1 S 3:2;—dim, of eyes 1 S 3:2; of burning wick (פִּשְׁתָּה כ׳) Is 42:3; dull (in colour, of plague-spots) Lv 13:6, 21, 26, 28, 39, 56; fig. = faint רוּחַ כ׳ Is 61:3 (opp. מַעֲטֵה תְהִלָּה).
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כהה (kâhâh) (H3543) — to grow dim.
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.
כְּהָא
- , v. כהי
כֵּהֶה
- preced.)
- 1. (of light) dim. Gen. R. s. 31 בשעה שהיא כ׳ when it (the jewel) shone faintly.—Pl. כֵּהִים, כֵּהוֹת, כֵּי׳. Ib.; Y. Pes. I, beg. 27ᵃ בשעה שהיו כ׳ וכ׳ when the lights burned dimly, we knew it was day-time. Ib. 27ᵇ top בשעה שהיו כיהות when the jewels were dim.—Pesik. Kumi, p. 145ᵇ (ref. to כ̇ה̇חלנות Ez. XL, 25) חלונות כ׳ היו the windows were dim (stained glass). Ḥag. 16ᵃ עיניו כ׳ his eyes will grow dim; a. e. e.g. Ezekiel 40:25
- 2. (of leprosy) faint, dull, opp. עזה. Neg. II, 1, v. בַּהֶרֶת. Ib. 2 לפי שהכ׳נראית עזה because (in the early morning &c.) the faint spot appears bright; Sifra Thazr., Neg., Par. II, ch. II.—Y. Shebu. I, 32ᵈ הִכְהָה טמא הִכְ׳ מן הַכֵּ׳ טהור if it grows one shade fainter, it is unclean, but when it grows fainter than the next fainter shade, it is clean; Sifra l. c. ed. Ven.; Yalk. Lev. 551 כִּיהָה מן הכֵּ׳; Y. l. c.; a. fr.—
- *3. (trnsf.) doubtful. Nidd. 19ᵃ; Naz. 65ᵇ; Snh. 87ᵇ; Keth. 75ᵇ ר׳ י׳ אומר כ׳ R. Josh. says, It is doubtful; (Neg. IV, 11 ר׳ י׳ קֵיהָה or כִּיהָה, v. כהי, קהי).
כהי
- 1. to be dim (of sight, light). Gen. R. s. 65 כָּהוּ עיניו his eyes grew dim. Ib. שיִכְהוּ עיניו that his eye-sight shall fail. Kidd. 24ᵇ … הכהו וכָהֲתָה if the master struck him on his eye, and it grew dim; a. fr.—Part. pass. כָּהוּי, f. כָּהוּיָה. Ib. הרי שהיתה עינו כ׳ וכ׳ if his eye-sight was dim, and he (the master) made him perfectly blind.
- 2. (of color) to be dull, v. כֵּהֶה. [Tosef. Erub. XI (VIII), 8; Tanḥ. Noah 9, v. כָּחַח.]
- to grow duller, to be shaded. Sifra Thazr., Neg., Par. 2, ch. II אם העז וכ׳ if the spot grew brighter and grew duller again; a. fr.—2) to declare doubtful. Neg. IV, 11 ר׳ י׳ כ׳, v. כֵּהֶה.
- 1. same. Y. Shebu. I, 32ᵈ, v. כֵּהֶה. Neg. XI, 5 ה׳ בתחלה if the suspicious spot grew fainter at once (before the ordered isolation was begun); ה׳ בראשון if it grew faint in the first week; Tosef. ib. V, 6 quot. in R. S. to Neg. l. c. (ed. Zuck. כהה כתחלה, oth. ed. only כתחלה, corr. acc.); a. fr.
- 2. to make dim. Gen. R. l. c. הריני מַכְהֶה וכ׳ I will make his eye-sight dim. Yalk. Ruth 601 ייסורין מַכְהִין וכ׳ … sufferings of poverty dim men’s eyes. Pesik. R. s. 14 מכהה גלגל חמה dimmed (outshone) the sun in brightness; Pesik. Parah, p. 37ᵃ שיַכְהֶה; a. e.
כְּהִי
- Targ. Gen. XXVII, 1. Targ. I Kings XIV, 4; a. e.—Y. Ned. IX, 41ᵇ bot. עיני כַּהֲיָיא my eye-sight is failing.
- 1. to dim, make blind. Yoma 69ᵇ; Snh. 64ᵃ כַּהֲיִינְהוּ לעיניה Ar. (ed. כחלינהו, cmp. כְּבִי) they made his eye-sight dim. Ib. 27ᵃ ליכַהֲיוּהוּ לעיניה (v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note 80) he shall be blinded.
- 2. (sub. לִבֵּיה) to be angry; (with ב־ of person) to rebuke. Targ. I Sam. III, 13.
- 1. to dim. Targ. Ez. XXXII, 7 באַכְהָיוּתִי when I make dim (h. text בכבותך).
- 2. to make the heart faint, to annoy, reproach (falsely). Ib. XIII, 22 אַכְהֵיתִין לב וכ׳ ye denounced the heart of the righteous to be false (h. text הכאות).
- to be reproached. Ib. (h. text הכאבתיו).
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 7 distinct written forms H3544 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| כֵהָ֑ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Leviticus 13:21 | 2 |
| כֵּהָ֣ה | Verb, Piel, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Leviticus 13:6 | 2 |
| כֵה֔וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | 1 Samuel 3:2 | 1 |
| כֵהָ֔ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Leviticus 13:28 | 1 |
| כֵהָ֖ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 42:3 | 1 |
| כֵּה֣וֹת | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Plural, Absolute | Leviticus 13:39 | 1 |
| כֵּהָ֑ה | Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute | Isaiah 61:3 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3544, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 9 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 9 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.
