כּ֫וֹרֶשׁ
Cyrus
BDB lists 2 entries for ‘Cyrus’ 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 H3566 appears — 13 distinct verses across 4 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.
2 Chronicles 2 verses
- 2 Chronicles 36:22 לְ/כ֨וֹרֶשׁ֙ כּ֣וֹרֶשׁ prep + n Proper n Proper Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,
- 2 Chronicles 36:23 כּ֣וֹרֶשׁ n Proper Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth has Yahweh, the God of heaven, given me; and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up.
Ezra 7 verses
- Ezra 1:1 לְ/כ֨וֹרֶשׁ֙ כֹּ֣רֶשׁ prep + n Proper n Proper Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,
- Ezra 1:2 כֹּ֚רֶשׁ n Proper Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth has Yahweh, the God of heaven, given me; and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
- Ezra 1:7 כּ֔וֹרֶשׁ n Proper Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of Yahweh, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put in the house of his gods;
- Ezra 1:8 כּ֚וֹרֶשׁ n Proper even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.
- Ezra 3:7 כּ֥וֹרֶשׁ n Proper They gave money also to the masons, and to the carpenters; and food, and drink, and oil, to them of Sidon, and to them of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had of Cyrus king of Persia.
- Ezra 4:3 כּ֥וֹרֶשׁ n Proper But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers' [houses] of Israel, said to them, You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves together will build to Yahweh, the God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.
- Ezra 4:5 כּ֚וֹרֶשׁ n Proper and hired counselors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
Isaiah 2 verses
- Isaiah 44:28 לְ/כ֨וֹרֶשׁ֙ prep + n Proper Who says of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Your foundation shall be laid.
- Isaiah 45:1 לְ/כ֣וֹרֶשׁ prep + n Proper Thus says Yahweh to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut:
Daniel 2 verses
- Daniel 1:21 לְ/כ֥וֹרֶשׁ prep + n Proper Daniel continued even to the first year of king Cyrus.
- Daniel 10:1 לְ/כ֨וֹרֶשׁ֙ prep + n Proper In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, even a great warfare: and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision.
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.
At its core, כורש (Kôwresh) means “Cyrus.” The word gravitates to Ezra (54%), then 2 Chronicles and Isaiah. It turns up in 13 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. Scripture first uses it in 2 Chronicles 36:22. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3566 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,836
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,836 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 13 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ezra 7 verses 54%
- 2 Chronicles 2 verses 15%
- Isaiah 2 verses 15%
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 13 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 11 verses · 85%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 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).
- King James Version: Cyrus 13×
- American Standard Version: Cyrus 13×
- Berean Standard Bible: Cyrus 15×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Cyrus 15×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3566 across 15 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 H3566 across 15 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3566 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3566 across 16 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.
Senses in BDB
The 2 senses 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.
- Cyrus = "posses thou the furnace"
- the king of Persia and conqueror of Babylon…
Word origin
and (Ezr 1:1, 2) כֹּ֫רֶשׁ n.pr.m. Cyrus (Pers. Kʾurʾu, SpiegAPK 215; Bab. Kuraš COT on Ezr 1:1, Dl in Baer Dn. p. x)—king of (Anzan = Susiana, Tiele Bab.-Assyr. Gesch. 469, and) Persia, conqueror of Babylon (Tiele ib; 468 ff.), restorer of Jews to Palestine Is 44:28; 45:1 Ezr 1:7; called מֶלֶךְ פָּרַס 2 Ch 36:22(×2), 23 Ezr 1:1(×2), 2 also Ezr 1:8; 4:3, 5 Dn 10:1; simply הַמֶּלֶךְ Dn 1:21.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: from the Persians
Forms in the corpus
The 9 distinct written forms H3566 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| לְ/כ֨וֹרֶשׁ֙ | Noun, Proper | Daniel 10:1 | 4 |
| כּ֚וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 1:8 | 2 |
| כּ֣וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | 2 Chronicles 36:22 | 2 |
| כּ֥וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 3:7 | 2 |
| כּ֔וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 1:7 | 1 |
| כֹּ֚רֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 1:2 | 1 |
| כֹּ֣רֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Ezra 1:1 | 1 |
| לְ/כ֣וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Isaiah 45:1 | 1 |
| לְ/כ֥וֹרֶשׁ | Noun, Proper | Daniel 1:21 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3566, 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.
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 → 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Cyrus). 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
(Heb. Ko'resh), the celebrated "King of Persia" (Elam) who was conqueror of Babylon, and issued the decree of liberation to the Jews (Ezra 1:1, 2). He was the son of Cambyses, the prince of Persia, and was born about B.C. 599. In the year B.C. 559 he became king of Persia, the kingdom of Media being added to it partly by conquest. Cyrus was a great military leader, bent on universal conquest. Babylon fell before his army (B.C. 538) on the night of Belshazzar's feast (Dan. 5:30), and then the ancient dominion of Assyria was also added to his empire (cf., "Go up, O Elam", Isa. 21:2).
Hitherto the great kings of the earth had only oppressed the Jews. Cyrus was to them as a "shepherd" (Isa. 44:28; 45:1). God employed him in doing service to his ancient people. He may posibly have gained, through contact with the Jews, some knowledge of their religion.
The "first year of Cyrus" (Ezra 1:1) is not the year of his elevation to power over the Medes, nor over the Persians, nor the year of the fall of Babylon, but the year succeeding the two years during which "Darius the Mede" was viceroy in Babylon after its fall. At this time only (B.C. 536) Cyrus became actual king over Palestine, which became a part of his Babylonian empire. The edict of Cyrus for the rebuilding of Jerusalem marked a great epoch in the history of the Jewish people (2 Chr. 36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1-4; 4:3; 5:13-17; 6:3-5).
This decree was discovered "at Achmetha [R.V. marg., "Ecbatana"], in the palace that is in the province of the Medes" (Ezra 6:2). A chronicle drawn up just after the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, gives the history of the reign of Nabonidus (Nabunahid), the last king of Babylon, and of the fall of the Babylonian empire. In B.C. 538 there was a revolt in Southern Babylonia, while the army of Cyrus entered the country from the north. In June the Babylonian army was completely defeated at Opis, and immediately afterwards Sippara opened its gates to the conqueror. Gobryas (Ugbaru), the governor of Kurdistan, was then sent to Babylon, which surrendered "without fighting," and the daily services in the temples continued without a break. In October, Cyrus himself arrived, and proclaimed a general amnesty, which was communicated by Gobryas to "all the province of Babylon," of which he had been made governor. Meanwhile, Nabonidus, who had concealed himself, was captured, but treated honourably; and when his wife died, Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, conducted the funeral. Cyrus now assumed the title of "king of Babylon," claimed to be the descendant of the ancient kings, and made rich offerings to the temples. At the same time he allowed the foreign populations who had been deported to Babylonia to return to their old homes, carrying with them the images of their gods. Among these populations were the Jews, who, as they had no images, took with them the sacred vessels of the temple.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(the sun), the founder of the Persian empire--see (2 Chronicles 36:22,23; Daniel 6:28; 10:1,13)--was, according to the common legend, the son of Cambyses, a Persian of the royal family of the Achaemenidae. When he grew up to manhood his courage and genius placed him at the head of the Persians. His conquests were numerous and brilliant. He defeated and captured the Median king B.C. 559. In B.C. 546 (?) he defeated Croesus, and the kingdom of lydia was the prize of his success. Babylon fell before his army, and the ancient dominions of Assyria were added to his empire B.C. 538. The prophet Daniel's home for a time was at his court. (Daniel 6:28) The edict of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the temple, (2 Chronicles 36:22,23; Ezra 1:1-4; 3:7; 4:3; 5:13,17; 6:3) was in fact the beginning of Judaism; and the great changes by which the nation was transformed into a church are clearly marked. His tomb is still shown at Pasargadae, the scene of his first decisive victory.
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
as miserable; as heir
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 13 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 13 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.
