כָּזַב
to lie
also: tell a lie, be a liar, be in vain, fail 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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Common
- A common noun — a general class of person, place, or thing (“king,” “city,” “water”), not a specific name.
Stem
- Piel
- An intensive or resultative active stem. Here: ‘lie’
- Niphal
- Usually the simple passive or reflexive of the Qal (“he was written”).
- Hiphil
- The causative active stem (“he caused / brought about”).
- Qal
- The basic, simple active stem — the plain form of the verb (“he wrote”).
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).
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
- Jussive
- A third- or second-person volitional form expressing wish or command (“let him write”).
- Participle Active
- A verbal adjective expressing ongoing or characteristic action (“writing / one who writes”).
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Person
- 1st Person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd Person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Common
- Either gender — not distinguished for this form.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H3576 appears in the Book of Judges — 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.
Judges
- Judges 16:10 כְּזָבִ֑ים n c mp Delilah said to Samson, Behold, you have mocked me, and told me lies: now tell me, Please, with which you might be bound.
- Judges 16:13 כְּזָבִ֔ים n c mp Delilah said to Samson, Hitherto you have mocked me, and told me lies: tell me with which you might be bound. He said to her, If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web.
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.
“to lie” is the headline sense of the Hebrew verb כזב (kâzab). As a verb its force shifts by stem, across 4 stems (Qal, Niphal, and more). It turns up in 18 verses across 10 books, an uncommon footprint. First canonically at Numbers 23:19, it enters the text early. From the same root come אכזב, כדב and כזב. See the sense tree, 18-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3576 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 →
- 18
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 18 distinct verses.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #1,612
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 1,612 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 18 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 18 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 9 verses · 50%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 8 verses · 44%
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 6%
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: Are liars 1×, Do lie 1×, Do not lie 1×
- American Standard Version: Are liars 1×, Do lie 1×, Do not lie 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lie 3×, Would i lie 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lie 4×, Lies 3×, Do 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3576 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3576 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3576 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 H3576 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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.
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. כָּל־הָאָדָם כֹּזֵב ψ 116:11 (cf. כָּזָב 62:10). e.g. Psalms 116:11
Niphal
- Pf. 3 fs. תֹּחַלְתּוֹ נִכְזָ֑בָה Jb 41:1 his hope has been made deceptive, i.e. been shewn to be so; 2 ms. consec. וְנִכְזָ֑בְתָּ Pr 30:6 lest he convict thee and thou be proved a liar. e.g. Job 41:1
Piel
- Pf. 3 ms. כִּזֵּב Mi 2:11; Impf. 3 ms. יְכַזֵּב Hb 2:3 Pr 14:5; וִיכַזֵּב Nu 23:19, etc.; Inf. cstr. sf. (בְּ)כַזֶּבְכֶם Ez 13:19;— e.g. Micah 2:11
- 1. lie, tell a lie, abs., Nu 23:19 (JE), Mi 2:11 Jb 6:28; 34:6 Pr 14:5 Is 57:11; sq. לְ pers. lie to Ez 13:19 ψ 78:36; 89:36; sq. בְּ pers. tell a lie with, i.e. in intercourse, converstion with 2 K 4:16. e.g. Numbers 23:19
- 2. disappoint, fail, of a divine revelation Hb 2:3; waters of a spring Is 58:11. e.g. Habakkuk 2:3
Hiphil
- Impf. 3 ms. sf. יַכְזִיבֵנִי Jb 24:25 who will make me a liar? i.e. prove me to be so (cf. Niph.) e.g. Job 24:25
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. lie, be a liar (Arabic كَذَبَ Aramaic כְּדַב ܟܕܰܒ id. chiefly Pa.; NH כָּזַב)—
— 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.
כָּזַב
- [to shrink, cmp. כָּחַשׁ,] to fail, dry up (of watercourses); to be false, to lie; to flatter. Tosef. Par. IX (VIII), 2 מפני שכָּזְבָה וכ׳ because it gave out during the war.—Snh. 82ᵇ (play on כזבי, Num. XXV, 15) כזבה באביה she was false to her father (in disobeying his instructions). Tanḥ. Sh’laḥ 5 לא כָזַבְתִּי לך I did not tell thee a falsehood; a. e. e.g. Numbers 25:15
- same. Par. VIII, 9 המים המְכַזְּבִים waters which fail at certain times. Y. Taan. II, 65ᵇ bot. (ref. to Num. XXIII, 19) אם יאמר … מְכַזֵּב הוא if a man says, I am a God, he is a deceiver. Num. R. s. 23 (ref. to Num. l. c.) איש עושה לאל שיְכַזֵּב a man (through his prayer) may cause God to fail (to execute his evil decrees); Tanḥ. Masé 7 לא איש עושה לאל שיכ׳ does not a man cause God &c.?—Yoma 69ᵇ לא כִיזְּבוּ לו Ms. M. (ed. בו) they would not be false in His praise (flatter); a. fr.—Part. pass. מְכוּזָּב, pl. מְכוּזָּבִים reduced. Ruth. R. to I, 1 (play on כזבה, I Chr. IV, 22) אלו בניו שהיו מכ׳ that refers to his (Elimelech’s) sons who were reduced (died). e.g. Numbers 23:19
כְּזַב
- ,Pa. כַּזֵּב same. Targ. Job VI, 28 (Ms. כד׳). Targ. Prov. XIV, 5 (ed. Lag. מכדב); v. כְּדב.
כָּזָב
- preced.) falsehood.—Pl. כְּזָבִים. Pesik. Baḥod., p. 154ᵃ; Lev. R. s. 29 הבלים וכ׳ vain and false things. Cant. R. to II, 13 (play on סתו, ib. 11) that is the wicked (Roman) government שמסיתה … בכְזָבֶיהָ which entices the world and leads it astray with its falsehoods. Pesik. R. s. 40 כ׳ שישראל מכזבים וכ׳ the falsehoods which the Israelites commit during the whole year.—[Ex. R. s. 42 כזבים, v. כּוּב.]—[מדבר כזב, v. כּוּב.]
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 16 distinct written forms H3576 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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3576, 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.
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 7 — not the complete family. 3 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 15 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 18 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
- Numbers 23:19
- Judges 16:10
- 2 Kings 4:16
- Job 6:28
- Proverbs 14:5
- Isaiah 57:11
- Ezekiel 13:19
- Micah 2:11
- Habakkuk 2:3
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.
