כַּ֫חַשׁ
deception
‘deception’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Absolute-state word in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- 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.
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
- Construct
- A noun bound to a following noun in a possessive / “of” relationship (the construct chain).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 4 times (67%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 1 time (17%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (17%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 6 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3585 appears — 6 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.
Job 1 verse
Psalms 1 verse
Hosea 3 verses
- Hosea 7:3 וּ/בְ/כַחֲשֵׁי/הֶ֖ם conj + prep + n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp They make the king glad with their wickedness, And the princes with their lies.
- Hosea 10:13 כָ֑חַשׁ n c ms You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, For you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.
- Hosea 11:12 בְ/כַ֨חַשׁ֙ prep + n c ms Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, And the house of Israel with deceit; And Judah still us unruly with God, And is unfaithful to the Holy One.
Nahum 1 verse
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.
כחש — transliterated kachash — is a Hebrew noun carrying the sense “deception.” Its uses cluster heavily in Hosea (50% of all occurrences). With 6 verses in 4 books, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. It first appears in Job 16:8. It is not a single-sense word — see its full sense range. See the sense tree, 6-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3585 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,040
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,040 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 6 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 6 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 4 verses · 67%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 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: Lies 3×
- American Standard Version: Lies 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Lies 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Lies 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3585 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H3585 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 H3585 across 6 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3585 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 2 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.
- 1. lying, אֲכַלְתֶּם פְּרִי כ׳ Ho 10:13 ye have eaten the fruit of lying; 7:3 (‖ רָעָה), 12:1; of Nineveh, כ׳ פֶּרֶק מְלֵאָה Na 3:1 of lying (and) robbery it is full; ψ 59:13 (‖ אָלָה). e.g. Hosea 10:13
- 2. of Job’s affliction Jb 16:8 my leanness hath risen up against me (cf. ψ 109:24; 𝔗 J Gn 41:27, Ec 12:5; Talm. כחשׁא; > my lying, i.e. my affliction regarded as a lying witness, Di Buhl al.) e.g. Job 16:8
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
n.m. Jb 16:8 1. lying 2. leanness;—abs. כ׳ Ho 12:1 + 2 times; כָּ֑חַשׁ Ho 10:13; sf. כַּחֲשִׁי Jb 16:8; pl. sf. כַּחֲשֵׁיהֶם Ho 7:3;—
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כחש (kâchash) (H3584) — to deceive.
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.
חָשׁ
- , v. חוּשׁ, חָשַׁשׁ, חֲשַׁשׁ.
כָּחַשׁ
- 1. to fail, be reduced, be lean, opp. בריא, שמן. B. Kam. 34ᵃ כ׳ כשעת וכ׳ if the injured ox became reduced after being wounded, damage is assessed according to the value at the time of standing before court; Y. ib. III, end, 3ᵈ הִכְחִישׁ. Gen. R. s. 53 (ref. to Hab. III, 17) כּוֹחֲשִׁים היו (Sarah’s face) was haggard (and the announcement of the angels made it shine like olive oil); Yalk. Hab. 565 כְּחוּשִׁים; [oth. interpret., v. infra].—Part. pass. כָּחוּשׁ, f. כְּחוּשָה; pl. כְּחוּשִׁים, כְּחוּשׁוֹת lean, reduced, weak. Snh. 78ᵃ כח כ׳ a weak force. Ḥull. 97ᵃ (in Chald. diction). B. Kam. 6ᵇ אכל כ׳ if he ate fruits of a garden-bed with scanty fruits; Gitt. 48ᵇ; a. fr. e.g. Habakkuk 3:17
- 2. (cmp. כָּזַב) to be false. Gen. R. l. c. כּוֹחֲשִׁים היו were they (the angels) false (deceiving)?—
- 1. to be reduced, fail, deteriorate. Y. B. Kam. l. c., v. supra.—Meïl. 17ᵃ מי שיש … יַכְחִישׁ וכ׳ if you have an enemy, do you desire him to be weak or strong? Ib. ימולו … ויַכְחִישׁוּ let their children be circumcised …, and they will become weak. Yeb. 34ᵇ ויַכְחִישׁ יופיה her beauty may be ruined. Y. M. Kat. I, beg. 80ᵃ עמדה מלהַכְחִישׁ if the field ceased to deteriorate; a. e.
- 2. to lessen, reduce, ruin, weaken. Gitt. 70ᵃ ג׳ … מַכְחִישִׁים כחו וכ׳ three things lessen a man’s energies. Snh. 84ᵇ הִכְחִישָׁחּ באבנים he ruined the animal by loading stones upon her (without causing a wound). Y. B. Kam. l. c. הִכְחִישׁוֹ חמשים וכ׳ he lessened his (the ox’s) value by fifty Zuz. Esth. R. to I, 1 (play on אח̇ש̇ור̇ש̇) שהכח̇יש̇ ר̇אש̇ן וכ׳ he caused haggardness to the heads of &c. Sabb. 22ᵃ מַכְחִישׁ מצוה he impairs the religious act (lessens the brightness of the Ḥănuckah lights). Snh. 67ᵇ; Ḥull. 7ᵇ, v. כְּשָׁפִים; a. fr.—[Yalk. Ps. 627 אַכְחֵישׁ, v. כָּעַס.]
- 3. to declare false, deny, contradict, v. הַכְחָשָׁה. Keth. 20ᵃ כשם שאין מזימין … אין מַכְחִישִׁין וכ׳ as an evidence of alibi cannot be taken up except by confrontation, so cannot contradictory evidence &c. Ber. 27ᵇ יכול החי להַבְחִישׁ וכ׳ can the living contradict the living? Gen. R. s. 48, beg. מפני מה אתה מַכְחִישֵׁנִי וכ׳ why dost thou contradict me (declare me wrong) in the presence of my servant?—Sifra introd., v. כָּרַע; a. fr.
- to be false; to flatter. Sifré Deut. 356 בשעת מְכַחֲשִׁים להם … when the Israelites prosper, the nations flatter them; Yalk. Deut. 967.
- to be contradicted, rebutted. B. Kam. 74ᵇ עדים שהוּכְחֲשׁוּ בנפש witnesses that have been contradicted in a capital case.—Ib. מוּכְחָשִׁין witnesses whose evidence has been contradicted (but not rebutted through an alibi). Keth. l. c. עדות מוּכְחֶשֶׁת a rebutted evidence; a. fr.
- to contradict each other. Sifré Deut. 37 מִתְכַּחֲשׁוֹת; v., however, כָּתַשׁ.
כְּחַשׁ
- , to be lean, weak; v. כָּחִישׁ.—Snh. 95ᵃ כ׳ חיליה his strength failed him. B. Mets. 104ᵇ (prov.) תִּכְחוֹשׁ ארעא ולא לִיכְּחוּשׁ מרה Ms. M. (ed. כחשא) let the land deteriorate (exhausted by strong seeds) rather than that its owner become reduced (by reduced income); a. e.
- 1. to reduce, weaken, impair. Nidd. 47ᵇ; Yeb. 97ᵃ אַכְחֲשׁוּהוּ reduce him (by scanty food); B. Bath. 155ᵇ אכחשיה Ms. M. (corr. acc., ed. ליכחוש, v. infra). B. Kam. 34ᵃ את מַכְחֲשָׁהּ ואנא וכ׳ thou didst ruin her (by neglect), and I should pay for it?
- 2. to contradict. Gen. R. s. 48, beg. אַכְחֲשָׁהּ קדמה he contradicted her (his wife) in her (the servant’s) presence.
- 1. to reduce one’s self, to be reduced. B. Bath. l. c. לִיכְּחוּשׁ let him reduce himself. B. Mets. l. c., v. supra.
- 2. to be contradicted, rebutted. B. Kam. 74ᵃ מִתְכַּחֲשֵׁי are contradicted, contrad. to מיתזמי, v. זְמַם I.—Snh. 81ᵇ אִתְכְּחוּשׁ בבדיקות they contradicted each other in cross-examinations, v. בְּדִיקָה.
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 H3585 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בְ/כַ֨חַשׁ֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 11:12 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/כַחֲשֵׁי/הֶ֖ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Hosea 7:3 | 1 |
| וּ/מִ/כַּ֣חַשׁ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Psalms 59:12 | 1 |
| כַ֝חֲשִׁ֗/י | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | Job 16:8 | 1 |
| כָ֑חַשׁ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Hosea 10:13 | 1 |
| כַּ֤חַשׁ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Nahum 3:1 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3585, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 5 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 6 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.
