כִּידוֹן
javelin
also: short sword, dart 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.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute 8 times (89%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct 1 time (11%)
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 H3591 appears — 8 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.
Joshua 2 verses
- Joshua 8:18 בַּ/כִּיד֤וֹן בַּ/כִּיד֥וֹן prep det + n c ms prep det + n c ms Yahweh said to Joshua, Stretch out the javelin that is in your hand toward Ai; for I will give it into your hand. Joshua stretched out the javelin that was in his hand toward the city.
- Joshua 8:26 בַּ/כִּיד֑וֹן prep det + n c ms For Joshua didn't draw back his hand, with which he stretched out the javelin, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.
1 Samuel 2 verses
- 1 Samuel 17:6 וְ/כִיד֥וֹן conj + n c ms cs He had brass shin-armor on his legs, and a javelin of brass between his shoulders.
- 1 Samuel 17:45 וּ/בְ/כִיד֑וֹן conj + prep + n c ms Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
Job 2 verses
Jeremiah 2 verses
- Jeremiah 6:23 וְ/כִיד֞וֹן conj + n c ms They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.
- Jeremiah 50:42 וְ/כִידֹ֞ן conj + n c ms They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon.
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.
The Hebrew noun כידון centers on the idea of “javelin.” First canonically at Joshua 8:18, it enters the text early. It turns up in 8 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to Joshua (25%), then 1 Samuel and Job. Lexicons map it across 2 senses — beyond “javelin” it also covers “short sword” and “dart”. Dig into 8-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3591 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.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 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 →
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.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 6 verses · 75%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 25%
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: Spear 5×, Shield 2×
- American Standard Version: Javelin 7×, Spear 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Battle lance 3×, Javelin 2×, Lance 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Curved sword 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3591 across 9 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 H3591 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3591 across 9 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3591 across 8 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 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.
- javelin, short sword, dart
- gorget, a piece of armour for the throat (1Sam Job 17:6 )
Word origin
n.[m.] dart, javelin (NH id.)—abs. כ׳ Jos 8:18 + 6 times; כִּידֹן Je 50:42; cstr. כִּידוֹן 1 S 17:6;—dart, javelin (distinct from חֲנִית spear, lance, q.v.), נטה בַּכּ׳ אשׁר ביד(ך) Jos 8:18(×2), cf. v 26; רַעַשׁ כ׳ Jb 41:21 the rushing sound of a dart; בְּחֶרֶב וּבַחֲנִית וּבְכ׳ 1 S 17:45 (weapons of Goliath), כ׳ נְחשֶׁת בֵּין כְּתֵפָיו v 6 (חֲנִית in v 7); + חֲנִית Jb 39:23 also; קֶשֶׁת וְכ׳ Je 6:23; 50:42.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כיד (kîyd) (H3589) — ruin.
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.
כִּידוֹן I
- (b. h.) name of a tree, trnsf. light spear, javelin. Kel. XI, 8. Num. R. s. 9 יכול ככ׳ you might think (Absalom with his head of hair was slender, looking) like a kidon, opp. כחרובית; Y. Sot. I, 17ᵇ בכ׳ (corr. acc.); Midr. Sam. ch. XIII; ib. XXVII; a. e.—Pl. כִּידוֹנִים. Yalk. Gen. 133.
כִּידוֹן II
- (b. h.) pr. n. m. Kidon; גורן כ׳ the threshing floor of K. (I Chr. XIII, 9), in place of נָכוֹן (II Sam. VI, 6). Sot. 35ᵇ; Num. R. s. 4 בתחלה כ׳ וכ׳ at first (the Ark was shaking like) a javelin (v. preced.), but afterwards (it was) firmly established; [oth. interpret., v. Rashi to Sot. l. c.] e.g. 1 Chronicles 13:9
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 9 distinct written forms H3591 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| בַּ/כִּיד֑וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Joshua 8:26 | 1 |
| בַּ/כִּיד֤וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Joshua 8:18 | 1 |
| בַּ/כִּיד֥וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Joshua 8:18 | 1 |
| וְ/כִיד֞וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 6:23 | 1 |
| וְ/כִיד֥וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct | 1 Samuel 17:6 | 1 |
| וְ/כִידֹ֞ן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Jeremiah 50:42 | 1 |
| וְ/כִידֽוֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Job 39:23 | 1 |
| וּ/בְ/כִיד֑וֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | 1 Samuel 17:45 | 1 |
| כִּידֽוֹן | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Job 41:29 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3591, 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
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.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 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.
