כָּלֶה
longing
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
State
- Absolute
- The independent form of a noun, not bound to a following word.
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
Every verse where H3616 appears — 1 distinct verse across 1 book. 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.
Deuteronomy 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.
כלה (kâleh) is a Hebrew adjective most often rendered “longing.” It is rare — just 1 verse in the entire Hebrew Bible. Deuteronomy dominates its distribution — 1 of 1 verses. Scripture uses it exactly once, at Deuteronomy 28:32. Sharing its root, it stands alongside כלה, כלה and כלי. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3616 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 →
- 1
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 1 distinct verse.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #6,101
- by frequency
- Rank #6,101 (rank 6,101 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 1 occurrence in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Deuteronomy 1 verse 100%
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 1 distinct verse.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 1 verse · 100%
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: Fail 1×
- American Standard Version: Fail 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Grow weary 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Will long 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3616 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3616 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3616 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3616 across 1 tagged occurrence — most commonly:
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.
- failing with desire, longing, longing for
Word origin
[ כָּלֶה ] adj. failing with desire, longing, only Dt 28:32
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from כלה (kâlâh) (H3615) — to finish.
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.
*כְּלָה
- (v. אוּכְלָא, עוּכְלָא)K’lah, a measure for spices. Y. Bets. III, end, 62ᵇ תן לי כ׳ וכ׳ give me a k’lah of spices, for housekeepers are in the habit of putting a k. of spices &c. Y. Peah VIII, 20ᵈ bot. כולה תבלין a K. is the ordinary quantity for spices; (Erub. 29ᵃ; R. S. to Peah VIII, 5 עוכלא).
כַּלָּה
- 1. [crown, ornament, v. Is. XLIX, 18,] (sub. בעלת or בת, cmp. אִיתּוּ, חוֹרִים a. בֶּן חוֹרִים) bride; daughter-in-law. Yeb. I, 1 וכַלָּתוֹ and his (deceased) son’s wife. Sot. IX, 14 שתצא הב׳ וכ׳ that the bride on her wedding day may be taken around in procession, v. אַפִּרְיוֹן. Keth. 71ᵇ; Pes. 87ᵃ ככ׳ שנמצאת וכ׳ like a bride (daughter-in-law) found perfect in the house of her father-in-law. Ib. כ׳ בבית אביה a bride in her father’s house (not yet taken to her husband’s paternal house). Ex. R. s. 41 (play on ככלתו, Ex. XXXI, 18, cmp. כְּלַל Pa.) מה כ׳ זו מקושטת וכ׳ as the bride is adorned &c.; a. fr. [Tanḥ. Ki Thissa 18 כ׳ נופי, read with ed. Bub. ib. 9 קלי נינפי.]—Pl. כַּלּוֹת. Sot. l. c. עטרות כ׳ (Talm. ed. sing.) the bridal wreaths. Ib. 49ᵇ; a. fr e.g. Isaiah 49:18
- 2. general assembly, esp. Kallah, the assembly of Babylonian students in the months of Elul and Adar. Ber. 8ᵇ פרשייתא דכ׳ Ar. (Ms. Paris דכַלָּא, v. Rabb. D. S., Vol. I, p. 384; ed. דכולא שתא) the weekly Scripture lessons of the Kallah weeks (during which R. Bibi could not find time to peruse the section of each week). Ib. 6ᵃ, v. דּוּחֲקָא. Ib. 57ᵃ ראש לבני כ׳; B. Bath. 22ᵃ ריש כ׳ the president of the Kallah.—Pl. (of כַּלָּא) כַּלֵּי. Ḥull. 49ᵃ רישי כ׳.—מסכת כלה, מסכתא דכ׳ a (small) treatise of the Talmud named Kallah (from its first word). Sabb. 114ᵃ; Kidd. 49ᵇ; Taan. 10ᵇ; [oth. opin.: a subject which has been discussed in the general assembly].
כָּלָה
- , v. כלי
כלי
- v. כָּלַל)
- 1. to enclose; to restrain, keep back. Midr. Till. to Ps. CXIII לִכְלוֹת את המכה וכ׳ to ward this plague off from thee. Midd. IV, 6 כֹּלֵה עֹרֵב ‘keeping off the raven’, an arrangement of iron points on the roof of the Temple; Sabb. 90ᵃ כּוֹלֵי עורב (pl.) Ms. M. (ed. כַּלְיָיא ch.; v. Rabb. D. S. a. l. note); Men. 107ᵃ כולי Ms. M. (ed. כַּלְיָה); M. Kat. 9ᵃ כולי Ms. M. (ed. כליא); Arakh. 6ᵃ כליה.—Part. pass. כָּלוּי. Y. Naz. II, beg. 51ᵈ כ׳ אני ממנו I will be restrained from it (for ‘I will abstain’).
- 2. (cmp. שלם) to be full, to be finished, to cease. Ber. 39ᵃ צריך שתִּכְלֶה ברכה וכ׳ the benediction must be finished simultaneously with breaking the bread. Tanḥ. Ki Thissa 5 כבר כָּלוּ ישראל וכ׳ Israel would have ceased to exist; (Pesik. Shek., p. 13ᵇ חיו … מְכוּלִּין, v. infra). Snh. 97ᵇ כלו כל הקצין all the predicted terms of redemption are ended (have passed by); a. fr.—[Pesik. R. s. 12 מת וכלה בקבר, read: ובלה.]—Part. (fr. כּוּל, cmp. חוּל, part. חולות a. חלות) כָּל. Snh. 17ᵃ (ref. to כלאם, Num. XI, 28) הטל … והן כָּלִין מאליהם throw upon them the care for the public, and they will cease (to prophesy) of themselves; a. fr. e.g. Numbers 11:28
- 1. to finish, cease. Yoma 60ᵇ (ref to Lev. XVI, 20) אם כפר כ׳ when he has atoned (for the sanctuary &c.), he has finished (his task). Ib. אם כ׳ כפר when he has done all (the prescribed ritual), he has achieved atonement; Sifra Aḥăré ch. IV, Par. 4; a. e.—Tanḥ. Vayetse 2 מְכַלִּין את שדותיהן they reap their fields entirely (leaving no corners for the poor). Snh. 67ᵇ כַּלֵּה מִדַּבְּרוֹתֶיךָ ולך וכ׳ (some ed. כלך, v. Rab. D. S. a. l. note) cease from thy homiletical interpretations, and turn to &c.; Midr. Till. to Ps. CIV, 6; Ex. R. s. 10, v. כַּלֵּךְ. e.g. Leviticus 16:20
- 2. to finish, destroy. Y. Shek. VI, 50ᵇ top (ref. to מכלות, II Chr. IV, 21) הן כִּילּוּ וכ׳ they (these vessels) consumed all the gold (of the country); Men. 29ᵃ שכִּילַּתּוֹ וכ׳ it consumed &c. Pesik. R. s. 2 שכי׳ אותה וכ׳ whom the Lord destroyed. Num. R. s. 3 היה הארון מְכַלֶּה בבני וכ׳ the Ark made havoc among the sons of Kehath (who had charge of it; cmp. II Sam. VI, 7). Mekh. B’shall., Amalek, s. 2 לכַלָּן to destroy them. Y. Ḥag. II, 78ᵃ bot. (cited in Tosaf. to Ḥag. 17ᵇ a. v. אלא) ובלבד שיְכַלֶּה עיסתו (ed. שיבלים) provided he has used up all his dough for the day; a. fr.—Part. pass. מְכוּלֶּה, pl. מְכוּלִּין. Pesik. Shek., p. 13ᵇ כבר היו ישראל מ׳ וכ׳ Israel would then have been destroyed; a. e. e.g. 2 Chronicles 4:21
- to be destroyed, visited by death. Num. R. s. 5 היו מִתְכַּלִּין they were diminished. Ib. שלא יִתְכַּלּוּ מן וכ׳ that they may not be destroyed from the world. Num. R. s. 3 לא נ׳ וכ׳ not one of them was missing on being counted &c.; a. e.
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.
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3616, 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
- כלה kâlâh H3617 completion
- כלי kᵉlîy H3627 vessel
- כליון killâyôwn H3631 pining
- מכלה miklâh H4357 perfection
- תכלה tiklâh H8502 perfection
- תכלית taklîyth H8503 end
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 9 — not the complete family. 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 1 verse that also exists in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 1 Hebrew verse 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.
