כְּלַל
to finish
‘to finish’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Hithpael verb in the Hebrew Bible →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Stem
- Hithpael
- The reflexive or reciprocal stem (the subject acts on itself).
Form
- Infinitive Construct
- A bound verbal noun, frequently with prepositions (“to write / in writing”).
- Imperfect
- An incomplete, ongoing, or future action (“he will / would write”).
- Perfect
- A completed action or state — Hebrew marks aspect (completeness) more than strict tense (“he wrote”).
Person
- 3rd Person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one (in Hebrew, generally three or more).
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, e, Infinitive Construct 2 times (25%)
- Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (25%)
- Verb, e, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 2 times (25%)
- Verb, e, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular 1 time (13%)
- Verb, Hishtaphel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural 1 time (13%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 8 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3635 appears — 7 distinct verses 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.
Ezra 7 verses
- Ezra 4:12 אשכללו שַׁכְלִ֔ילוּ Hishtaphel impf 3mp e pf 3mp Be it known to the king, that the Jews who came up from you are come to us to Jerusalem; they are building the rebellious and the bad city, and have finished the walls, and repaired the foundations.
- Ezra 4:13 יִֽשְׁתַּכְלְל֑וּן Hithpael impf 3mp Be it known now to the king that if this city is built, and the walls finished, they will not pay tribute, custom, or toll, and in the end it will be hurtful to the kings.
- Ezra 4:16 יִֽשְׁתַּכְלְל֑וּן Hithpael impf 3mp We inform the king that, if this city be built, and the walls finished, by this means you shall have no portion beyond the River.
- Ezra 5:3 לְ/שַׁכְלָלָֽה prep + e inf.cs At the same time came to them Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, and Shetharbozenai, and their companions, and said thus to them, Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?
- Ezra 5:9 לְ/שַׁכְלָלָֽה prep + e inf.cs Then asked we those elders, and said to them thus, Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?
- Ezra 5:11 וְ/שַׁכְלְלֵֽ/הּ conj + e pf 3ms + sfx pers 3ms Thus they returned us answer, saying, We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are building the house that was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished.
- Ezra 6:14 וְ/שַׁכְלִ֗לוּ conj + e pf 3mp The elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the decree of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia.
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, כלל (kᵉlal) means “to finish.” Its uses cluster heavily in Ezra (100% of all occurrences). With 7 verses in 1 book, it is an uncommon word in the Hebrew Bible. Scripture first uses it in Ezra 4:12. Not a single-sense word: explore its full sense range. Dig into 7-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3635 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 →
- 7
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 7 distinct verses.
- 1 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 1 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #2,625
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 2,625 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 7 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Ezra 7 verses 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 7 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 7 verses · 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: Make up 2×, Set up 2×
- American Standard Version: Finished 4×, Finish 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Are restored 2×, Restore 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Are completed 2×, Complete 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3635 across 7 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3635 across 7 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3635 across 7 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3635 across 7 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
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 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.
Shaph
- . of building: he finished it
Ishtaph
- . be completed, of walls
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
Derived from כלל (kâlal) (H3634) — to perfect.
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.
כָּלַל
- v. כּוּל)
- 1. to surround, comprise, include. Gen. R. s. 4 חזר וכְלָלָן כולן וכ׳ (not וכללו כולו) he again included them all in the praise (Gen. I, 31). Shebu. 23ᵇ בכוֹלֵל המותרים וכ׳ when he (in his vow) includes permitted things as well as forbidden things. Ib. 24ᵃ, a. fr. איסור כולל, v. אִיסּוּר. R. Hash. IV, 5 וכולל מלכיות עמהן and inserts that section of prayers concerning the divine rulership, v. מַלְכוּת; a. fr.—Part. pass. כָּלוּל, f. כְּלוּלָה a) included. Y. Pes. V, 32ᶜ bot. ירידת גשמים כ׳ וכ׳ the praise for the rain-fall is included therein (Ps. CXXXV, 7); Y. Taan. III, 67ᵃ, end.—Y. Ber. I, 3ᶜ top עשרת הדברות כְּלוּלִין בהן the Ten Commandments are contained therein.—b) entire, v. כָּלִיל. e.g. Genesis 1:31
- 2. to generalize (v. כְּלָל). B. Kam. 63ᵃ חזר (הדר) וכ׳ the text generalizes again.—[Y. Ab. Zar. IV, 44ᵇ top טוחנין … כוללין, read: כּוֹבְרִין, v. כָּבַר.]
- to be implied, to be stated in general terms, opp. נפרט. Y. Sot. VII, 21ᵈ top דברים שנִכְלָלוּ ונפרטו things which have been stated both implicitly and specifically.
- 1. to crown. Tanḥ. R’eh 7 אם נוצחין … ומְכַלְּלִין אותו when they (the legions) are victorious, they come and make a wreath, and crown him (the king).
- 2. to include, imply. Part. pass. מְכוּלָּל, pl. מְכוּלָּלִים enclosed (as a germ), potential. Gen. R. s. 10 (ref. to ויכלו, Gen. II, 1) מ׳ היו המעשים things had been created potentially, and then they developed more and more.—[Y. Ber. VI, 10ᵃ top יכללו, read: יִבָּלֲלוּ, v. בָּלַל.] e.g. Genesis 2:1
- to crown, finish, perfect. Part. pass, מוּכְלָל. Yoma 54ᵇ (expl. מכלל, Ps. L, 2) מציון מ׳ יופיו וכ׳ from Zion the beauty of the world was perfected (by religion). [Cant. R. to V, 11, end מוכללת, read: מוּבְלֶלֶת, v. בָּלַל.] e.g. Psalms 50:2
כְּלַל
- 1. to surround, crown. Targ. Cant. III, 11.
- 2. (denom. of כּוֹלָּא) to make whole, combine. Y. Meg. IV, 75ᵇ bot. לינן חזרין וכָלְלִין לון do we not again combine them (the separated portions)?
- 1. to surround, crown. Targ. Ps. V, 13.
- 2. (v. כִּילָה, כִּילְתָא I) to prepare a bridal room. B. Mets. 101ᵇ כַּלְּלֵיה לבריח if the owner of the rented dwelling gave it to his son as a bridal room (Rashi: if he was making preparations for his son’s wedding, and needed the dwelling for the young couple). Gen. R. s. 70; Yalk. Gen. 125 כולי יומא הוו מְכַלְּלִין (ביה) ליה the whole day they were helping him to prepare the bridal chamber (decorating it).
- to crown, surround. Targ. Ps. LXV, 12. Ib. CIII, 4; a. e.—[Kidd. 81ᵇ מכלליה, read: מכלי להו, v. כְּלֵי I.]
- 1. to be crowned, to adorn one’s self. Gen. R. s. 34, beg. (expl. Ps. CXLII, 8) יִתְכַּלְּלוּן בי וכ׳ the righteous shall adorn themselves with me. e.g. Psalms 142:8
- 2. to be led into the bridal room, be married. Meg. 27ᵇ כי איכ׳ רבה וכ׳ when his son R. was to marry.
כְּלָל
- (preced. wds.)
- 1. general rule, principle. Sifra K’dosh., Par. 2, ch. IV (ref. to Lev. XIX, 18) זה כ׳ גדול וכ׳ this (‘love thy neighbor as thyself’) is the most important principle in the Law. Sabb. VII, 1. Ḥull. III, 1 זה הכ׳ this is the general rule; a. v. fr.—Trnsf. בִּכְלַל, לִכְלַל under the influence of. Sifré Num. 157 לפי שהיה בכ׳ כעס בא לכ׳ טעות because he was under the influence of anger, he came under the influence of mistaken judgment; Yalk. ib. 786; a. fr. e.g. Leviticus 19:18
- 2. community. Ber. 49ᵇ לעולם אל … מן הכ׳ a person must never exclude himself from the community (by saying, ‘Praise ye’, instead of ‘Let us praise’). Mekh. Bo., Pisḥa, s. 18 ולפי שהוציא … מן הכ׳ וכ׳ and as he excluded himself from the community (by saying ‘you’) &c.; a. e.
- 3. total, sum. B. Bath. 123ᵃ בכְלָלָן אתה וכ׳ as their sum total you find seventy (Gen. XLVI, 27), whereas the detailed record counts only sixty nine. e.g. Genesis 46:27
- 4. generalization, statement by implication, opp. פרט specification; inclusion, comprehension under a class. Ber. 26ᵇ, a. fr. עד ועד בכ׳, v. עַד.—Sifra introd. מכ׳ ופרט מפרט וּכְ׳ וכ׳ interpretation based upon a general law followed by specification, or specification followed by generalization. Ib. כל דבר שהיה בכ׳ וכ׳ when a law is once laid down in general, and in another place a specification is given (e.g. Lev. VII, 37, a. ib. 20), it is stated specifically not for its own sake alone, but as applicable to the whole class. Ib. beg. מכ׳ ופרט וּכְ׳ אי אתה דן וכ׳ if a general rule is followed by a specification and this again by a generalization, you must be guided by the specification (e.g. Deut. XIV, 26). Tosef. Sot. VIII, 10; Sot. 37ᵃ ברוך בכ׳ … ארור בכ׳ וכ׳ ‘blessed be’ was pronounced on Mount Gerizim in general (corresp. to the general curse, Deut. XXVII, 26) and was specified (corresp. to ib. 15—25); ‘cursed be’ was pronounced on Mount Ebal in general (ib. 26) &c.; a. fr.—מִכְּ׳ by implication. Ned. 11ᵃ, a. fr. מכ׳ לאו אתה שומע הן from no you understand yes, v. הֵן.—Pes. 16ᵇ שהותרה מִכְּלָלָהּ וכ׳ which was permitted (dispensed with), by implication, for a community (if unclean, derived fr. Num. IX, 2, v. Pes. 77ᵃ). Ḥull. 37ᵇ מכ׳ דטרפה וכ׳ this proves by implication that t’refah is not the same as &c.; a. v. fr.—לאו … כ׳ not at all (cmp. כְּלוּם). Ib. 20ᵇ; a. fr.—[Mekh. Bo, beg. כ׳ לדברות, read: כֶּלִי.]—Pl. כְּלָלוֹת (fem.). Naz. 48ᵇ. Sot. 37ᵇ. Erub. 27ᵃ אין למדין מן הכ׳ וכ׳ from general rules (the use of the word כל, as ib. III, 1) we must not derive anything, not even when an exception is stated (as there may be other exceptions); a. fr.—Ex. R. s. 32, beg. כְּלָלִים. e.g. Leviticus 7:37
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 H3635 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.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| יִֽשְׁתַּכְלְל֑וּן | Verb, Hithpael, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 4:13 | 2 |
| לְ/שַׁכְלָלָֽה | Verb, e, Infinitive Construct | Ezra 5:3 | 2 |
| אשכללו | Verb, Hishtaphel, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 4:12 | 1 |
| וְ/שַׁכְלְלֵֽ/הּ | Verb, e, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular | Ezra 5:11 | 1 |
| וְ/שַׁכְלִ֗לוּ | Verb, e, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 6:14 | 1 |
| שַׁכְלִ֔ילוּ | Verb, e, Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural | Ezra 4:12 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3635, 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
- כל kôl H3605 all
- כלה kallâh H3618 bride
- כליל kâlîyl H3632 whole
- מכלול miklôwl H4358 perfection
- מכלל miklâl H4359 perfection
- מכלל miklul H4360 perfect thing
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 7 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 7 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.
