כַּפְתּוֹר
capital
also: bulb, knob fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
See every Construct-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 11 times (61%)
- Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct 7 times (39%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (morphhb / Westminster Leningrad Codex — WLC text public domain, morphhb tagging CC BY 4.0), counted across 18 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where H3730 appears — 12 distinct verses across 3 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.
Exodus 10 verses
- Exodus 25:31 כַּפְתֹּרֶ֥י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs "You shall make a lampstand of pure gold. Of hammered work shall the lampstand be made, even its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers, shall be of one piece with it.
- Exodus 25:33 כַּפְתֹּ֣ר כַּפְתֹּ֣ר n c ms n c ms three cups made like almond blossoms in one branch, a bud and a flower; and three cups made like almond blossoms in the other branch, a bud and a flower, so for the six branches going out of the lampstand;
- Exodus 25:34 כַּפְתֹּרֶ֖י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs and in the lampstand four cups made like almond blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
- Exodus 25:35 וְ/כַפְתֹּ֡ר וְ/כַפְתֹּר֙ וְ/כַפְתֹּ֕ר conj + n c ms conj + n c ms conj + n c ms and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, for the six branches going out of the lampstand.
- Exodus 25:36 כַּפְתֹּרֵי/הֶ֥ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Their buds and their branches shall be of one piece with it, the whole of it one beaten work of pure gold.
- Exodus 37:17 כַּפְתֹּרֶ֥י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs He made the lampstand of pure gold. He made the lampstand of beaten work. Its base, its shaft, its cups, its buds, and its flowers were of one piece with it.
- Exodus 37:19 כַּפְתֹּ֣ר כַּפְתֹּ֣ר n c ms n c ms three cups made like almond-blossoms in one branch, a bud and a flower, and three cups made like almond-blossoms in the other branch, a bud and a flower: so for the six branches going out of the lampstand.
- Exodus 37:20 כַּפְתֹּרֶ֖י/הָ n c mp cs + sfx pers 3fs In the lampstand were four cups made like almond-blossoms, its buds and its flowers;
- Exodus 37:21 וְ/כַפְתֹּ֡ר וְ/כַפְתֹּר֙ וְ/כַפְתֹּ֕ר conj + n c ms conj + n c ms conj + n c ms and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, and a bud under two branches of one piece with it, for the six branches going out of it.
- Exodus 37:22 כַּפְתֹּרֵי/הֶ֥ם n c mp cs + sfx pers 3mp Their buds and their branches were of one piece with it. The whole thing was one beaten work of pure gold.
Amos 1 verse
Zephaniah 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.
“capital” is the headline sense of the Hebrew noun כפתר (kaphtôr). It clusters heavily in Exodus, which alone accounts for 83% of its uses. It turns up in 12 verses across 3 books, an uncommon footprint. Beyond “capital” it also covers “bulb” and “knob” — see its full sense range. Older and newer Bibles part ways — “knops” in the King James Version, “bud” (Berean Standard Bible) and “bulb” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3730 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 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 12 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 12 distinct verses.
- Torah (Pentateuch) 10 verses · 83%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 17%
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).
BDB lists this Strong’s number as 2 distinct words (homographs). Each count above pools all of them and is not split by sense — see the Senses section below. A low-frequency rendering may belong to a different one of those words, not the primary meaning.
- King James Version†: Knops 6×, Knop 5×, Same and a knop 4×
- American Standard Version†: Knop 6×, Knops 6×, One piece with it 4×
- Berean Standard Bible†: Bud 6×, Buds 6×, Each with buds 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text†: Bulb 10×, Bulbs 4×, Buds 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3730 across 18† 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 H3730 across 18† tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H3730 across 16† 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. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3730 across 18† 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.
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.
כפתר I 1. capital, 2. knob, bulb (2. perhaps earlier meaning
- 1. כַּפְתּוֹר Am 9:1 capital of pillar; so pl. sf. כַּפְתֹּרֶיהָ Zp 2:14. e.g. Amos 9:1
- 2. כַּפְתֹּר, knob or bulb, ornament on the golden lamp-stand in tabernacle; 𝔊 σφαιρωτήρ, Jos Archaeology iii. 6, 7 ῥοΐσκος, small pomegranate; 𝔙 sphaerula:—Ex 25:33(×2), 35(×3) = 37:19(×2), 21(×3); sf. כַּפְתֹּרֶיהָ 25:31, 34 = 37:17, 20, כַּפְתֹּרֵיהֶם 25:36 = 37:22 (all P). e.g. Exodus 25:33
כפתר II ob. Crete, so Ew Kiep Di Gn 10
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
I. n.m. 1. capital, 2. knob, bulb (2. perhaps earlier meaning; HoffmZAW iii. (1883), 124, comp. Syriac ܟܡܬܪܐ pear (LöwNo. 153), from shape);—
II. n.pr.terr prob. Crete, so Ew Kiep Di Gn 10:14 Gie Je 47:4 al.; cf. A. J. Evans Cretan Pictographs (1895), 100 ff.; (> 𝔊 𝔖 𝔙 𝔗 Cappadocia, certainly wrong; Mich Cyprus; EbÄgM 127 ff. al. the coast of the Nile-Delta; WMMAs. Eu. 387 f. Philistines, originally pirates from SW. coast of Asia Minor, and the Ægean islands);—כַּפְתּוֹר Am 9:7 (orig. home of Philistines), כַּפְתֹּר Dt 2:23 (home of Caphtorim, v. infr.); שְׁאֵרִית אִי כַּפְתֹּר Je 47:4 the rest of the coast-land of Caphtor.—Vid. also כְּרֵתִי infr.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Origin: probably from an unused root meaning to encircle
Forms in the corpus
The 9 distinct written forms H3730 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| כַּפְתֹּ֣ר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:33 | 4 |
| וְ/כַפְתֹּ֕ר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:35 | 2 |
| וְ/כַפְתֹּ֡ר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:35 | 2 |
| וְ/כַפְתֹּר֙ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Exodus 25:35 | 2 |
| כַּפְתֹּרֵי/הֶ֥ם | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Exodus 25:36 | 2 |
| כַּפְתֹּרֶ֖י/הָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Exodus 25:34 | 2 |
| כַּפְתֹּרֶ֥י/הָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Exodus 25:31 | 2 |
| בְּ/כַפְתֹּרֶ֖י/הָ | Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct | Zephaniah 2:14 | 1 |
| הַ/כַּפְתּ֜וֹר | Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute | Amos 9:1 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H3730, 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.
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 11 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 12 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.
