לָא
nothing
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Particle
- A short function word — article, negation, interrogative, the sign of the direct object, and the like.
Every verse where H3809 appears in the Book of Ezra — 12 distinct verses. 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
- Ezra 4:13 לָ֣א ptcl neg 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 4:14 לָ֥א ptcl neg Now because we eat the salt of the palace, and it is not appropriate for us to see the king's dishonor, therefore have we sent and informed the king;
- Ezra 4:16 לָ֥א ptcl neg 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 4:21 לָ֣א ptcl neg Make you now a decree to cause these men to cease, and that this city not be built, until a decree shall be made by me.
- Ezra 5:5 וְ/לָא conj + ptcl neg But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not make them cease, until the matter should come to Darius, and then answer should be returned by letter concerning it.
- Ezra 5:16 וְ/לָ֥א conj + ptcl neg Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now has it been in building, and yet it is not completed.
- Ezra 6:8 לָ֥א ptcl neg Moreover I make a decree what you shall do to these elders of the Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king's goods, even of the tribute beyond the River, expenses be given with all diligence to these men, that they be not hindered.
- Ezra 6:9 לָ֥א ptcl neg That which they have need of, both young bulls, and rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings to the God of heaven; [also] wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according to the word of the priests who are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail;
- Ezra 7:22 לָ֥א ptcl neg to one hundred talents of silver, and to one hundred measures of wheat, and to one hundred baths of wine, and to one hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much.
- Ezra 7:24 לָ֥א ptcl neg Also we inform you, that touching any of the priests and Levites, the singers, porters, Nethinim, or servants of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll, on them.
- Ezra 7:25 לָ֦א ptcl neg You, Ezra, after the wisdom of your God who is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges, who may judge all the people who are beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God; and teach you him who doesn't know them.
- Ezra 7:26 לָא֩ ptcl neg Whoever will not do the law of your God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed on him with all diligence, whether it be to death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
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, לא (lâʼ) means “nothing.” The word gravitates to Daniel (78%), then Ezra and Jeremiah. It turns up in 60 verses across 3 books, a moderately common footprint. It first appears in Ezra 4:13. Translators differ — “not” in the King James Version, then “no” (Berean Standard Bible), as the renderings breakdown shows. Dig into 60-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H3809 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 →
- 60
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 60 distinct verses.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #487
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 487 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 60 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 60 distinct verses.
- Writings (Ketuvim) 59 verses · 98%
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 1 verse · 2%
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: Not 17×, Nor 9×, No 7×
- American Standard Version: Not 17×, No 10×, Nor 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: No 12×, Not 10×, Cannot 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Not 55×, No 19×, But 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H3809 across 79 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 19 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 3 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H3809 across 78 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 H3809 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 27 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 10 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H3809 across 92 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 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.
- no, not, nothing
Word origin
Derived from כתם (kethem) (H3800) — gold.
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.
לֹא
- v. לַאי) not, no. Ber. I, 1 לא קרינו וכ׳ we have omitted to recite &c. Ib. III, 4 לא … ולא וכ׳ neither before nor after. Nidd. 5ᵃ לא אין להן וכ׳, no; it means &c., v. לַאו; a. v. fr.—וְלֹא indeed not? Ḥull. 4ᵇ ולא והכתיב וכ׳ indeed not (is it so that the verb הֵסִית never refers to persuasion by speech)? Do we not read &c.?; a. v. fr.—(מִצְוַת) לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה a prohibitory law, opp. עֲשֵׂה, a positive command; v. לַאו. Kidd. I, 7. Macc. 14ᵇ bot.; a. v. fr.—בְּלֹא without. Ber. 35ᵃ bot. ב׳ ברכה without pronouncing a benediction; a. v. fr.—והוא שלא, v. הוּא.
לָא I
- Targ. Gen. II, 5; a. v. fr.—Pes. 10ᵇ מקמיה … אין בתר … לא before the time when it is forbidden, yes (he must search after leavened bread); after the time, no (he must not search). Ib. לא שנא there is no difference; a. v. fr.
לָא II
- (preced. wds.) particle, mote. Yoma 20ᵇ, v. חִרְגָּא. Midr. Till. to Ps. LXVIII, 3 כלא חשיבי they are like a mote.
לָא III
- La, abbrev. of אִילָא, הִילָא; v. Fr. M’bo, p. 75ᵇ.
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 19 distinct written forms H3809 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| לָ֥א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:11 | 22 |
| לָ֣א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:10 | 15 |
| לָא | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:35 | 11 |
| לָֽא | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:10 | 7 |
| וְ/לָֽא | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:43 | 5 |
| לָ֤א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:5 | 5 |
| לָ֧א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:27 | 3 |
| וְ/לָ֥א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 5:23 | 2 |
| וְ/לָא | Particle, Negative | Daniel 5:23 | 2 |
| הֲ/לָ֥א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 4:30 | 1 |
| הֲ/לָ֧א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 6:12 | 1 |
| הֲ/לָא֩ | Particle, Negative | Daniel 3:24 | 1 |
| וְ/לָ֣א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 6:22 | 1 |
| וְ/לָ֤א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 4:35 | 1 |
| כְּ/לָ֣ה | Particle, Negative | Daniel 4:35 | 1 |
| לָ֔א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 3:18 | 1 |
| לָ֦א | Particle, Negative | Ezra 7:25 | 1 |
| לָ֨א | Particle, Negative | Daniel 2:9 | 1 |
| לָא֩ | Particle, Negative | Ezra 7:26 | 1 |
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 56 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 60 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.
